YouTubers frustrated by the site’s anti-piracy policies are a bit naive * TorrentFreak

Twenty, thirty, or even forty years ago, movie piracy was done relatively quietly between trusted suppliers, friends and family.

With the rise of the Internet, however, the discussion of how to get movies without paying for them has opened up to the masses.

Around 2010, the massive success of YouTube and social media ripped off any remaining mystique, with a seemingly oblivious new generation openly flaunting their hacking tools and activities.

On the one hand, this has undoubtedly opened up piracy to a much wider audience, increasing adoption and fueling the rise of countless Kodi addons as well as a series of pirate-focused IPTV apps and services. On the other hand, it presented a significant challenge to groups in the entertainment industry, a challenge that was to elicit a strong response.

After following the illicit content market for decades, we predicted six years ago that massive access to piracy would have consequences, but the seemingly unstoppable train continued nonetheless.

This included a large number of YouTubers who were using the platform to openly promote and sell their pirate IPTV services and, as the lawsuits against YouTubers now show, it didn’t go particularly well. But these aren’t the only issues with YouTube and piracy.

YouTube tries to distance itself from promoting piracy

Over three years ago, we thought that YouTube would eventually lose patience with users trying to create tutorial-based channels on hacking and promoting pirate apps and services. Indeed, soon after, the platform began to ban people from operating in this niche.

More recently, YouTube has made its position clear, stating that it will no longer tolerate videos showing users “how to use apps, websites or other information technology to gain free and unauthorized access to material. audio content, audiovisual content, full video games, software, or streaming services that normally require payment.

For anyone who wants to abide by YouTube rules, the settings are pretty clear – just don’t do the above and you’ll get out of trouble. However, there are many channels that have succeeded in making the promotion of hacking tools a commercial activity and therefore are trying to find workarounds to continue doing what they were doing before, without suffering the consequences.

Waiting for YouTube to be flexible is just naive

A current example is the videos posted on various YouTube channels relating to the Unlinked, FileSynced, and Applinked Android apps. These are new tools that have stepped in to fill the void left by Filelinked, which was shut down by the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment to facilitate access to hacking apps.

After posting videos to these tools, several YouTubers reported breaking the YouTube community guidelines described above. Some argue that these tools are generic downloaders that can be used to install any software on an Android device, not specifically hack tools. As a result, YouTube is unreasonable in demonetizing or removing such videos, they argue.

Unfortunately, some of the YouTubers’ own videos tell a different story. To make the applications easier to find, the above tools exploit a code system, with specific codes relating to specific repositories. The most popular ones contain lots of hacking tools and YouTubers promote these codes in their videos as hot property.

In some cases, these codes are promoted somewhat generically, but it is extremely telling that in order to show what the repositories are in, massive redaction has to take place to hide the huge lists of hacking apps so that YouTube does not remove. not or demonetize the videos. (example below)

Whether or not one agrees with YouTube’s policies (and many do not), it is naive to think that YouTube does not notice these attempts to sidestep its community standards. And that brings us to the key point here. It’s not about what is legal or not, it’s just about what kind of content YouTube will accept and what it will not.

YouTube platform, YouTube rules

While there is no shortage of people speaking out against YouTube for its “censorship” of free speech, it is not that type of problem. At least to our knowledge, the people who post hacking tutorials and information about pirate apps on their own sites are able to do so, even without anti-piracy companies getting involved. Considering the environment on YouTube right now, this seems the only option.

The problem only gets worse when people post “banned content” on YouTube and then expect YouTube to pay them to do so. Right now, at least one YouTuber is encouraging people to pressure YouTube on Twitter in case any videos YouTube doesn’t like are removed from the platform.

Regardless of the fact that this action is unlikely to work in the majority of cases, people should understand that YouTube doesn’t have to justify itself in any way. In short, YouTube can do whatever it wants and when YouTubers are operating in questionable niches, they’ll have a huge job trying to explain how to get out of the problem.

In short, if people want to promote or educate people about piracy, YouTube is not a long term proposition and trying to get the platform to comply with their interpretation of the rules is futile. Make a video on Netflix, Disney +, or Amazon Prime and the video will stay online. Promote tools that help people access otherwise premium content for free and video is likely to have issues.

It is important to recognize that YouTube is not a user’s website and never has been. Rules can be changed on a whim, but this specific set of rules isn’t hard to understand – unless people go out of their way to misunderstand them.