I'm probably going to have to come back
to this at least once, and probably more often, if only because I
need to inform myself a little better than I am right now.
Plus, this is being written at 1:30 AM,
which is really not the best time ever to be trying to write about
something like this.
By “this”, I mean the whole COPPA
thing that's going on with YouTube right now. My very basic
understanding of this, in a nutshell, is that COPPA is this law or
set of laws regarding how user information, and especially personal
user information, is collected, especially regarding children aged 13
and younger. It's a big no-no to collect that sort of stuff, and
Google, YouTube's parent company, got caught doing so in the worst
way they could have, to a scope I don't think I really understand.
As a result, they had to pay huge fines and change the way they run
their info gathering.
As I understand it,
and I will admit, my understading is quite limited, especially right
now, instead of going with a “man in the mirror” approach to it
and changing their own way of doing things regarding the way they
gather data, it's now up to each individual person who makes videos
to put on YouTube to decide if their videos and/or channels are
“kid/family friendly” or not. This would be a tough enough task
if it didn't come with the risk of a $42,000 fine for each video that
isn't correctly categorized and demonitization of any offending
channels that might be monetized.
I'm writing about
all this while it's on my mind right now because I've had a YouTube
channel of my own that I've been posting videos to on a somewhat
sporadic schedule for the last dozen years or so. Granted, these
aren't exactly the greatest videos ever, and there are quite a few
videos there that I probably should have taken down years ago for
other reasons.
From the looks of
things, and as I understand things right now, I'm going to have to
take them all down now, just to err on the side of caution here.
Mind you, it's not that I particularly want to. After all, this is
all coming at a time when it seems like I'm finally starting to get
the hang of the whole video thing and may have been coming up on a
point where I might have even done well to learn how to edit video
again.
Unfortunately,
that's not likely to happen now, simply because getting fined for
screwing up on even one video will pretty much ruin me. Like I ways
saying above, the fine is a little more than $42,000 per video, which
is like two and a half years' worth of income for me, and that's on a
per video basis. I've
got just shy of 130 videos on my channel, which is 130 chances for me
to mess up somehow, and I just can't afford to take the risk. Even
one mistake could potentially cost me everything I've got, and I'm
not willing to risk it all and lose it just because I absent-mindedly
dropped an F-bomb in a JM Tries video, which is something that could
very easily appeal to kids, and likely does.
So, what does this
mean for the future of my Internet media career? Well, before long,
I'll probably be making one last video to this effect and then start
taking everything down, simply because I don't have the time or
knowledge to go through all my videos and make sure they're all in
the right category. It's not that I particularly want to, mind you.
I really enjoy making videos. Have for pretty much the whole time
I've been doing them. In terms of being a producer, the only thing I
enjoy doing more than the videos is writing things like this, or the
Text Play series, and the occasional fan fiction.
But
I'm going to have to take down all my YouTube videos now simply
because I can't afford the risk of continuing on that path. I hate
that I have to quit that because I was finally starting to get
somewhere with it. Sadly, it's either quit or risk complete and
utter ruin, and I'm not up to the risk.
Now, this is hardly
a “goodbye forever” thing when it comes to video. I might find
another option that will let me continue doing something I enjoy
doing, and there might even be a slim chance I'll be able to save at
least some of the videos I've got out now. I'm not holding out much
hope, though, because the only options I know of right now that might
work for hosting platforms either want me to pay for the service,
which I can't really afford, or are not really the sort of place I'm
comfortable posting to.
There's also at
least one option I can think of where I could do at least some of
what I do on YouTube in a live format, but I've learned from
experience that I'm probably worse off trying to do live video work
than I am at doing pre-recorded stuff where I can get multiple takes.
I'm still
considering my options, of course, and haven't made any final
decisions just yet. Like I said at the top of the post, I need to
learn a little more about this before I committ to anything in this
regard.
There is a bright
spot in this, of course. Giving up on video work will give me more
time to focus on my writing again, which is something I'm usually a
lot more confident about anyway. People have been telling me I'm
good at this sort of thing since grade school, and I even went to
college in hopes of getting an actual, paying job doing this. Maybe
if I put a little more time and effort into it again, I might get
somewhere with it again.
Either way, I've
got decisions to make and things to get on with. With any luck,
we'll have good results soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment