pouët.net

So this is something that has been grinding my gears for a while now - there are YT channels like https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMagicArts/videos and https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1PYN9Cm--Nq5WAKyOSVU6suB6kWgWdgq which upload captures of demos, but with ads on top. I don't know enough of how YT monetization works to know where the ads come from, but I'm pretty sure they don't just show up by themselves - most of the demoscene capture channels don't have any. My guess is either the author enables them explicitly in hopes to make money off the content, or they upload copyrighted material (the above channel seems to have some game videos as well) which then poisons their entire channel with ads. I talked to w0lf about this and he said he doesn't enable monetization on videos of demos, but I still get ads on them.

My main issue is one in principle: I don't feel comfortable with the idea of someone making money off the stuff I made, no matter who they are, and I also don't feel comfortable people having to watch an ad for yoghurt when they try to watch a demo. (And please don't even bring up the Adblock argument.) I don't know about other sceners, but I suspect I'm not alone with this, although I'm aware there's probably a good chunk of blissful indifference as well. As a Pouet admin, optimally, if given the chance, I'd replace a video link on Pouet with one that has no ads, but in its current state of the YT API I've had trouble finding a way to figure out if a video is monetized or not. (There's also a broader discussion about capture quality and upload permissions, but let's not go there just yet.)

I'm curious how other demomakers feel about this kind of stuff - or if you care at all.

(inb4 1in10 vs capitalism)

I would imagine that quite a few recent demos use CC licenses (parties like Revision explicitely recommend this), and if it's CC-BY-NC-SA or CC-BY-NC-ND, monetization on YouTube channels would technically even be a license violation and not just something that makes the author uncomfortable.

I do care and I would definitely not approve of anyone making money off the demoscene content.

Unless it is the authors themselves, making money off their own content, which I feel is fair enough, given their investment of time and effort. I can also see some potential for people making money in the interests of community, e.g. for things like web hosting etc, but in that case it would be case by case scenario, with individual permissions granted by the authors.

Most demos don't have a license, which makes them bound by copyright - in those cases even capturing and uploading is a violation, we just turn a blind eye over it.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Demos are not merchandise.

Regarding the ads, I think they are explicitly enabled by the channel owner but I might be wrong because I never mixed demoscene stuff with other material on a youtube channel. So maybe you are right and the ads simply appears when they upload some game videos as well.

Hell, how I miss demoscene.tv and capped.tv!

I agree, I'd be pissed too if someone was making videos of my stuff and making money off of YouTube monetization, and not giving it to me.

I have a situation where someone on DeviantArt has somehow gotten hold of an old fractal landscape generator I made years ago but never completed, and has made lots of pictures of it. I contacted them, but as I figured that since the program was Freeware, it wouldn't be an issue, and in fact I'd get some publicity for my software. But now I'm wondering if the person is making money off of my software, even if it's just through pictures: http://www.deviantart.com/newest/?section=&global=1&q=neo+geo+2+landscape

I've often wondered if Demoscene stuff has always been free, so to speak. I've seen countless notices in prods that you should only pay for the disk the prod is held on, and copyright is evident, and yet I wonder how many distributors got a lot of money off these prods, not to mention distributing PD games too.

I'd prefer to control all videos myself to have a sense of quality control & ability to update it if I ever decide to make a final (HA as if I'll ever...). I'm kind of okay with other channels uploading demos given proper credit, what annoys me about e.g. w0lf's channel is that there are never any links to original downloads or sources, only more links to HIS patreon...

About this monetization aspect, does anyone have any clues as to what a typical revenue level for demoscene related videos would be?

Coz, like, someone who takes the time and effort to capture and upload hundreds of obscure demos and then gets a few euros of advertisement income because they also happened to have some gaming related shit on their channel, that's a completely different thing from scammers like that French Amiga channel with an ad every 30 seconds. In my mind, at least ;)

If they do - that's the thing, noone knows who puts the ads there and who gets the revenue.

Who's going to reach out to those guys?

Only allowed sellout in the scene are parties anyway.
(j/k)

Anyway, I don't really support making money by ads.
However I still have to say that capturing ain't always easy and it's a rather thankless job, Doing a high quality capture can some times be very tedious and some times people start assuming that "certain someone" will do a capture so they won't even bother as it's taken for granted.
Asking (asking != begging) for beer money is fine in my book if someone really does a good job with it and contributes, as it's optional at that point. This being donations/patreon/whatever..

I consider capturing a part of the game and It's a nice way to give back to the creators by making their creation more accessible and promoting it by that way (even if unintentionally). I wouldn't say it's the same if you were to insert a mandatory "ad-wall" that directly profits you.

Like this guy who just reupped my capture... At least he doesn't have any ads on it but I'm still not so cool with that since the video description omits the links to pouet, demozoo and soundcloud(soundtrack).

