Why YouTube’s AI failed in determining to demonetize the Climate State YT Channel

Above is the explanation from YouTube for demonetizing our channel, suggesting that we reuse content on our channel without permissions. However, we reuse frequently public domain content, or content where we were specifically asked to reuse (re-upload) it. Because we cover the YouTube niche climate science subject, the amount of footage and content is naturally limited.

We also have problems to identify exactly what content is assumed to be in violation, since we have over 900 videos created within the past 8 years. And the fraction of the content we share unedited is only small. Since 2016 we begun to focus on copyright issues with more care, asking content owners for permissions, and created content entirely in compliance with existing copyright laws. Content where we pay for narration, content where we obtained the music, effects, video, or footage rights.

It remains a mystery how YouTube can judge reused content compliances in regards to rights, based on their artificial intelligence algorithms, since they presumably do not have access to our twitter, facebook, and email communications with copyright owners.

Please sign this petition, asking YouTube to enable monetization for our channel again, thank you!

At the mercy of an AI algorithm, the constant fear to be dumped by YouTube

Facts

• Many channels re-upload content from Climate State
• We often get asked specifically by YouTube channel owners, to share their content on our channel
• We often share public domain content, often edited, sometimes only slightly, and sometimes unedited. This is due to the fact that sources such as NASA are a key source when it comes to communicating climate science
• It is completely unclear what kind of content sharing, usage, quota, length, is considered to be problematic
• We regularly receive false positive copyright claims, due to many people using the same public domain material in their videos
• Main stream content creators (CNN, NBCNews, ABC, MSNBC etc) also regularly reuse content in their coverage, and comment on it, as we do.
• YouTube is dominated by entertainment content, their AI may thus not account for different circumstances when judging educational, science grounded content

When it comes to climate science communications, repeating content messages has been identified to be important, because of the repeated attempts by special interests to cast doubt on the sciences. Hence why we reuse the same video content in different videos, and because footage is often rare, there are just so many scientists who give interviews or cover a specific topic at all.

Please sign this petition, asking YouTube to enable monetization for our channel again, thank you!

Related

The ‘demonetized’: YouTube’s brand-safety crackdown has collateral damage (2017)

Susan Wojcicki also announced a pilot program to patch over YouTube’s spotty monetization algorithms (2018)