Suing YouTube’s Science Scammers

[@kylehill]

*UPDATE: At the time of this comment Future Unity -- the channel that stole all my dog video -- HAS MADE ALL THE VIDEOS ON THEIR CHANNEL PRIVATE, TRYING TO WEATHER THE STORM.* Thanks for watching, and thanks to Brandon at Viral DRM: viraldrm.com/ and the BBC: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZvNn2yKlMuoi9k

[@interstellarsurfer]

Don't even know when you're getting trolled.

[@toastedbutter9760]

great video kyle could you put the bbc link in desc?

[@kylehill]

by a single email or by the channels stealing my footage? @@interstellarsurfer

[@RoyalTSC2]

You missed censoring a slur on the message at 2:57 beginning with K

[@NickIggler1969]

​@@RoyalTSC2what?

[@d3.production]

Hiding dislikes was the biggest mistake KZbin made.

[@blooddumpster3427]

you can re-enable them with an add-on

[@OllieWales]

They did it because one of their rewinds got a crazy amount of dislikes and I think some companies like EA and Activision were upset that everyone could see how much people hated their games

[@redhothchilipeppers6299]

@@OllieWalesIt was also due to Biden getting downvoted to oblivion on KZbin and the White House couldn’t have that of course 🙄

[@ohio2584]

that is NOT the reason my man​@@redhothchilipeppers6299

[@handsomedevil7072]

They have chosen short term profit over longevity.

[@theCodyReeder]

The video of floating an anvil in mercury that I made has got reuploaded countless times mostly cut short and with text saying how it supposedly disproves gravity. One on Facebook had over 60 million views and I think all together the views on those videos exceed the total number of views on my KZbin channel. I send copyright strikes when I find them but it's like playing wackomol.

[@devinward461]

That must be infuriating

[@witchy90210]

Its really stupid, and i find kind of weird, that when people file false claims and strikes they often win or cause the insane amount of trouble, but when someone files a legitamate claim for legitamate reasons, then its slow and unproductive.

[@nefariousyawn]

Moving on, spray paint a stencil of your name on everything you own like Diresta does.

[@SonsOfLorgar]

And if the platforms really wanted to fix the issue, they could easily do so by auto-registering and auto validating every video as part of the upload process. If their algorithm can track and auto block harsh language in the comments, they can make it track and auto flag plagiarism too.

[@gavinjenkins899]

Don't worry, I attribute my knowledge that gravity is a lie to YOU, not THEM! You get full credit in my newly awakened mind ;)

[@kylehill]

I am aware of the weird blur box for the first minute of the video - I had to emergency blur something in that horrible email and KZbin added another one. Thankfully it didn't cover my hair. Thanks.

[@DarthDungus]

KZbin may not be able to stop scammers and bots, but good to see that they know better than to try messing with the hair!

[@badgercode]

We all know you're actually trying to hide the secret sauce formula, which you accidentally left in the corner of the video.

[@no-lifenoah7861]

The hair is safe, that's the most important part.

[@Dueada]

It would be a shame to blur those luscious locks

[@StealthTheFoxz]

​@@badgercode Have you glanced the formula yet?

[@beaudure01]

It's astounding to me that the music industry is so efficient at shutting down legitimate music analysis videos with small excerpts and yet people can simply rip off entire videos in other genres.

[@617au]

videos are much much complex to analyse than a sound. just a size-wise - compare size in Mb of a 3 minutes video file with 3 minutes sounds file. this is not a magic, after all, it all algorithms: first of all it costs them money to run such detection, so they won't bother unless forced to.

[@kikixchannel]

@@617au Actually, a piece of software to analyze the image to see that it's nearly the same is hardly different from a piece of software that does the same with sound. The file size here doesn't really matter at all. These programs also exist already. And in fact...they are already used. That's how big blockbuster movies are being protected. The differences are two. Analyzing video may take a fair bit more computing power (there are 'tricks' that can minimize this increase) being one. The fact that KZbin just doesn't care is two. You see, for the software to find infringing content, it needs to know what content is being infringed on. For music, it's the music industry reaching out to KZbin and providing them with the content to compare videos soundtracks with. Those are then added to the database and the AI looks for them. Movie companies sometimes also do it for their videos. But KZbin does NOT do it for the videos uploaded onto it. That means that you content creators don't have their own videos added to the list of content that is to be protected. It's as simple as that. It's probably unfeasible technically to scan all of it with how many videos are released daily in the first place, but it could be done on a smaller scale, with parts of the videos of the more popular KZbinr's at least and random bits and piece from anyone with at least a few thousandths of viewers.

[@MatEnAlks]

It's because music industry is ruled by such insanely powerful and greedy Molochs that most people would just give up to them. Not really comparable to individual people getting their work stolen. Also Molochs abuse how easy it is to detect a song in a video while ignoring the context of how it is used. Money is power and they have a lot of money. Also KZbin despite trying to milk as much money as possible from videos and subscribtions, they don't seem to hire any real human beings, and it feels like everything is operated by bots. If they cared in the slightest, we would never have an epidemic of cancer-inducing spam channels and videos that Salvadore Dali would consider masterpieces of surrealist art

[@Keepskatin]

AI will be used for bad more than good, unfortunately

[@superpossum78]

Money

[@cyhx]

Its getting harder to parse science videos with text-to-speech and plagiarism flooding the results. Glad you did something serious about it.

[@arisusanchez]

or "ai" generated voices

[@Kepora1]

And it harms genuine creators who make videos using the text-to-speech as their gimmick/an artistic choice, too.

[@Unethical.FandubsGames]

Agreed

[@K9V1]

This is gonna destroy KZbin in the long run, I think. I am so sick of those lazy AI channels that I am sure are completely operated by AI, or at least with very little help from real people.

[@amanawolf9166]

Anymore, I find that to be a major turnoff. The moment I hear an AI generated voice, I'm 90% likely to X out/close out the video.

[@Ancientfamily305]

My dad is super affected by those channels. I love physics, mathematics, and quatum physics, so it really hurts my heart when my own dad says something insanely and actually impossible

[@Sammysapphira]

Lots of older folks fall for this stuff. I see it every day, it's really sad.

[@Ancientfamily305]

​@@Sammysapphiraya I know my dad use to be a computer programmer and builder back in 90s and early 2000s he was really nerdy and smart til he seen some fake astrophysics talking about things that won't or couldn't happen.

[@Ancientfamily305]

Also love your videos Kyle been watching you for years and you definitely help me understand my autism and science curiosity alot more then any science creator

[@nebarrera]

Same here, my dad is convinced that all his illnesses are related to solar flares he heard about on these "science" channels...:(

[@alex.g7317]

I think it’s pretty easy to distinguish the good and the bad ones. Honestly the thumbnails & titles are dead give-aways.

[@megan00b8]

Isn't it sad how any smaller creator uses a 2 second audio clip from an obscure movie from 1967 and a large company that owns the rights to the movie will claim all ad revenue immediately upon upload, but when the small content creator is being blatantly ripped off by scammers it takes a leg, a firstborn, and a nuclear holocaust of a small nation to get KZbin to act at all?

[@ruthanneluvsvacuuming6653]

So sad but true

[@spingleboygle]

nuclear holocaust? FALL O-

[@rustyshackleford6927]

It all boils down to capitalism and greed. Smaller independent creators just don’t have the resources to fight back at the scale that is needed.

[@contessa.adella]

True! All my gaming videos got copyright claimed for the supposed ‘copyright free’ sound tracks I used as available on YT.

[@CarolinaHowe-Piper]

@@rustyshackleford6927I think it’s going past greed at this point… Total control and censorship

[@laurachacon3278]

I used to watch Riddle videos to fall asleep, not realizing the damage that those channels are doing to the community. Thanks for speaking up and raising awareness of the negative impact and misinformation.

[@pierreproudhon9008]

Honestly, making people fall asleep might be the only positive effect they have created.

[@Yantryman]

Switch to John Michael Godier! Thank me later!

[@joeycampbell940]

Their side wasn't misinformation. Their thumbnails and titles are similar to ones by bigger channels so that means they're copycats.

[@cliftonjames785]

I hate how strict youtube has gotten with things that shouldn't be restricted but they turn away from real problems like this. Edit: Also on a completely unrelated note, I hate how now whenever you search for something on youtube, you're bombarded with completely unrelated videos or videos you've already watched

[@Fallout3131]

Yup. KZbin is part of the problem

[@peterd9698]

@@Fallout3131 Social media poses massive risks. Is there any organisation or movement actually proposing workable strategies to fix it? This scamming stuff is bad.. but worse, social media provides effective ways to interfere with democratic elections (eg bots funded by authoritarian nations and billionaires) and undermine free speech (because social media corporations now have a virtual monopoly on speech that they can censor invisibly since technically they are private platforms and not bound to free speech laws)

[@spacekitt.n]

its all about the money. youtube makes money off these spam channels

[@menjolno]

Those are not real problems. Stop taking down science channels. Your logic: "if I get hurt, others must too"

[@menjolno]

@@spacekitt.n those are not spam channels

[@mattgibbia2692]

Great to see KZbin is responding to this...by doing basically nothing. Very on brand for them

[@ValTek_Armory]

Why would they? These channels generate revenue for them

[@MahkyVmedia1]

​@@ValTek_Armoryright and KZbin is just a business

[@LegendStormcrow]

Well, on brand would be another adocalypse and punishing the normal creators and users instead of the guilty.

