YouTube

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YouTube is a video hosting silo that has known issues.

Contents 1 How to 1.1 How to export your data 2 Features 2.1 Permalink UI 2.2 Atom feeds 3 Brainstorming 3.1 How to delete your account 3.2 How to POSSE 4 Issues 4.1 Content Deletion 4.2 Content Reappropriation 4.3 Content ID 4.3.1 Copyright Claim 4.3.1.1 Copyright claim on unmatched audio 4.3.1.2 Copyright claim on video 4.3.1.3 Copyright claim on licensed work 4.4 Link Wrapping 4.5 Unequal treatment of indie artists 4.6 Lack of 3rd party copyright claim challenge 4.7 Requires Javascript 5 See Also

How to

How to export your data

Youtube has the following content from users:

• history of videos watched
• likes of videos
• comments on videos

Has anyone successfully exported any/all of these? In what format? Any luck importing to your own site (PESOS)? Or start POSSEing instead?

Export:

• There was a watch history in the API, but this was removed September 15, 2016. A partial history can still be downloaded through Google Takeout.

Feeds:

• Does YouTube have feeds for users to download their content?

Features

Permalink UI

Here's an example screenshot of YouTube's UI as of 2013-286 with apparent features

Live permalink: http://youtu.be/0NUbLJ-Q3Ck

With:

• video as primary content - just below "YouTube" banner with search box (scrolled off the top)
• name of video below the primary content, ellipsed at width of video content.
• author with photo, name, number of videos posted, subscribe webaction and subscriber count, clustered and left-aligned under the video name
• counts related to the video, right-aligned with right edge of video, including:
  • views count
  • thumb up down counts
• thumb up "Like" thumb down props/unprops webaction buttons
• tabbed navigation among
  • About Share Add to Transcript (menu? icon) Statistics (bar chart icon) Report (flag icon)
• Share section appears to be the default which itself has subsections for:
  • Share this video Embed Email
  • webactions icons for posting a link to video on:
    • Twitter G+ Blogger Reddit Tumblr Pinterest StumbleUpon A-Russian-silo LinkedIn
  • text input field with youtu.be shortlink in a larger font
  • checkbox to start at currently paused time-offset, to the right of text input
• Comments section with count in parentheses next to heading "(0)"
  • Sign in link prompt "to post a comment!"

Atom feeds

Unlike many silos, YouTube makes atom feeds available for all channels. It even enables a user to export their on-YouTube subscriptions as an OPML file that can be used by all mayor feed readers. This export option can be found in the subscription manager.

Feed discoverability has been a problem, but URLs are easily mapped to their feed equivalents by hand:

• https://www.youtube.com/channel/ID → https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=ID
• https://www.youtube.com/user/ID → https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=ID
• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=ID → https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=ID

Brainstorming

How to delete your account

TBD.

Has anyone deleted their YouTube account? What's the process? How long do they hold your data anyway? Etc.

See also: delete your account

How to POSSE

TBD.

Is anyone POSSEing to YouTube?

Issues

Content Deletion

YouTube has been known for deleting content that has been posted there:

• http://www.rebelliouspixels.com/2013/buffy-vs-edward-remix-unfairly-removed-by-lionsgate

Content Reappropriation

YouTube has also re-appropriated content without permission, transferring ownership to big media companies claiming copyright:

• http://waxy.org/2012/03/youtube_bypasses_the_dmca/

Content ID

YouTube's Content ID system automatically scans all uploads against a database of content submitted by "content owners".

This system has been subject to many kinds of abuse.

Copyright Claim

Copyright claim on unmatched audio

• on 2015-08-07 Aaron Parecki livestreamed an event which was recorded to Youtube
• on 2015-08-10 Aaron noticed that Youtube placed ads on the video because of a copyright claim.[1] The part of the video in question was from timecode 0:05 to 1:56, the very beginning of the livestream, where the video is mostly dead air.
• the same day, Aaron filed a dispute on the claim
• on 2015-09-02 Aaron checked back on Youtube (since no notifications were being sent about any of this) and noticed that the copyright page now showed a link "Appeal rejected dispute". He submitted an appeal to the rejected dispute. [2] [3]

Copyright claim on video

• on 2016-01-03 Aaron Parecki posted a video on Youtube that was original music with a mashup of The Office trailer and scenes from
• within minutes, Youtube sent a notice that the video was no longer available for viewing due to a copyright claim on the contents of the images
• the same day, Aaron filed a dispute on the claim based on "fair use"
• within a few hours, NBC Universal responded to the claim

Copyright claim on licensed work

• http://petapixel.com/2015/10/25/sony-filed-a-copyright-claim-against-the-stock-video-i-licensed-to-them/
• http://boingboing.net/2015/10/26/sony-licensed-stock-footage-t.html

Link Wrapping

YouTube links outbound links from posted content in www.youtube.com/redirect?q= URLs.

Unequal treatment of indie artists

• 2014-06-19 YouTube won't block music videos from Indie labels, but it won't pay them either

  [...] Labels who haven't signed up to the website's new terms, the majority of which are independents like XL Recordings, will have their artist channels blocked in the next few days. ... labels who won't sign up to the paid tier are also kicked out of YouTube's ad-supported monetization scheme. So while we may still be able to find Lotus Flower on a Radiohead fan's channel, the band itself won't get a single penny.

  [...] YouTube isn't even playing fair, offering "highly unfavorable and non-negotiable terms" which undercut the fees paid to Spotify, Rdio and Deezer, as well as being less generous than the money paid to the major labels like Warner, Sony and Universal. [...]

  Emphasis added.
• 2015-01-22 http://zoekeating.tumblr.com/post/108898194009/what-should-i-do-about-youtube

Lack of 3rd party copyright claim challenge

If you embed a YouTube video in one of your posts, and at some point in the future the video is taken down with just static in its place and "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by ...", then there is no way for you as a 3rd party to evaluate and challenge the copyright claim.

Real world IndieWeb example(s):

• 2015-08-20 https://jeena.net/notes/423
  • 2015-09-02 (13 days later) author noted that video was deleted

Requires Javascript

Videos do not play if javascript is disabled. No message or alternate player is shown on youtube.com. Embedded videos display a message "Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser."

Example from http://tantek.com/2015/266/t2/we-jammin-hope-jam-gonna-last:

See Also

• silos
• photos
• videos
• why
• you need 100 subscribers in order to get a youtube username now