Do You Remember When 1 + 1 Equaled 2?

Remember the good ‘ole days when life was simple? People didn’t live inside their cell phones.

Children went outside to play instead of moms having to arrange “play dates”.

Birthday parties were held in our homes, and we played games like musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey, and duck, duck, goose.

This was no longer the case when my now adult children were growing up.

Birthday parties were (and I assume still are) held at venues – the bigger the venue, the better for most (not me!).

I was amazed at some of the Sweet 16 parties my children were invited to, which were more like weddings than parties. Again, not my children. 🙂

Yes, we did have some “venue” parties, but they were on what was considered at the time – on the low end of the scale, and we also had home parties, which was pretty much unheard of in those days.

Then along came technology to make everyone’s life easier, right?

Well, it has made the lives of many tiny business owners more difficult. Keeping up with technology is a full-time job in itself!

Now, Let’s Talk About the Internet, YouTube and Copyright Issues

Copyright is a very confusing arena regarding most of the assets we use in our Internet marketing.

Take music, for example. I subscribe to Audio Blocks, a subscription-based website for audio content.

Update: AudioBlocks is now part of a Storyblocks subscription.

I love the variety and volume of audio content available, and the price is extremely reasonable, at $99 per year.

They give you access to your license agreements, proving you can use the audio files.

That said, there are still issues. Below is an email from Audio Blocks about copyright notices I received from YouTube and Vimeo.

“Hi Julie, I would be happy to help you out! Our content is 100% royalty-free, and you have full rights to use it. Occasionally, as not all of our content is exclusive to our library, we will see a third party ask for validation of rights to use the media, as they may also have rights to certain tracks.

Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee this will not happen if you use audio content from any site. If you receive a claim on our content, you can always send it to us, and we will work on clearing that claim.

Thank you for contacting AudioBlocks. Have a great day, and please let me know if you have any questions!”

So, even paying for the rights doesn’t guarantee that you won’t get snagged.

How To Get Help with YouTube and Vimeo

But here is the good part. Vimeo is much easier to reach than YouTube, and I removed the copyright immediately upon sending them a link to my license agreement.

YouTube required Audio Blocks to release the claims. This was a painless process.

I sent Audio Blocks the YouTube video URLs, and the claims were released within one day. Thank you, Audio Blocks.

Back to YouTube…

I have been creating videos for clients and myself for over seven years.

Additionally, I use video (animations) to demonstrate how video can deliver any message, including training, marketing, events, products, and more.

I am cautious ONLY to use video assets that I have the right to use!

Last week, I received an email from YouTube that said:

“Hi Julie Weishaar, The YouTube community flagged one or more of your videos as inappropriate. After reviewing the content, we’ve determined that the videos violate our Community Guidelines.

As a result, we removed the following videos from YouTube: “How to Create Awesome YouTube Graphics Easily” (https://youtu.be/JAfd68uEOGc).

We are constantly working to keep YouTube free of spam. Posting large amounts of untargeted, unwanted, or repetitive videos is not okay.

In addition, if the primary purpose of your content is to drive people off of YouTube and onto another site, it will likely violate our spam policies.

Learn more here. Your account has received one Community Guidelines strike, which will expire in six months. Additional violations could prevent you from posting content to YouTube or even lead to your account getting terminated.

For more information about Community Guidelines strikes, please visit our Help Center. Please note that deleting this video will not resolve the strike on your account.

For more information about how to appeal a strike, please visit this page in the Help Center. – The YouTube Team”

I read the description of “Spam, deceptive practices, and scams” carefully and did not see that my video was untargeted, unwanted, or repetitive.

There was also no Artificial traffic spam, Misleading metadata, Misleading or racy thumbnails, or scams.

Additionally, I did a lot of research and found out that some people had their videos removed or accounts disabled because they stuffed their descriptions with keywords. I don’t do that.

I appealed the strike and received the following message from YouTube:

“Dear Julie Weishaar: Thank you for submitting your video appeal to YouTube. After further review, we’ve determined that your video doesn’t violate our Community Guidelines.

Your video has been reinstated, and your account is in good standing. Sincerely, — The YouTube Team”

Phew! That was scary. So I was able to relax for about five minutes, and WHAM! THREE MORE strikes came in.

I appealed the second one and received the following message from YouTube:

“Dear Julie Weishaar:Thank you for submitting your video appeal to YouTube. After further review of the content, we’ve determined that your video does violate our Community Guidelines and have upheld our original decision. We appreciate your understanding. Sincerely, — The YouTube Team”

Huh? Why? What guidelines was I breaking? I wanted to know because the last thing I would like to do is break guidelines! I researched more and saw that I am not alone in this space.

I also spoke to several people “in the know,” and they guessed that perhaps YouTube doesn’t like videos that sell something. That doesn’t make sense because so many do.

One person suggested that YouTube didn’t like videos about sales and marketing.

Hmmm, perhaps, but who knows, as there are no community guideline restrictions stating this.

But that’s not all. Once YouTube rejects your appeal, you cannot make another appeal for other videos (I think there is a time limit on this), and there is NO way AT ALL to appeal a rejection.

If there is, it is hiding, and I have not found it. Please let me know if you know how to do it.

Keep in mind that I have always emphasized branding in my marketing.

Everything I do, from SlideShare presentations to videos to websites to blog posts, has my branding.

And guess what is part of my branding? Yup, that’s right—my YouTube channel name.

When you receive a rejected appeal, you cannot delete your video, so when someone clicks on your link, which might be in many different places on the web, this is what they see!

Isn’t that just lovely? As an Internet and Video Marketer, I now look like a scam artist, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it! I feel like Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter wearing a huge “A” on my shirt!

The Piece De Resistance

I have another YouTube channel I must have started using a while ago, but I forgot about it. It only has a few videos on it, but guess what?

One of them was flagged on my main account. Interestingly enough, I received a notification from YouTube that this same video on the other channel was flagged as spam.

I figured, what the heck, let me appeal it on this channel. Are you ready for this? The appeal was ACCEPTED, and that channel is back in good standing.

The same video is on two different channels. One was rejected, and the other was reversed. UNCLE!

By the way, YouTube? Don’t thank me for my understanding because I DON’T understand!