[@jojolafrite90]

I bet the "NFT enthusiast" CEO, since a few years, is also a fan of all that making HIM more money.

[@djpickle68]

You can't even block a channel anymore...

[@wanderlustintrovert]

"Calling out scammers" is one of my favorite youtube genres. But its also incredibly sad to see how big this problem is. Imagine the kind of money these people are making. And AI makes all of it even more profitable.

[@totallydougie9386]

It's going to be wild when "calling out scammer" are made by scammers.

[@bzuidgeest]

​@@totallydougie9386you think that doesn't happen already?😂

[@OlivierCaron]

Soon we'll have scammers making AI scambaiting videos.

[@davidbeppler3032]

KZbin is selling stolen goods. That is illegal.

[@nvelsen1975]

@@totallydougie9386 "Hi, I'm Sanjeev with the Thick Accent and I totally live in Texas. Today I wanted to call out this Indian scammer...."

[@Nixlplix]

The fake science channels p*ss me off. I'm glad someone is trying to do something about it.

[@seth7745]

The irony is that the channels we used to trust like National geographic and the History channel have become fake as well. They just make content for entertainment purposes now. It generates more revenue. The History channel is nothing but speculation and conspiracy theories and national geographic has become obsessed with little green aliens.

[@CDour]

KZbin's failure to effectively moderate this spam is the reason why I almost exclusively stick to my subscription feed. YouTubs Shorts, in particular, are a cesspool of stolen videos and AI spam.

[@hawkeye7527]

I don't let KZbin keep my watch history. As a result, I get no shorts recommended to me. Subscriptions only.

[@Big_Red1]

@@hawkeye7527 I found a extension that hides the shorts tab and turns any short I do watch into a regular video. Highly recommend.

[@daaaaaaanny]

It's crazy because KZbin shorts barely even make any money so all the mass produced garbage, even the ones with millions upon millions of views, have probably only made a couple thousand in total

[@loveableheathen7441]

@@daaaaaaannyThat’s not entirely true. Channels are heavily incentivized to create shorts to the point where smaller or mid size channels who cannot afford to churn out shorts are suffering.

[@YeeLeeHaw]

@@daaaaaaanny They wouldn't do it if they didn't get a lot. Posting shorts also helps you getting higher rankings for your normal videos.

[@tornado5783]

KZbin shorts is also plagued with spam/ai generated stolen content. Absolute cancer to society. Thanks for bringing awareness to this rising issue.

[@chrisholdread174]

Absolute cancer is spot on. They're KZbin's version of tiktok which is an even bigger cancer. And it infuriates me that good reputable channels participate in shorts and toks

[@Ebiko]

Just hit the don't recommend channel button. The problem will be gone for you pretty quickly. Issue is, only for you. Not everyone .

[@RickHowell89]

​@@chrisholdread174The creators are almost forced into doing shorts here because KZbin, the last time I read on it, requires it from creators to get their content promoted more.

[@sihamhamda47]

And even worst when you search "how to get popular on youtube" right now, almost 90% of the tutorials showing on the top search results right now are about "hacking the algorithm with AI automated contents" which are so unfair

[@Dovenchiko]

@@RickHowell89 It's not a requirement but it's a necessity if you want your content to be in front of anyone. Because shorts are 1 min max, you could "advertise" your channel for free and get lots of subs and views quickly which is the nature of these endlessly scrolling things. However, youtube meddled with it and made the push from shorts extremely high combined with the natural funneling that shorts do made shorts weighted extremely heavily. At this point it's basically channel suicide to not create shorts despite the audiences of certain channels saying no or not caring.

[@afourtrackmind]

KZbin needs to add a “stolen content” function to the reporting part. Thanks for pointing this issue out. I’ve become more proactive pointing out the stolen stuff that out there.

[@ProIncidentInciter]

Instead, they make AN ENTIRE STEAL THIS COMMENT TO MAKE A VIDEO BUTTON.

[@Daniel-qy9mb]

Did anyone else notice this issue popped up when KZbin took our thumbs down button? It really helped us figure out which videos were not worth our time…

[@drewt1717]

It was an issue long before then, but I agree it has gotten worse since then.

[@ehhhhhhhhhh]

Not true. KZbin has had low effort videos for its entire history, not just recently.

[@thegurw1994]

​@@ehhhhhhhhhhbut you could see at a glance what videos were shit

[@josholt61]

My thumbs down button just so happens to be the same as the report button. Weird how that happens.

[@TiredBirb490]

@@ehhhhhhhhhh they didn’t say those videos didn’t exist, just that it was easier to tell which ones were low quality

[@PredaBoon]

The problem is made worse with youtube gutting their search function where you can only get 12 direct results followed by a sea of "recommendations" that aren't related to your search. So only these channels pop up at the start.

[@oz_jones]

Huh, no wonder i have felt the search is absolute ass

[@VintageMemory]

It's so annoying. I don't want recommendations, I want what I effing searched for.

[@voodoobunny13]

Wow, this explains soooo much. I'll search "bonsai technique" videos for my plants and get about 12 videos related to that search, but then 13 videos and beyond it'll be stuff like "huge pimple popping!" And I'm just like, ".....no. No, that is not what I searched for at all and not what I want to see. Why is this here?" It now makes sense why that dumb shit keeps happening. Thank you.

[@thegreatestfallout1794]

I'm tired of all this algorithm bs. I want what I searched for. I want to watch who I'm subscribed to. I don't care about all the TikTok slop that's being reposted here. If I'm looking up something specific, I don't want recommended videos from my watch history. Can we also stop recommending the same 20 videos over and over again? I got tired of watching them the third time.

[@VidereOrbis]

Yeah this has been getting worse and worse. 3 related video's followed by 50 unrelated videos.

[@MrHardfoot]

Man, that channel that emailed Kyle was like "Oh, so you're mad at us for being a low-effort content farm? Well you should know that we're also horrible garbage humans as well."

[@tomd96]

All of them are. They're literally pirating content and making money from it. There's way too many people trying to get past copyright measures by mirroring the videos they steal and putting obnoxious music over it. Things like TV shows and netflix series that they've obviously pirated and edited. Straight up ripped content from youtubers, podcasts, movies, etc. It's problematic for youtube in terms of rampant copyright infringement, too.

[@Tinil0]

Everyone who does that shit is a complete sociopath. Hopefully they get what's coming to them.

[@lexa2310]

It read like the speech that indian scam-caller held when he got return-scamed😂 All narcissistic and panicked hate-speech.

[@wea69420]

​@@tomd96just an addendum - this isn't piracy, this is plagiarism. Accessing content without paying is a completely different action (both factually and morally IMO) than passing others' work as your own.

[@alexgaudette988]

Imagine being proud of producing garbage instead of quality content

[@coachdubz7533]

I notice Future Unity which has 912k followers, now has 0 content. Good job Kyle, Brandon and co!

[@Subzero_RaptorHalo13]

Thanks for taking action against them. How they're still up is beyond me :/

[@cjxgraphics]

Answer: KZbin likes money.

[@leandervr]

The short answer is google not giving a single f*** about it as long it generates add revenue.

[@janemary8339]

@@leandervr Like the guy in that e-mail said 2:56... He had some good points unfortunately (minus all the reducted swearing).

[@cocolove9916]

Exactly it’s so annoying I constantly block them. And they still come up!

[@williammullinax6130]

Money

[@Sierra2S9]

Only way you can get a company like KZbin to do anything about this is if you can make their inaction cost them money.

[@lastanetaarion]

Interesting point. Wonder if it was pointed in a court during one of Virals cases how would they react that real creators lost money because of spam and stolen content on those fake channels made yt money 🤔👍.

[@pimpXBT]

100% they are a business, creators can quabble within themselves they dont care like the gov lol. Make them lose money and its ez money xD

[@ld2048]

boycott youtube

[@USSAnimeNCC-]

Ah capitalism working as intended and misinformation is going around because of profits

[@billybob7135]

​@@USSAnimeNCC-Capitalism is about competition. Considering how KZbin became the most popular video site was the result of them being better than others, then more capitalism is actually the solution.

[@MedlifeCrisis]

Thank you Kyle (and viral DRM), I’ve also been keenly watching this space and share all your concerns; it is only going to get worse. Your efforts are sincerely appreciated by the creator community.

[@tomaccino]

Hi, doc!

[@canidaeSynapse]

The man, the myth, the legend!

[@Groaznic]

Hi, your channel is awesome!

[@Enonymouse_]

One other aspect used by spammers and suspect channels is looping of content to keep people who aren't paying attention to keep watching. No amount of user complaints seems to be enough.

