Techdirt has chimed in on the recent issues with YouTube’s content ID sweeps, pointing out that the company has failed to communicate the details of recent changes, ironic for a social media company. It has turned out so bad that Mark Bussler, one of their very 1st YouTube partners with one of the largest gaming related YouTube channels in Classic Game Room, has immediately decided to jump ship from YouTube to the official CGR site.
Techdirt essentially corroborates much of what we’ve written about this issue before, such as the illegitimate flagdowns, and the Fullscreen lawsuit brought by the NMPA that led to Google reviewing their policies in the 1st place. They were also able to corroborate that the recent ContentID sweep purposely went through the back catalogs of all YouTube accounts, which is why older markdowns came back.
They clarify, ultimately, that Google didn’t suddenly go SOPA on their video sharing service, but their communication of the situation led to much of the misunderstanding and uproar. Google apparently told the MCNs themselves via private messages, but many of the individual channel holders themselves were unaware of what was going on. They also point out that Google’s latest statement does nothing to address the worst fears of these channel holders, and this has led to the issue exploding across gaming YouTubers.
Classic Game Room was quite blunt about how they were handling the situation. Without making any remarks about their content ID matches or frustrations he had with it, Mark’s latest YouTube video was basically an announcement that he was moving his latest review for PC-Engine shooter Soldier Blade, as well as future content, over to the official Classic Game Room website. The Soldier Blade review is currently hosted by DailyMotion, which is not quite as able a competitor as YouTube, but has banner ads and is serviceable enough.
So many things have been said about this issue, but Google has yet to stand up and clear up all the misunderstanding, and until they do, gaming vloggers will continue to be in an uproar. You can watch Mark’s announcement video below.
