Youtube was caught under the fire when fellow Youtuber named “Lily Havesh” found out that Youtube has taken her video and tweeted it as their own on their Twitter page during Christmas without crediting her or mentioning her Youtube channel on their tweet.
It was reported that Youtube had even edited the video, cutting out the intro, which was originally in the video where Lily Havesh would usually introduce and welcome viewers when they watch her video. Lily’s original video which was uploaded on 23 December 2018 has over 60,000 views but Youtube’s lifted version boasts more than 250,000 views.
That moment when everything falls into place. Merry Christmas! pic.twitter.com/g43Ph7RMUd
— YouTube (@YouTube) December 25, 2018
Lily Harvesh is a professional domino artist that uses Youtube as a specialized form of advertising her work. By stealing Lily’s content and posting it on twitter as their own, Youtube’s tweet reaches out to 71 million subscribers, prevents Lily from getting recognition and potential customers or jobs. YouTube creators like Lily rely solely on views and subscribers to obtain advertising deals and secure sponsorship deals, so when YouTube didn’t direct viewers to Lily Havesh on YouTube, the company cost her money directly. Which could be the reason why Lily’s disappointment has caught the attention of both creators and community at large.
On a tweet posted by Lily on Christmas, she said “Very glad to see that my Christmas domino e-card is getting good use, however, I’m a bit disappointed that YouTube would take my video and re-upload it with absolutely no credit.”
Ironically reuploading video while stripping credit is a practice that Youtube explicitly condemns. According to Youtube’s community guidelines and policy page specifically states that creators should only “upload videos that you made or that you’re authorized to use”. But at the same time, Youtube does own a limited license to people’s videos, so which means legally, the company has the right to take Lily’s content and upload it to its Twitter account.
Our mistake–we forgot to credit @Hevesh5 for this video! Check out more of @Hevesh5‘s epic domino art here: https://t.co/O7it1xtd5l https://t.co/lzZwu3a692
— YouTube (@YouTube) December 26, 2018
“I just don’t get it, YouTube created Content ID to protect creators from thieves freebooting their videos, yet here they are re-uploading people’s work for promotional purposes without any credit,” Lily added.
After all that fuss, Youtube finally took to Twitter and acknowledge its mistake in a follow up tweet on 26 December 2018, and has done what was right which was plugging Lily’s Youtube channel to give her the recognition that she deserve.