[@BryceDixonDev]

It's insane to me that the same copyright systems on KZbin are so broken that obvious spam and content theft is able to skirt around regulation while genuine creators can get their entire online presence eradicated by false claims.

[@michrain5872]

KZbin simply has lost control of what they host in their platform. Even YTKids is plagued with potentially harmful content for kids! This is infuriating to see. I truly hope something can be done about this. We need more channels like yours, thank you for existing :D

[@RandomGuy-qc8ml]

true. there are actual softcore hentai on ytkids app

[@k0bra3eak40]

Yeah science is just one facet, the far right anti-science conspiracy holes are dangerously easy to fall into due to how powerful the algorithm is.

[@JohnSmith-fl6qd]

​@@k0bra3eak40Far right? You sound like a far left 😅

[@dm9910]

@@JohnSmith-fl6qd if you genuinely think the far right (up to and including neo-Nazis) don't have a presence on yt then you're either blind or too far down the pipeline to recognize it

[@nattythepanda4692]

@@JohnSmith-fl6qd Yeah, far right! It is pretty much fact now that the vast majority of conspiracy theories, from flat-earth to anti-vax is pretty much 99% full of americans who are conservatives/far-right.

[@ragemalachi]

The sad part about the KZbin copyright strikes system is that it also gets abused by these scammers to attack small channels that they themselves rip off. That being said, getting these groups taken down, especially now with people being algorithmically guided to these stolen videos along with misinformation videos, would be a net positive.

[@Nogardtist]

yeah its a common problem what youtube does to prevent it and its absolutely nothing

[@ChrisS-oo6fl]

It also gets abused by groups like those featured in this video. They usually grow, become more aggressive, use bad automation and begin striking creators working well within the guidelines of fair use. You can literally hear the distain in both voices when they discussed any use of footage. That’s equally pathetic as the straight thief’s and plagiarizers.

[@DrachenGothik666]

I think of it like an ecosystem & it's evolving. These scammers are evolving to prey on those they think of as weaker than they are. It's disgusting & repulsive. We just have to evolve ways to combat them.

[@violintegral]

The KZbin copyright striking system is entirely fucked up and needs to be reworked

[@austinmitchell2652]

I'm used to hearing the YT copyright system discussed from perspective of "I used fair use footage from a TV show in my video essay and copyright strikes are threatening to destroy my channel". It's very interesting to hear it discussed in this scenario. Best of luck in the crusade against fake content!

[@araonthedrake4049]

It's almost as if the system is so poorly designed that in practice it's useless regardless of who is in the right.

[@jetfirexx]

Channel Awesome has a lot to answer for with people's misunderstanding of fair use after their campaign a few years ago. It just muddies the entire conversation that's already murky enough since nothing has been tested in court yet

[@toolbaggers]

Anything made, hosted or narrated by SIMON WHISTLER should be reported as SPAM.

[@stevenmtaylor21]

@@jetfirexx H3H3 lawsuit tested the waters and H3H3 won.

[@justins8802]

Yeah, there are a lot of creators out there who are well-meaning but don’t understand copyright and fair use nearly well enough.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

Kyle you're an absolute Legend! You've really started something here... Let's Hope this get's KZbin's Attention!

[@ProIncidentInciter]

We already have the BBC’s

[@jamesrivera4015]

KZbin should be liable for this issue. Putting all the responsibility on a shitty copyright system thats abused both ways clearly shows this. Its ridiculous that bots are left to the individual to deal with.

[@geko2867]

Content thief farms can dodge very justified copyright claims and rich people (mostly companies) can copyright claim any video that says anything remotely negative about them.

[@sharimeline3077]

Abused both ways? Which both ways? A legit youtuber is not abusing the system to try and take down scammers that steal their content.

[@Hydros92]

@@sharimeline3077 they're talking about all the deliberately false copystrikes against people to silence them

[@_Cloun]

KZbin - owned by google (who is much more evil than you think) only cares about Money. They will NEVER take ANY responsibility if they can help it

[@Temperans]

If youtube was liable then site would shut down as well as all other sites that host content. The reason why hosting sites can work is exactly because they are not liable for what users post. Copyright strike system is their way of automating a federal requirement.

[@tmc8195]

A scary sentence I remember hearing is “Trust will be broken so many times that it will bankrupt the World Wide Web for good.”

[@krusher74]

Yep , we have maybe a couple of years left before the internet is ruined by AI content.

[@sportyeight7769]

To be honest, since i dunno maybe around 2017-2019, i don't even brows the net the same way. Google results are just shit and i can't find anything relevent except ads or just fake information. we've gone back to good ol internet pre-google where you needed to know the good site already and note them.

[@spacebassist]

​@@krusher74"but AI is a tool" is the new "you're a FUDDer". I just realised. It's the same condescending and ignorant line for a technology that's only proven itself to be quite harmful and the scams for AI started up right as the nft saga finally died Except this time the people excited for its future just want to use it for easy creation, as if they'll be more approved than anyone else when everyone can make an animation with one prompt. Insecure crypto kiddies really will take a threat to everyone's jobs and the worth of creation just to feel special for 5 seconds

[@KnabTheGoblin]

"A Lie can travel the world in the time it takes the Truth to put it's shoes on."

[@tondriasanders6306]

I’m already there for the most part. I only have a few creators and websites I still trust.

[@SabineHossenfelder]

Kyle, thanks for taking this on. I was literally just yesterday talking about this with someone on my team. I've got to say it's maddening to see how much money these people are making from the work of others.

[@intuitivediane]

It’s awful. There should also be an option that people can click ‘copy content’ and allow us to put the original link in the report button.

[@RichConnerGMN]

didn't you release like a 40 minute misinformation video about autism after being heavily criticized for a 30 minute misinformation video about trans people?

[@joshuapatrick682]

You legit monetize the research, lives and creativity of others. That’s what KZbin as a whole is. Hypocrite…

[@FuckingChrisKupina]

@@joshuapatrick682 That is completely different. Sabine went to school, performed experiments, and paid her dues. THESE PEOPLE DID NOT, and neither did you. You're in a fallacy.

[@georgelupascu5488]

Aren't you the scientist who said that men can get pregnant? 😂🤡

[@NikkiTrudelle]

This is so needed, thanks for starting this intervention on scientific content from these horrible thieves and those who would promote misinformation. I’ve been noticing this for years too and I’m so glad so many others have too and realize the harm it can do on so many levels.

[@vikkipink1288]

This isn’t the only platform with this problem. It’s a huge problem on TikTok as well with just so most absurd fake content paired with imagery ripped from other places without credit. I’m so glad you’re speaking out against this issue 💜

[@WxChasing]

Yes, I am not trying to single out youtube because all the platforms similar. The speed in which artists are being eliminated is mind blowing.

[@j-bob_oreo]

tiktok is just toxic as a whole

[@zenmoto369]

TikTok is for morons, it is exactly what is wrong with today's society...

[@menjolno]

Why are you in support of DMCA? tik tok good

[@Abominable_Intelligences]

That Chinese Government App needs to be stopped

[@primalspace]

Man, hearing that it takes them 2 hours of research for a 10 minute video really annoys me. Thanks for doing what you're doing, Kyle!

[@itsprobablyryan]

OMG, I love your channel!!!

[@alexc4300]

Two hours?!? I reckon it would take me two weeks. At least. Awesome work.

[@pewpin1039]

@@alexc4300 I feel like this would depend a lot based on what you are making a video on. Something easy to research and find, but not having source in a nicely formatted video. Or something that barely has any sources, and you have to actually start hunting down experts in the field.

[@kcc-karenschroniccorner9432]

I’m doing a PhD in public health, specially health literacy/health communication, and it can take me 2 hours just to properly review one research paper!

[@alexc4300]

@@pewpin1039 I feel that to be able to make a truly useful video, I’d have to almost become an expert on the subject, at least enough to talk coherently for ten minutes. Otherwise you’re in danger of rehashing others’ content and not adding anything to the sum of knowledge. I love content creators who, when you watch the video, you either think, “I didn’t know that,” or better, “it never occurred to me to think of space as the thing that was moving.” ;-)

[@LendriMujina]

As long as KZbin itself benefits from this, they're going to drag their feet and stand in the way. It's good to know that groups like Viral DRM are starting to go after them.

[@warrensteel9954]

If KZbin only cares about the money, then maybe it's time to go after the advertising that's shown alongside these videos. If enough companies pull their advertising, it might make a difference.🤷‍♂️

[@JamesRussell69420]

I look back on the era of KZbin where people like H3H3 made copyright strikes less serious for channels and cringe at all the damage it did

[@TheMediaMutants]

Right

[@SealFormulaMaster]

@@warrensteel9954 While this is a solution, I'd like to remind you of Elsagate. If you don't know what that was, there's plenty of videos explaining it, but the aftermath of it are still felt to this day, like the infamous yellow dollar sign. Tons of creators, not just bad actors, were and still are affected. So let me ask you this. If an adpocalypse 5.0 happened (And yes, there have been 4 so far, with the recent being in 2019) and the effects of this adpocalypse prevented creators like Kylie from talking about certain subjects because they need an abundance of caution, would that be a tradeoff you'd be willing to accept? Because like it or not, there are videos people simply won't make because it's a risk, even if the video would classify as news.

