Finally some people are banding together to do something about the flagrant abuses that youtube has inflicted on its users.

It should have happened sooner especially in Europe were there is meant to be more protection in theory against corporations. https://youtubersunion.org/

The video explaining it is better than the summary on that page.

Do you think having a union is the right way to go or will it end up being corrupted as time moves on and a new leader is put in place?

Other areas of the site are active and there was a more recent video on Jörg Spraves channel called " Attention YouTube: The Clock is ticking! " a few days ago.

Content ID is the biggest pain in the infernal ass for any uploader. I often feel that there should be some leeway for folks who wish to upload content for free (with attribution credits given to parts not originally made). More lax restrictions. Something like that.

Personally, I think that video makers should create a non-profit company dedicated to preemptively "claiming" their videos on release, and then passing 95% of the ad money to the makers. The remaining 5% is used to lawyer up against Youtube and companies that challenge the practice.

As I understand it, you can't claim a video that has already been claimed, meaning that Nintendo, trolls, and their friends can't take down content. A dirty tactic to be sure, but Youtube continues to perpetuate an essentially "dog-eat-dog" environment. Until things change for the better, such proactive measures need to be taken.

I think video makers should move off of youtube and let it die.

Having competition is the way to go. Things really went to shit after Blip died.

I think it's both. Obviously to oppose trans-national corporations you have to amass people and orgainze them into a force to have a leverage. But probability of such organization being corrupted is always very high. The only hope is that the union will make a difference before corruption happens.

Timcast made a good video about this...basically he said it's a good/bad idea, as it gives them leverage/a voice yet encourages youtube to scrap some/all of it's partner program so they don't have to listen to anyone's demands.

Also timcast made a good point that unions might try forcing any new youtuber with influence/popularity to join to get protection/etc.Major creators constantly getting videos taken down for using snippets/clips of content for legal/legit purposes is a problem...and it's usually easier for them to report such than for youtubers to get content put back or rebuke a claim made by a content creator.

Also other youtubers with rivalries will often copyright/etc strike videos with little penalty for doing so falsely, and youtube removes content that isn't rule breaking that they dislike all the time.And do what? Go to a new site that will eventually become corporatized and succumb to greed/heavy handed rules like before?

At some point people need to draw a line in the sand, imo.They have some and major media/corps keep calling those alternates racist/criminals supporters/etc to get them to lose payment processor/ad support and revenue.

If they were willing to use multiple service providers and jump ship when it looks bad, that'd enrich competition, which puts a limit on how much greed each provider can get away with before the resulting backlash hurts them too much. If everyone just keeps using youtube, youtube is going to remain too big to give a shit. They can do whatever they want and people can only cry and whine and hope for government intervention -- that's not a recipe for a healthy market.

Also, they definitely should look into P2P, self-hosting, and other means to decenteralize. Corporate greed can't get in the way if you remove the corps from the equation.

Seriously, I see this same thing play out over and over again. Everyone places their bets in one (soon-to-be, if not already) behemoth of a service and then there's outcry when the inevitable happens... it's ridiculous. Imagine if 97% of the cars on Earth were made by Ford? That's the kind of thing that keeps happening on the net. And doing my part to avoid that kind of thing is the reason I've never had a Steam account.

I agree they should diversify, but that they should also fight for their rights/etc as well.

The sooner it's brought (and others) into line the better. I won't hold my breath.