Regarding the original topic/question:

i been fooling around with youtube monetization lately so i can tell you a little bit more on how it works:
a) you need atleast 10.000 global views on the channel before your videos start being monetized
b) you can define to monetize all new videos uploaded by default
c) you can choose which videos to monetize and which ones not to
d) you get a copyright notification whenever a sound is recognized by the system, and that can either force the video to not be available on certain contries or auto-share the monetization your video is getting, you can also contest the copyright claim
e) it's clear that you are not allowed to monetize videos of content that you do not own the copyright for
f) there are 3 different ways to monetize videos on youtube (overlay ads, sponsored cards, skippable video ads), you might not notice imediately if a certain video is being monetized or not.

since i have all the MDT9K streams archived on youtube i can tell you that even though none of them are being monetized, some of the episodes did get copyright notices, from certain tracks that the musicians are using commercially. those videos can sometimes get ads which are monetized by the copyright claimant.

in that regard i wish youtube system would be a little more transparent for the viewer. for each video exactly saying what type of ads it has and who is getting them. would save a lot of trouble for everyone.

so how do i get the soundtracks of my demos into that system? :)

Bots bet on content; 1k+ views per dollar is considered the norm. Obscure short animations that don't relate to much in the real world should be way lower. And most demos on yt barely break 5k views, ever. So the outreach and convenience for us and everyone else provides the uploader with cents on the hour of work, fiddling with kkapture, fraps and $videoeditor. As far as that argument goes: Not really a bad deal for the creators, I think.

groepaz: you need to release your tracks in a digital distribution platform that has an agreement of revenue sharing with youtube. there are many of them around, most of them only deal with established commercial labels, not indie artists. from my research the best such platform for indies is routenote, but like i said, there are plenty of others around that i have heard other indie artists recommend.

i believe you can also claim to be an artist on youtube directly, https://artists.youtube.com/ but i haven't looked much into that side of things.

i have read on several places that you will get more % of the monetization through 3rd party digital platforms then through youtube artist program directly though.

it was probably answered above but tl;dr
you have to turn monetization on manually, by default it is off. at least this is how it was when i made my channel(s)
captain obvious, out

Hi
I do not want to earn revenue with demoscene videos.
I wanted to help people because there are some who can not record.
I'm not releasing more videos in this regard because only the problem is with it.

I found the yt (advertisements) default problem and fix it.
http://prntscr.com/f9a6ss
Check and have a nice day.

Edit: This only applies to my channel.
The others channel i don't know whose.

I don't appreciate anyone making money off my work except for myself, but I'm usually okay with people using my work for whatever if they ask. Some might remember I gave crest a hard time about selling compilation CDs which included my music sometime last decade.

That's the principal standpoint. I'm usually okay with non-profit/tiny profit schemes if I'm asked, but I want to be asked.
For example, if Annikras or RetroDemoScene had wanted to start monetizing their channels to make pocket change for the effort I'd have no problem with that as long as I'm asked beforehand.
Considering my love for sampling I also couldn't really complain if someone sampled a work of mine and made something with it. That would be total hypocrisy, and I try to avoid that.

As for demorips on YouTube.. I don't really feel it's worth the effort to investigate if there are works of mine being offered on monetized channels, especially since the amounts of money would be so small that I'd be better off working overtime in my regular job.
If I got Timbalanded I'd lawyer the fuck up.

LJ: That sounds nasty for sure and a good example of how it should not be. But there really also are a whole bunch of capture makers out there on various platforms who quite obviously spend more on the capturing than they could ever make with the max 2/300 views their videos get on average. But maybe your intros are just not obscure enough for those "good guys"? :)

in case it is your content uploaded without your consent: go to yt and claim removal there - or if you want to be nice contact the uploader first to fix it

In general I'd prefer people to not monetize with other people's works.

However I've heard that there's going to be a breakfast seminar about monetization of audiovisual art facilitated by a well-known speaker at Jumalauta Money and More party.

I do understand that you dont like other people using your prods for their personal gain/income and do want to keep control of how your work is presented online, but

a) The amount of views regarding demoscene content is low enough nobody will get rich with it. You need big popular channels for that and lets face it, demos do not attract that big of an audience. On the contrary, you might get a viewer or two from the "outside world" that wouldnt have stumbled across it otherwise.

b) Once a demo/video/whatever is "out there" its close to impossible to get it back. Sure if you can convince youtube that you own the copyright of a video/demo they will most likely put it down but thats a tedious task to do and the chance that its uploaded again (by someone else and/or in another way) is always there. Thats the internet/remix/everyonesapublisher mentality the big copyright holders are so angry about and the netizen want so badly (and I guess most of you do too if it doesnt affect demoscene stuff, do you really care if that music video you just watched was uploaded by the copyright holder or someone else?).

So, except for some extreme cases of big monetized channels using demos inbetween more popular videos or people doing really shitty captures (yeah I have some of those too, I am guilty) I dont think its worth the hassle to start a "youtube police". And thats just one platform out of many.

Best thing you can do about it is to keep the videolinks on pouet/demozoo pointing to your own or the best/most "official" capture, IMHO.

Definitely not the best thing. Two thirds of traffic on my channel containing oldschool demos comes from the Youtube suggested videos. Viewing figures from Pouet are mostly irrelevant for everything except recently released demos.