[@bunnywar]

Given they're parent company's pro slavery stance, it's not surprising that they'd support similar minded channels

[@ObviouslyASMR]

Glad you're taking action against this, godspeed Kyle I just saw a segment on Dutch TV about a 20 year old girl "running a business" like this and talking about it a bit to advertise the course she's selling on it. It's incredible how proud these people are

[@waza3350]

Interesting, do you have a link so we can watch this video ? It's Netherland scary to think that someone from Netherland could be at the same level as the people shown on Kyle video.

[@oldmanbanjo]

As a guy that makes my livelihood off being a narrator you've done so much to help this situation. Thanks so much dude. The reason you get VO talent defending this stuff is they're paid not as voice actors, but more as 'public sponsors' to defend the channels they work for. All the good original channels I work with have never had any issues with and never needed that. A good channel doesn't need to defend the fact it isn't a scam.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

as an aspiring VO/VA it's wild to me that anyone from the industry would defend it at all

[@dislikebutton3887]

Your job will be gone in 10 years.

[@oldmanbanjo]

So will yours :P@@dislikebutton3887

[@oldmanbanjo]

It's a rough job. You'd be surprised what people will do when someone is offering you $250 for 10 minutes of work@@bazzfromthebackground3696

[@emceeboogieboots1608]

​@@dislikebutton3887Yes. Taken by Simon Whistler😂

[@sunla]

This is happening to artists, too. We're all going through it. We are so, so tired of it.

[@sharimeline3077]

It's happening to every kind of channel that has any kind of following. You name it, any popular subject, and tons of channels are having their content stolen in that genre. So depressing.

[@strayingwill]

And in the case of music youtubers, they will get immediately blasted with copyright strikes when they use popular music to illustrate an example. The system is so broken.

[@gentleken7864]

@@strayingwill Humans are incredible beings. Something will start out with good intentions by humans, and as it grows, it slowly gets polluted and destroyed by other humans looking to exploit and push the boundaries. It happens to almost anything that makes money. Like Christopher Hitchen's last words, 'Capitalism, downfall'. Problem is, I don't think humans have really got started on this yet. It's going to get much much worse.

[@stefthorman8548]

Seems like you're facing becomeing obsolete ​@@gentleken7864

[@Sol_Invictus_]

It sucks that KZbin is complicit in this by allowing all the AI generated ads they run

[@TheMediaMutants]

Fr

[@wrench5692]

The Joe Rogan scam going around with that “$6,500 subsidy you didn’t hear about” bull. It’s on TikTok, X, Instagram l, fucking everywhere

[@the0ne809]

​@@wrench5692half of KZbin ads are literally scams. Some dude trying to sell you a course on how to make tens of per week by creating some AI KZbin channel and a few hundred people subscribe. Others are selling real estate fake deals or some tutorial about making millions from Amazon by working 1 hour a week.

[@everettputerbaugh3996]

Just like AOL and kiddie porn a couple of decades ago -- KZbin profits from this behavior. I don't think that there is a government agency that has the resources to take this on. Perhaps some government needs to profit from convictions...

[@Superabound2]

Remember when KZbin banned hundreds of right leaning KZbinrs during the Adpocalypse because the fascist corporations didn't want to be associated with people who told uncomfortable truths, but now NOBODY in charge at KZbin has any problem whatsoever with 90% of ads being AI generated scams

[@to33x]

Thanks for all your genuine hard work!

[@CyberSystemOverload]

This video needs millions of views. Because what makes me mad is not just those spam nonsense channels but the fact that millions of people WATCH them and SUBSCRIBE to them and most worrying of all they BELIEVE them. The issue is only gonna get worse as AI tech advances. Thank you Kyle for doing what you do.

[@JamesTDG]

Keep in mind that most of them are bot subscriptions

[@rubotok3703]

​@@JamesTDG ahh so they get a higher real viewer count by rigging the system

[@wykydrone]

The thing I don't get with spammers and scammers, the anger behind getting caught and the begging and pleading. It's like they're completely unaware of their actions. Listening to those scammers on channels like KitBoga, those guys are insane when they can't get that money. The crying, screaming and then mental breakdowns, all of this because they can't trick someone. I really wish there was psychology behind this.

[@soleraprincessgongjunim3320]

probably just bc: if you're a one-trick pony, if you only know how to do one thing, then you get scared when the one thing you're good at doesn't work

[@fourierbird]

Narcissism and appealing to emotional leniency

[@zammmerjammer]

I used to get scam calls all the time (before caller ID was a thing). I'd get so annoyed with them and just hang up. Once a guy CALLED ME BACK all incensed that I had hung up on him. It's like I know you're a scammer, YOU knw you're a scammer, but if you call the out on it, they get so offended. I had one guy threaten to kill me because I refused to give him money or personal info. Basically, psychopath behaviour.

[@makine8013]

a lot of scammers have no other option, especially those employed in low-income countries, so spam calling may be their only current form of income. I'm not defending the guys in the video, but I think there is a better way to talk about this rather than calling people psychopaths.

[@TheProxy2]

@@zammmerjammer narcissistic sociopath. psychopaths wouldnt care less

[@Athulryes]

I worked as a Legal Operations Specialist processing copyright claims for an eCommerce company I won't name. These claims also included trademark claims and the responses... It's a nightmare working with companies that are upset, because you understand why but, the people who are causing the problem are also a nightmare. This also just isn't an issue specific to KZbin, this is exactly how it played out and I worked in eCommerce. The only difference is it's pictures being put on shirts, or mugs. I still remember the name of the Warner Bros and Nintendo reps because they contacted us so often. The reality is the people committing this will always continue doing it because KZbin, just like my company, has no financial incentive to do anything besides the bare minimum. The entire DMCA process they've established is to shift the blame from KZbin, not to actually help you or make this process easier.

[@Badficwriter]

Yeah, I remember back in the day amateur artists constantly had their art stolen to use for corporate merchandise, or to advertise a site, an aggregator (like Pinterest..those pictures don't serve the original uploader), even big time movies, all because whoever got assigned the task for a graphic decided your amateur work was public domain they could use. Not to mention Amazon, which used to be the go to marketplace, but now everybody knows so many sellers provide false pictures of legit products, provide a few to get good reviews, then switch to a ripoff product. Eventually the reviews catch up and note that the product sent is NOT what is listed, but Amazon has gotten weirdly hostile to bad reviews. So now you are better off finding a product's home page after finding it on Amazon, then buying it off Amazon.

[@giovane_Diaz]

yup, its a process designed to barely work, to not be completely pummeled in court by all the main publishers (the bread winners) being scammed, all other actors have to take the dead line until some of them becomes full goku and developed enough critical mass to be able to topple over and make the card castle rumble. it vaguely resembles the line we have here to complain to a public service or to a actual politician doing shady stuff. the channel is there, but god knows what waves do you need to overcome to reach the other side

[@menjolno]

stop farming likes. don't make up stories. also, there are no spam channels

[@MoA-Reload...]

Even scarier is the current set up from KZbin is far better than it used to be. The old set up was YT was the messenger delivering the notice, taking the content down as ordered and take a big step back to let you fight it out on your own regardless of how obvious an abuse of DMCA the claim could be. KZbins own system is Content ID and that was rushed into place in order to stop DMCA's flying around nuking the entire platform as well as potentially clogging courts with the sheer volume of claims that was feared would end up coming into play. It's the non nuclear option BUT it's still heavily skewed in the claimants favour on a "guilty until proven innocent" and to make things even more hilarious, the party that decides if an appeal is upheld or refused is the claimant. There's an entire cottage industry built up around it. Tbf though back in the day when the DMCA hit the fan it was either bend over and cooperate fully or be squished like a bug and wiped off the face of the internet. Even as big as YT are now, they piss off the labels and studios again they could still be squished like an annoying bug.

[@jopearson6321]

I'm going to guess Etsy, based on the rampant trademark abuse that is on the site 😅

[@jessicacamara8063]

Why is KZbin more worried about censoring comedians jokes than dealing with actual theft like this?

[@whatdamath]

After watching this, I've officially decided to grow my hair and beard out...for scientific reasons

[@woodenpints]

Kyle and his mane looks glorious, and you could too, dear Anton. The hard part is getting past the part where you look in the mirror and hate yourself, or if it's too itchy: just push through this for the ultimate glory.

[@tempestive1]

Antoooon ❤ I highly reccommend that scientific pursuit 😁

[@supabass4003]

let er rip anton

[@wjbt3]

Gotta grow out the ball hair too, and get sponsored by manscaped \m/

[@mrkrunch4340]

Hello wonderful person! I look forward to seeing your new styles in future videos!

[@bryanramer6439]

I'm just a viewer but seeing all the fake science channels and videos is infuriating to even me. I couldn't imagine them stealing my content or hard work. I really appreciate what you're doing to try to fight this because I'm not too aware of anyone else that is addressing this issue like you have from the circle of content creators that I frequently watch. Thank you so much for what you're doing

[@ILoveTinfoilHats]

Hell not even just fake, but all the ones that blow the littlest discoveries out of proportion. Half the Elon Musk news channels. Matt Farrell.

