Setback and Disappointment- Don’t Take No For An Answer

Two days after creating my YouTube channel and posting my very first video, I received a notice from YouTube that they had deleted my channel because it contained links to content that violated their community guidelines. All that work. Gone! Extremely disappointing.

However, I am not used to taking “No” for an answer. YouTube noted that if I disagreed with their decision I could appeal. Appeal? Now you’re talking my language! 😀 I went to their Community Guidelines and Policies and clicked on External links. Their External Links Policy says “Links that send users to content that violates our Community Guidelines are not allowed on YouTube.” I had no idea what they were talking about. I thought hard about my video and realized that I mentioned towards the end I had a Blog page and mentioned the Blog address and had text appear with the URL. Surely that wasn’t the problem.

I read their Community Guidelines and the link to my Blog was not in any category that violated their guidelines. I also saw that in their Note: “Affiliate content doesn’t violate YouTube’s Terms of Use. Excessively posting affiliate content in dedicated accounts may violate our policies around spam.” Arguably my Blog could be considered Affiliate Content. I emailed them my appeal and informed them I did not violate their external link policy as the link to my Blog was for my personal affiliate marketing business. I received a reply a couple days later wherein they confirmed my channel did NOT violate their Community Guidelines. My channel was reinstated and my video was there, along with the link to my Blog. Success!

Lesson here is to always challenge a situation if you do not think it is right. Even if it is from a behemoth like YouTube. However, before you submit a challenge or appeal, make sure you have the facts in your favor. As an attorney I hate to lose. Fortunately, I rarely have. However, that wasn’t due to luck. I follow two principles that apply to business as well: Never ask a witness a question you do not already know the answer to; and before you take a case, make sure you have the facts on your side. Looking at their prohibited practices under External Links, I saw I did not violate any policy. I also saw that my Blog would likely fall under the Affiliate exception. Thus I based my appeal on their error with the facts on my side. I won. Now I could get back to creating and posting content on my YouTube channel.

Ah, but the story does not stop here. The plot thickens. In my previous post I mentioned that after I uploaded my video to my YouTube channel, I created a shorter video and uploaded that to my FB page. No problem with that. However, my FB page is not just about my affiliate marketing business, but as my intro says, I also have a passion for traveling, flying and helping others. Part of my FB page will also show who I am and my life. I took a road trip to my hometown of Cedar Rapids, IA the last week of September for personal business that I may share in a later post. On the way up I stopped at the “World’s Largest Truck Stop” on Interstate 80, which is called Iowa 80. It is a massive place and an institution in Iowa. I took a couple very short video clips and when I got back I used CapCut to make a short video to post on my FB page.

As I mentioned earlier, CapCut is a free video editing app that offers a variety of tools for cutting, merging, and enhancing videos, including filters, effects, music, transitions, text, and stickers. The last thing I did with my video was add a soundtrack to it. I went in and selected Sounds and that gave me several music categories to choose from, and recommended specific music to choose. For my video, since it was of an Iowa truck stop I did a search for The Eagles, as that is one of my favorite bands. I chose Peaceful, Easy Feeling and then edited the soundtrack to match my short video. I had thought everything on CapCut was copyright legitimate, which means I could use it royalty free. When I was satisfied with my video I posted it to my FB page.

The next day I saw the soundtrack had been muted because it violated a copyright agreement. Now I had a video with no sound. Again, more work, gone. This time, however, I wasn’t able to appeal the copyright issue so I went back in to CapCut and pulled up my saved video to edit it. I deleted the current audio track and chose the Trending genre. That pulled up a list of audio that could be used without any copyright issues. I chose Refreshing Western Pop Music and added that audio and then edited the soundtrack to fit the video length. Done. I chose trending sound because using trending audio or sounds helps your video gain popularity and may maximize your presence on FB if you use it early enough before it becomes saturated.

I then went to my FB page to my October 3rd post. I clicked on the three dots at the upper right (. . .) and that gave me a list of options. I selected “edit post” and then deleted the video. By doing this I was able to keep the original posting date of October 3rd. I then uploaded the new video. Then I clicked Save. Voila! Problem fixed. Of course FB sent a message that it was under review, like last time so I had to wait. Less than 5 minutes later it was approved and ready to view with the new soundtrack.

The lesson here was to make sure if you use audio on your video, it does not run afoul of any copyright laws or policy. Normally each app will let you know what is acceptable to use. Appealing a copyright issue is a difficult task and rarely successful, especially since our Constitution specifically provides copyright protection. Yes. Article I of our Constitution sets forth all of the Legislative powers of our Government. Article I, Section 7 specifically notes our Legislative branch of Government will promote the “Progress of Science and Useful Arts , by securing for Limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Courts later read that to include music. Copyright, Patent and Trademarks is a whole area of law I do not deal with. It was much easier just to edit my video and make it compliant.

Now you not only have a bit of obscure Constitutional trivia to use at your next party, and perhaps win a free drink, but also what not to do in posting video to your page. Make sure you comply with their policy and if you use photographs or music/audio, it is royalty free and copyright compliant. I hope this saves you time and frustration when you decided to create and post your first video. As I venture into this realm, I will be sharing my successes, and even more importantly, my failures, so you can learn from me. This voyage is starting to get interesting as we explore the core of traffic generation. Now on to our next adventure. See you soon!