[@menjolno]

Those are not fake. Leave science channels alone

[@py_a_thon]

One aspect of fair use as a copyright defense definitely seems to be "in good faith" as well as "used in a form that promotes criticism, critique or elevates the original content in a socially or culturally significant way". That is also not the exact legalese, yet it is decent laymans terminology to explain atleast the spirit of the legality.

[@besticudcumupwith202]

​@@menjolno...😂 how many do you run? Is this "Mystery History"? I find your comment highly compelling.

[@menjolno]

@@besticudcumupwith202 I don't run any. I don't need to run any to defend it

[@iWerli]

I'm not a content creator but I am a business owner and I've had people take my product images and create fake stores/pages acting like they're selling my products but they just scam people. I know exactly how these fellas feel lol

[@Bellezzasolo]

I tend to just upload dashcam footage from my bike rides. Still, I did have a copyright incident when I recognised a piece of my footage on twitter... I was like "wtaf". Turned out it had been downloaded and sent to a driving instruction channel, which users viewer clips. Obviously there is a fair use argument, but not without attribution! But it was resolved amicably.

[@sarshrimp1476]

When I shop for things I do a search for the image to see how many sites are using the same photo and then research to figure out the real vendor. It shouldn't be so hard to not get scammed.

[@ferdinand12390]

it´s happening a lot on fb, specially with AI generated ""products""

[@LadyEden1337]

it happens to people doing limited edition/limited drop plushies too. it happened to The Click, where you have all of these companies making knock-off plushies (that are obviously knock-offs), they get reported, get shut down for a while, then they pop up again under a different name. he talked about it on a previous livestream of him playing Fall Guys, and he was like, "WTF?" man, there are so many people who are looking to make a quick buck off of someone else's hard work. it sucks! 😮‍💨

[@nvelsen1975]

I've had an entire report stolen and copypasted in large part, that someone used to file a permit application. I worked for the first owner who got a permit, but then died so it was sold on to that guy, who just copied it and filed it himself. The guy fell through when the civil servant who had to judge it recognized my work and e-mailed with a question about 'my new project' and admonishing me for not filing it through my usual business account.

[@ChadDidNothingWrong]

It takes some actual bravery to take this stuff on. People need to understand that it's a real risk to one's career and status to go after a machine like this. Same today as in the past. My respects brother.🙏 You're a man among men in my opinion. I'll be sure to put this work into my daily life-calling out this junk anywhere I ever see it.

[@F_L_U_X]

I've been on KZbin for 17 years and I've called out so much of this BS along with other problems... It's nice to see some of the crap finally addressed.

[@eightcoins4401]

@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat its because the inethical content farms generate ad revenue. Its purely motivated by greed.

[@dromioak]

How can a copyright system be so bad it only benefits spammers and corporate copyright abusers

[@menjolno]

They are not spammers.

[@krusher74]

720,000 hours (82 years) of video are uploaded every day to KZbin. you think they can police that? maybe AI will in the future.

[@piglin469]

​@@krusher74 huh despite its faults the system is doing good when policing that much contebt

[@anecro]

@@krusher74 Doesn't matter. They have a platform they have to look after. Instead of doing all the useless updates they do (which admittedly have slowed down and improved since 2020, it was REALLY bad before that) they should focus in involving the staff more. Volunteering programs with benefits? Something? Something that doesn't rely on current implementation of AI that is 110% of the time failing at recognizing something like fair use content? To me it seems they're not doing the bare minimum sometimes, cause every time I hear about a copyright problem KZbin seems to never take the right action, it always has to blow up and go public. You'd think at least a small percentage of such issues would be solved before the creator(s) have to address it publicly because nobody at KZbin is taking a look despite action taking place once the problem becomes loud enough. Excuse them all you want, but at the end of the day it's a platform that is failing at keeping its users safe every way I look. And to mention this too, the one time I had an issue with one of my videos and an impersonating scumbag that's hitting more people than me, I had no choice but to eat up the strikes because I'm not big enough for them to care and I don't have the power to contact them via Twitter and be noticed. I also lack any connection to an actual person working at KZbin, so no luck for me, if someone wants me removed I will be because KZbin doesn't work. Maybe the system shouldn't rely on both sides being nice, reasonable people that can solve their problems with talking, because no one fucking is and more often than not one side won't change its mind no matter what because they're gaining something else by being malicious. The problem and what I'm asking isn't even related to the human factor, the system they have in place is deeply and obviously flawed but they're never taking steps to improve on it. So like the original commenter said, yeah, it's so bad only the bad actors win. Source: any video on the topic ever. Has nothing to do with the volume of content and everything to do with the lazy, slow crawl in improving anything that has become the staple of this platform.

[@tiziank.6975]

​@@menjolno They are

[@Janzer_]

"we see a problem, and we choose to profit off of that problem" - This is our society, and the reason we are going in the direction we are overall.

[@ElectricAlien577]

Capitalism😊

[@hieronymusbutts7349]

For what it's worth, Marx wasn't against capitalism. He saw it as a necessary step in the transition between feudalism and socialism, and that capitalism will eventually devour itself and give away to a more egalitarian system. Power in the hands of the rich is an aristocracy, but it's *still* a fundamental widening of power away from the centrally imbued monarchies. The next step, according to Marx, is to then make systems that distribute that power even further towards the masses of workers rather than the capital investors. Let the capitalists build the new society, says Marx, and eventually they will run it so badly the people will beg for socialists to take it over and run it better. (This is the fundamental problem of the Bolsheviks and Maoism - notice how much better the CCP became at increasing quality of life by allowing some limited forms of capitalism, after Mao's disastrous attempts to turn an unindustrialised economy into a fully industrialised *and* socialised economy)

[@stefthorman8548]

​@@hieronymusbutts7349in other words, communism is an parasite that can't build anything of its own, and has to steal/replace an premium country, "we suck at country building, so let us steal the hard work of others" and communim intrinsically means massacre, communist are very willing to kill people who don't belive In the nonsense

[@archangel996]

This is why I don't watch anything from channels I'm not subscribed to. I don't even look at the homepage or recomends anymore.

[@gregthorne4292]

KZbin really needs a creator committee that can voice topics like this. It just seems like KZbin doesn't respond to anything before it gets blown up and they are forced to. YT is a community-driven site, it needs community representation to the company that owns it.

[@Fallout3131]

They sure don’t seem to be a community driven site. Considering how many things they do against their creators that piss everyone off. Most recent example being the dislike buttons death.

[@giovane_Diaz]

​@@Fallout3131that is fine, compared to their kill of the community subtitles, whole niches on yt were left stranded by a new, worse tool to apologize for the "inconvenience"

[@nighthawk7268]

Sounds like a good reason for content creators to band together and basically unionize. Without their content, people wouldnt come to KZbin, and they'd lose that precious ad revenue.

[@menjolno]

ironically, you wouldn't want your videos to be needing approval of a committee.

[@LittleDanny9899]

@@menjolno i mean he is not asking for a committee to Approve or disaprove videos but to Voice Topics like this

[@jgassman]

Kyle, I get ads for the scammers that do this. There's people that advertise "Make passive income with other people's KZbin videos.." and I see them ALL the time. I love and completely support what you're doing, but it seems like the scale of this battle is Trojan-esque.

[@sihamhamda47]

And even more dangerous, when accidentally clicked, some of those ads redirects the viewer to an info stealer website

[@Lynnfield3440]

Use add block, it's so much better without all the scams KZbin always promotes.

[@slobaru7094]

or the dump a bottle of titos in your vehicles gas tank to get free gas lmfao. "do this simple trick to get free gas for life!"

[@Keepskatin]

KZbin doesn't care entirely, because they make money from the scammers action and the scammers feed the algorithm ☝🏾

[@EJaDav]

8:53 If I had a nickel for every time the KZbin copyright system had screwed over a channel that didn’t deserve it and never gave any consequences to the ones that deserve it I’d be rich.

[@aciep.4687]

At thia point you'd only need pennies per time and you'll still end up rich😂

[@Travminer123]

bruh u would be in the billions

[@Flesh_Wizard]

richest human alive speedrun any%

[@samburke5789]

It's funny how restricrively hard-core KZbin can be with established big media copyrighted content - but does not give sh** about its own creators...

[@waza3350]

Not true, KZbin put a blind eye on the infrigment of big corporation content as much as for small individuals content.

[@brisingrdragon7573]

Honestly, it's insane to me that genuinely talented and wonderful people often struggle with things like imposter syndrome and crippling self-doubt while shmucks that do jack-all feel like they're better than everyone and have all the confidence of a spoiled brat. It's like the Dunning-Kruger effect for talent.

[@gentleken7864]

It's humans. While being a fairly advanced life form with opposable thumbs etc, we're also unbelievably sneaky, lazy, and looking to exploit any situation. Essentially, we're kind of horrible.

[@a-blivvy-yus]

What you describe as "the Dunning-Kruger effect for talent" is more properly called the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's most often used in reference to knowledge/intelligence, but it's applicable to *ANY* activity which you can learn to be skilled at. The original study included social skills, and follow-up studies have covered vast swathes of human activity and consistently found similar patterns. This is true across competitive videogames, sporting, social and acedemic pursuits, business management, and vast amounts of unrelated skillsets. If you're really good at something, you probably undervalue your expertise. If you're terrible at it but have moderate experience or minimal training, you probably view yourself as being well above average.

[@E3_Kruger]

I never thought in a million years that I'd be rooting for a the success of a video DRM company, but man what they're doing is a godsend.

[@giovane_Diaz]

the literal unseen warrior, doing the good fight to block the real horde on this hell

[@davidcotham1939]

It's better when copyright protects people like the weather chaser instead of being weaponized by UMG or Sony.

[@menjolno]

It is because DRM marketing. There are no spam channels.

[@Artholos]

They may be arguably doing good this time. But don’t forget that they also go after and crush small legitimate creators all the time at the behest of megacorps too. These DRM companies are not heroes, they’re not even good guys. They’re just attacking someone you don’t like right now.

[@zwerko]

Remember these words when they inevitably turn against legitimate, fair-use content... Supporting any sort of DRM technology/company because there are content thieves and scammers is like supporting nuclear weapon proliferation because there are countries like the North Korea or Turkmenistan... Be careful what you wish for!

[@Shoopshoop]

It’s incredibly annoying trying to find a nice topic without those fake channels popping up 😔 thank you so much for doing something about it!

[@betawolfhd]

He is bringing awareness. Nothing will happen if you keep it at that

[@androiduberalles]

Thank goodness the dislike button shows us if it's a legit video. Oh wait...

[@slider799]

It's actually making youtube unusable as a platform

[@lillyenovis15]

Thank you for fighting the spam and scammers, misinformation is painfully rampant and it causes breathtaking harm to society and truth

[@Gohka]

The thing that enrages me more than anything else about all this is KZbin's complete disregard for this happening on their platform. They have put what I imagine is in the millions of man-hours of work in to trying to make it nigh on impossible for the average person to block ads. While they clearly put close to zero work in to investigating and taking down videos/channels full of disinformation or illegal use of copyright material. They care so little that KZbinrs are literally having to do the work for them!? I mean I never saw a single creator on here complain that, what I imagine was no more than, 10-20% of their viewership were using adblockers. Where as I am seeing more and more complaining about their hard work being stolen. Yet KZbin decided that adblocker was the far bigger threat and problem than literal criminals using their platform to make shed-loads of cash illegally.

[@DaysofKnight]

Why would they? Those channels bring in the dough for KZbin as well 😉 Let's not take down those channels, even though they're filled with misinformation, or fully stolen content that's obvious as shit. Because it gets those fat stacks for the higher-ups and shareholders. Because pleasing and paying them is more important. But we won't acknowledge that, no no

[@brettwood1351]

I imagine it has something to do with the fact it would require hiring a bunch of people to do that work, which they would then have to pay, and at this point KZbin probably figures it's cheaper this way.

[@imuni55]

But why would YT even care? They're getting the ad money. Only those who buy ads on YT (probably) care. And creators.

[@ScooterinAB]

The answer here is simple. Money. Google loses money when people use adblockers. They would also lose money if they did something about content theft because those channels make them money. That's why the are trying to die on this ad blocker hill yet doing nothing about this problem: both of those courses of action are about protecting revenue.

[@DavidMulderOne]

Except Google does have a bunch of systems to at least demonetize videos that might spread disinformation and clearly those systems are not doing nothing, as lots of youtubers will publicly complain when those systems occasionally get something wrong. I am a developer, I could develop the anti-adblocking technologies by myself, that's a problem a single team of devs can easily tackle. Compare that to the copyright (and general content moderation) problem and they are probably throwing orders of magnitude more money against it and it still feels like its for naught. Not expressing myself well, but it feels like KZbin gets a lot of hate both for being too aggressive and too passive when it comes to both copyright and content moderation 😟

[@patrickdavis8271]

Keep fighting the good fight Kyle! Thank you for creating this video Kyle. You work hard creating these amazing videos. You deserve all the credit!

[@kylehill]

I appreciate that!

[@URCristianoParody07]

​@@kylehillBrother just tell me what is wrong in using AI generated voice? Well, I am also against misinformed science videos, but most of the science channels use clickbait thumbnails to get views and you are one of them. So stop making these stupid videos and do some actual science.

[@unknown-541]

​@@kylehillye

[@tondriasanders6306]

@@kylehillyou’re one of the few creators I still trust. Keep up the good work.

[@thefriendorthefoe]

Hearing that any channel has HUNDREDS of thousands of videos uploaded is just mind-blowing. Both in how obvious it is that the channel operates suspiciously, and how truly effective ViralDRM must be to properly take down these scam channels. Excellent coverage, thank you for following up on this.

[@PvtAnonymous]

I'll just paste my comment from above here: how a single channel can have 240 THOUSAND videos and still be up, is beyond me. Even powerhouses like LinusTechTips have only 6700 videos after 15 years plus their side channels, maybe another 5000 on their side channels and they pump out content like crazy, with what, a hundred employees?. No one thinks this is suspicious? KZbin really doesn't care I guess. Any channel that is suspected of not being operated by humans should be treated like a business that is suspected of laundering money: with a thorough investigation.

[@taxibutler1858]

@@PvtAnonymous The highest amount of videos I've ever seen on a legit channel was around 14k, named SSoHPKC, but other than that most channels never get above 10k. Over a hundred thousand videos is completely ridiculous

[@kiajimundi]

I've recently chatted with my friends about this issue. I've been wanting to make KZbin videos, but the proliferation of these scammers make me seriously doubt if the effort would be worth it. I'm glad that there are people doing something about this. This warms my heart. Thank you. You have a new subscriber, that's for sure.

[@Keepskatin]

Unfortunately, once you put anything online,it is easy to copy it, and misuse it. Many immoral people in the world, and that's not changing

[@ACGreviews]

Heck ya this is interesting and good work from Kyle

[@Sci-Fi_Freak_YT]

Yo I love your videos 👌

[@marklacombe2671]

future unity deleted all their content. Still has 900k subscribers though.

[@BudgiePanic]

The worst is when you accidentally click on one of these slop videos, and the algorithm pumps you with more and more slop content. It’s hard to get out of it

[@menjolno]

yeah like kyle hill videos

[@sparella]

​@@menjolnowhich youre engaging with, further encouraging the algo to show more Kyle Hill. Great idea.😂

[@ScotttheCyborg]

That's why I turned my history off. Just because I look at one or two videos on something doesn't mean I want to be inundated by it. I looked at a couple of music videos in incognito mode not signed in and that's almost all I see on the feed now, because it's using my IP address as a tracker.

[@menjolno]

@@sparella kyle hill bad

[@theunknowman12]

@astatalan i see you're one of the scammer. How about you go and make meaningfull videos and not scam bs

[@russellgtw]

This is happening on Etsy as well, real artists are being pushed out because rich people start reselling cheap overseas products for crazy markups, this kind of thing is destroying the Internet and people's way of living

[@betawolfhd]

This is an example of free market capitalism just so you're aware.

[@Razor-gx2dq]

​@@betawolfhdfor better or worse

[@russellgtw]

@@betawolfhdoh definitely, and I'm all for it, I think my criticism of it is mainly that these sellers aren't playing fair, they break the terms, and generally engage in what amounts to consumer fraud. They claim the items are handmade, use fake identities, and outright lie about the quality of materials and where they are made. I'd say that's clearly not just fair competition. A lot of these sellers are essentially common criminals who are just under the radar of the law. I'm sure you would be furious if you purchased something for $300 that actually cost ¢50 to make...

[@betawolfhd]

@@russellgtw I find it more upsetting that a few people can own the world, charge us for being in it, pay us a fraction of a percent of the product of our output in compensation, forcing us to have children and spend 10s to 100s of thousands of dollars for mediocre health standards. They've also changed basic needs such as housing, food and water to provide investment value over societal growth value. Regulations are the only to have capitalism

[@russellgtw]

@@betawolfhd agreed, I also find these things to be worse, I myself make handmade goods as the only means of income, the system we live under makes the difficulty I face even worse.

[@78dentedhead]

Thanks for the effort you put in Kyle. I can usually spot and ignore the spam/scam channels, but I see how easy it'd be to take them at face value. Keep up the awesome work, both in your own science educating, and taking down these scumbags.

[@amberhernandez]

The worst part about these spam channels is that I've become paranoid about plagiarised content or AI misinformation. It makes branching out to different kinds of videos harder, because I'll be suspicious of a channel from the name alone. When Matt said "Don't watch them; report and move on," I felt taken aback. This is exactly what I do, but it never feels like a positive action. It's uneasy, never knowing for sure if you're dismissing a spam video or something truly noteworthy. Garbage content mills hinder the process of discovery. When the process of discerning between a mill and an actual good channel requires providing engagement, it always results in a negative outcome. Statistically, good channels get less engagement while spam gets more, due to the sheer quantity of the latter. It's a crying shame, but I'm grateful that good people are out there trying to better the odds.

[@nonyabusiness3619]

It's pretty easy to differentiate between an AI spam video and a real science video, though. Pretty much any video that has a title like "You won't believe what happens!" or "what doctors don't want you to know" or "scientists are terrified of this!" all while accompanied by a ridiculous thumbnail, is most likely an AI farm channel. No need to second guess if you should report it or not. No true, self-respecting science channels would make titles and thumbnails like that.

[@whatsupinspace854]

I was making a lot of original and decent space edutainment content but after a couple years was forced out by these auto-science-spam channels that make sweet love to the algorithm and post 20x the content I could create in a day. Was really unfortunate, too. I know a lot about space, and I loved devoting my workday to finding great ways to spread my passion to other science enthusiasts.

[@treanttrooper6349]

Me too

[@reverb1230]

I’m gonna go ahead and check your channel out after this. I love learning about what’s beyond our atmosphere

[@whatsupinspace854]

@@reverb1230 cool :) sadly never did much on KZbin. I invested far too many of my eggs in META's basket.

[@vonvonkarmz]

you got a new sub!

[@Keepskatin]

This is all AI aided and will only get worse because Google is heavily invested in AI,.it's here to stay and tech wise immoral people will use it to steal and recreate others content,also to scam naive people into bogus investment.

[@StormBreaker_Chasing]

I'm a storm chaser as well and Brandon is right. Content theft is a HUGE issue in the community and not just on KZbin but on sites like Twitter/X, Facebook, and other social media sites. And it's not just nameless accounts. News outlets have been caught stealing content from storm chasers in the past too. Next chase season I will be watermarking all my photos and videos before posting them to try to protect my content Edit: Many of you are saying that there are ways to remove watermarks, including AI. I am very well aware of that. However I still plan to use watermarks because it's one more step that these people will have to go through to use content without it being obvious that it's stolen. These people are lazy, and the more work they have to go through to use stolen content, the less likely they are to actually steal it

[@blade8741]

I have seen cases where those people would actually try and remove watermarking to use the content. Its insane sometimes.

[@SawedOffLaser]

Make sure to put your water mark dead center. That way they can't remove it without making it basically useless.

[@Nefville]

Crazy to think they stole Pecos Hank's voice.

[@almathetiredone9167]

I constantly see the stolen content and I try to notify the owners. It’s one thing to use with permission, but to just take from the people who risk their lives to get that footage is just shitty.

[@toolbaggers]

Anything made, hosted or narrated by SIMON WHISTLER should be reported as SPAM.

[@westleyrowe6998]

It’s actually insane how bad this is getting man. Can’t trust anything these days but thanks to you I know what too look for! Thanks for fighting the good fight man!

[@Nyitemare]

I hope this is a starting foothold in the pushback of things like this. As generative AI and AI tools improve this can of worms only gets gets bigger and bigger. Thanks for taking the initiative Kyle and by extension, Brandon

[@NicholasMarshall]

Generative AI will drown out any legitimate content creators. It's similar to the plagiarism problem that Hbomberguy pointed out.

[@lunaticrambler2593]

@@NicholasMarshall As Hbomberguy said in his video. The problem isn't Generative AI. The problem is people plagiarizing, and as he demonstrated in his video, plenty of people are doing that without AI. Hell, we have some pretty massive channels just literally sitting around eating food watching other people's work and reposting it as-is to their channels fully monetized as 'reaction content'. Generative AI is the least of the issue, albeit a tool that (human) plagiarists do like to use to plagiarize.

[@_Cloun]

@@lunaticrambler2593it just allows them to produce bullshit content at breakneck speeds

[@lunaticrambler2593]

@@_Cloun So does just copying a video.

[@Nicoandthepage]

This is so important. These spam channels are the reason why my love for youtube has been dwindling and I am glad to see that somebody is taking action!

[@miclowgunman1987]

I've almost given up looking for new content creators unless one I watch gives a shout out because KZbin's search function and recommend page is so broken. I'm just waiting for the day when they completely fill my subscription tab with other trash content too.

[@maxxlindley9425]

this is one of the best videos i've ever seen on this subject. Thanks for all the details. This problem is also on network tv broadcasts. Producing anything is expensive and you better protect it

[@4RILDIGITAL]

It's truly a shame to see the integrity of your work compromised in such ways. Your commitment to spreading scientific knowledge is immensely appreciated and your perseverance despite the setbacks is commendable. Hope KZbin takes appropriate measures soon.

[@jojolafrite90]

How, though. Plus they are clearly complicitin all this.

[@MarcusHouse]

Thank you Kyle and Brandon. Thank you thank you thank you. These damn channels are killing what we do on KZbin more than people realise.

[@fleetadmiralj]

The amazing thing here is how KZbin's copyright system seams geared towards facilitating both legit content theft and bogus copyright enforcement while making it hard on legit content creators

[@hidebehind3565]

It's basically catering to entities without morals. If Evil Inc. is doing the copyright claiming with their disposable lawyers, KZbin is there to help them. If Evil Inc. is doing the theft with their proxies and fake accounts, KZbin is there to help them again.

[@dualiper]

thisss

[@Simon2d3d]

Thanks for doing this, these channels anger my senses of justice and educational standards.

[@Steampuke]

Ok, quick PSA: Do not dislike the videos/shorts (this is considered as "interactions" by the algorithm) and be careful to not stay on the video for too long ! Pause the video, then report it as to not increase their watchtime, especially on shorts ! Interact as little as possible with the video and the channels ! Don't forget about the "I'm not interested" button for shorts, accessible by clicking the 3 dots on your up right screen corner. Your time is what makes them flourish. By clicking the "not interested" button, you prevent that channel from getting more of your time. Fight on, friends :D

[@Lizard_Ri]

The im not interested button sadly barely works, the channels keep popping from what i saw

[@CallMeRabbitzUSVI]

​@@Lizard_RiYep same here

[@toolbaggers]

Anything made, hosted or narrated by SIMON WHISTLER should be reported as SPAM.

[@eVill420]

@@toolbaggers bro is an actual hate campaign lol

[@Steampuke]

@@Lizard_Ri it works, they're just always different channels. There are hundreds of them at all times

[@WxChasing]

Kyle, thanks for all your hard work on this video! It was great working with you to shine light on this dark area.

[@Collin_Cooper]

Thank you for all you do! I’m a fan, and judging by the way you described another fellow Storm-chaser KZbinr, thanks for looking after Pecos Hank and others!

[@WxChasing]

Thank@@Collin_Cooper @pecoshank can either confirm or deny. :)

[@jamesisdunne]

You’re doing some incredible work Brandon, glad to see someone fighting the good fight against this slurry of content theft and sleazy creators.

[@DerSolinski]

Google has ContentID that's more or less another rogue agent. Doesn't help that with identifying? Maybe it's time to bash Google a bit like the music and movie industry did. They enable the bs. They proud themselves with adv AI maybe they should start to use it.

[@WxChasing]

Thank you@@jamesisdunne we have a really incredible team to make it possible.

[@EnderSnailz]

Fun fact: KZbin tends to wait 5 seconds (including adds) to count a view, so you could totally go to one of the mentioned channels (pause your search and watch history before hand) and report some videos as spam over a few days.

[@PabloEdvardo]

or just disable autoplay in your browser of choice. I have firefox configured to not autoplay on youtube so I can load a bunch of tabs and it only loads the thumbnail, reducing performance impact. Side benefit is you can also easily report videos without giving them views (if this post appears twice it's because the comment system was bugged)

[@MoosesValley]

Or watch the video without being logged into KZbin and then the view is not counted.

[@mr.fahrenheit7009]

Your pfp 🤢🤢🤢

[@Voyajer.]

@@mr.fahrenheit7009 🐌 boo

[@mr.fahrenheit7009]

@@Voyajer. seethe

[@mattyb584]

A year later and these channels are still up for the most part. Guess youtube could not care less?

[@thataytay]

I love how you and Tom Scott has been uploading the absolute MOST interesting, entertaining, but most importantly, educational videos! 10 years of education. I wonder how much you two have influenced millions of people on topics. Truly beautiful 😊💕

[@russellscott3758]

I actually came here to see if anybody else picked up on that little snippet! Love them both!

[@menjolno]

When AI even does a little damage to big youtubers, they cry out oceans. Tom scott and his other channels are just as evil as politicians and billionaires

[@mydowidoipowido2558]

@@menjolno Aa yes, whataboutism

[@menjolno]

@@mydowidoipowido2558 you are a billionaire

[@mydowidoipowido2558]

@@menjolno Of course I am

[@CharlieTheAstronaut]

2:58 Love how they use "Jack of all trades" as an insult without knowing the full saying: "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."

[@Guts240]

I'm so glad someone is addressing this. The internet is dying,

[@XioJN]

It's not dying but changing

[@IneffableMasquerade]

​@@XioJNit's definitely dying, as it's getting much closer to dead internet theory. We're experiencing the consequences of cooperate greed enabling this theory to thrive and the internet will eventually be essentially dead, run exclusively by bots and engagement farms for monetary gain and political power. Sure, many are fighting back and trying to change it's course off of death, but denying that it isn't dying in a way is inaccurate.

[@CounterYoloGaming]

It's sad a company like Viral DRM had to come about because YT wouldn't make a proper system to help honest content creators. Thank you for the amazing work Kyle!!!

[@securi-t]

People using "fair use" thinking that will excuse them of liability remind me of the "sovereign citizen" goobers. They use legal terminology to sound legit but are DEEP in Dunning-Kruger territory.

[@rmsgrey]

I suspect the big players in this area know full well that what they're doing is anything but fair use, but cynically figure that most people will give up and go away if they just wave around semi-plausible sounding arguments long enough.

[@devinward461]

"No copyright infringement intended"

[@Bob-nc5hz]

As Kyle noted here, as with counter-notifications they probably don't believe a word of it and know they are wrong, *but* if that stops just a few people from going to the next step it's free money.

[@davechongle]

unfortunately most of these channels are outside the jurisdiction of US courts, the most that could happen to them is getting their channel taken down. there is no recourse besides the deletion of videos and channels. youtube needs to step up, but that will cost more money than it would make. and since when have they stepped up for anything?

[@Ellwood420]

There was something like the 5 min crafts debunked by 'how to cook that' that went really deep into trying to link multiple channels together and reporting them. Her finding was that these channels all make KZbin tons and tons of money, so they're less inclined to take them down.

[@Sibylite]

Honestly, this make me somewhat happy that someone found this happening. It also means the science communicator niche on here isn't oversaturated. Thank you Kyle from someone that just started in the Planetary/Earth/Climate Science niche. Seriously.

[@coal.sparks]

It's always nice when you identify a problem and discover someone else is already working on it. Especially one that is as critical as this one.

[@SpareTimeProjects1]

This goes even deeper with music copyright companies slapping channels with unfounded copyright claims diverting all the money to the company and then having to reverse the claim but never sending the stolen money to the creator

[@sihamhamda47]

You can even get claimed when you randomly humming or whistling in your videos

[@astupidlylongnamethatstoolong]

​@@sihamhamda47if you made a hum that vaguely resembles theirs even on different notes? Striked.

[@MrGrimsmith]

That's a nightmare one, I remember hearing The Mighty Jingles (games and general Royal Navy reminiscing) talking about getting copyright struck for using "Heart of Oak" performed by the Royal Marines Marching Band. This, in itself, is fair enough as it is a copyrighted performance. It's just it was claimed by a company in China. Not His Majesty's Royal Marine Commando, the actual owners of the copyright. YT just takes the claim and then does nothing to verify it. That's where the onus should be, confirming if it is in fact a valid claim before taking action but that involves people, not the almighty algorithm.

[@ryan.noakes]

It's absolutely insane how prevelant this is. May the hard work being done to fight it be fruitful and we see KZbin make a massive overhaul of their policies to prevent this kind of thing vs what appears to be a tacet encouragement...

[@menjolno]

Science channels are not spam or fake. Stop DRM

[@TheSecretsoftheUniverse]

Thank you so much Kyle! We were discussing this issue with our voiceover artist a few days ago too. It's really maddening. It takes so much effort for coming up with a perfect script that not only retains the audience, but also explains the science/discovery in a smooth manner. And these channels just take 10 minutes to steal that, upload on theirs, and get hundreds of thousands of views with their poor, clickbait thumbnails. We hope this gets resolved soon.

[@itsmini6175]

Your channel is part of the problem. Nothing but conspiracy garbage

[@flamingburitto]

Your channel seems to be part of the problem. I watched a few of your videos and you're no different.

[@jupi3832]

@@flamingburitto Glad you saw it , too. Black and White Logo, Generic name, and OH LOOK ALL THE SAME RECYCLED AI CONTENT FROM ALL THOSE OTHER TRASH CHANNELS.

[@Artak091]

If youtube would bring back the down vote button it'd help solve scammers. Yes I know add-ons bring it back but not everyone has those downloaded.

[@amanawolf9166]

It's a double-edged sword. Though a valuable tool, I doubt it would solve the problem. What we really need is for KZbin to care about legitimate creators vs. the cash-grab scammers, but KZbin isn't in it for creativity. At least, not anymore. KZbin is in for the clicks/ad-rev.

[@KevinJDildonik]

And what happens when the old people and TikTok kids upvote these videos because they don't know any better?

[@skurdibbles7913]

just bring back the reply video feature

[@Artak091]

@KevinJDildonik nothing changes, that's already happening. What's missing is the otherside ratio'ing it.

[@davidbyrnes8541]

And then the scammers would create bots to downvote the original content just like they do to upvote/view their own content

[@thesuitablecommand]

Fight the good fight! AI is a powerful tool, and we as a society need to crack down against people who abuse it for personal gain, especially when done at the expense of others.

[@bookman7409]

I suspect that an AI can also be trained to hunt down and identify AI-generated content. You're right to blame the people, since evil's never intrinsic to the tool, that's found in those who use it against others for personal reasons, personal gain included. Just remember that man is not the rational animal, because man is really the rationalizing animal, and thus do monsters sleep soundly at night, having rationalized it all away from themselves.

[@Mortalrigger]

One thing KZbin could do immediately to help stem this problem is to give us the "don't recommend this channel" option on every viewing page. Currently the only time that option is available to me is in the home page. I very rarely see these spam channels on that page however, and most often I find that they end up in the auto play que. I'm not sure why, but KZbin will spam me with these spam channels, sometimes trying to play the same channel 10 or more times in a day, but still it almost never shows up on the home page. In some cases this will go on for months. Blocking the channel doesn't help, and even on the rare occasions I've seen them pop up on that home page and clicked don't recommend, it'll still play their videos and even worse, it'll resume mid sentence 45 min into a 4hr video... Even when I've eliminated one of these, after a seemingly random period of time, KZbin seems to undo my Do Not Recommend selection, and starts spamming me again with the same channels. I think the algorithm gets itself stuck in a loop, based on the fact that it already played something at you, it presumes that it should keep doing it. Especially if you were say, in the shower and couldn't skip it immediately. Or if say you fell asleep, and it got into one of those auto play loops, convincing itself you want more of this garbage content. The only way I've found to even remotely fix this is to go into the watch history and erase everything from a given channel, or in extreme cases to just delete my entire watch history. That really sucks to do, and it doesn't really fix the problem.

[@a64738]

Yes... I have had to erase entire history several times to get rid of horrible youtube channels that for example tortures animals to pretend they "resque" them and I accidentally watched a little of the video, then youtube keep spamming me with these horrible injured animals forever...

[@miashinbrot8388]

Thank you for doing this, and please do keep us updated.

[@buruzn09]

We need someone like Viral DRM to also work to protect Fair Use from copyright trolls as well. Copyright abuse is absolutely vile, regardless of whether it’s stealing content or falsely claiming content.

[@WxChasing]

As part owner of Viral DRM, I agree. The amount of companies falsely claiming works and committing fraud by falsely claiming revenue is also an epidemic. We are fighting this battle as well but we are a small company and have capacity issues on both fronts.

[@robertjenkins6132]

Do you not understand that your goals are contradictory? Kyle Hill wants to make it more difficult for people to claim fair use; he wants it to be easier to get channels deleted; he wants it to be easier for people to get sued. He is literally complaining that not enough channels are being deleted. What effect do you think that will have? Do you actually believe that this will result in _more_ protection for fair use? These copyright protection people are not on the side of fair use. They never were. They never will be. The idea of "fair use" is too ambiguous for them. They want clear cut copyright protection without any kind of ambiguity. They want to be able to claim your revenue, delete your channel, or sue you if you use even a second of their footage. They want everything to have DRM in it so that if the Internet goes down and the license can't be checked with the server, then you can't watch the content that you paid for and supposedly "own".

[@buruzn09]

@@robertjenkins6132 they’re not contradictory. The goal is for Fair Use to actually be fair use, not theft in one direction or the other.

[@alanahschmitz5552]

The amount of terminally online words and phrases used in that email speaks volumes about who runs these channels. Imagine using the word "leftoid" and expecting people not to laugh in your face.

[@IntiNikelaos]

Also, saying that the people at Kursgezagt are leftoids when they are literally funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Probably an alt-right idiot

[@kaemincha]

its no wonder these people are morally bankrupt in a copyright sense if thats how they speak to another person

[@alaskanbullworm5500]

The one that gleefully admitted to being a scammer reeks of anti social personality disorder. Also having that much contempt for those you consider sheep/ inferiors correlates pretty heavily with right wing politics, so I’m not surprised the miserable loser resorted to using “leftoid” as an insult.

[@inyrui]

"Clownworld" and calling everyone NPCs screams 4chan incel lmao

[@fungo6631]

@@inyrui Or some regular Russian IT guy.