Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well. Today, we have to talk about a long-running issue on the YouTube platform.

Now, I want to say off the jump, I'm not here to bully YouTube or hate on YouTube unfairly. I am a long-time YouTube user. I enjoy using YouTube. I'm glad I've been able to build a brand and a livelihood for myself here.

And there are some recent decisions on the platform that I am very much a pro, for example, YouTube taking a much stronger stance than I think a lot of social media brands are out there against AI, making it more difficult now to monetize it on the website, apparently.

The issue I'm talking about here is a problem that is very much exacerbated by record labels and rights holders, not YouTube itself. What I'm discussing here are issues of copyright, copyright claims, fair use – and none other than the GOAT, my uncle, Rick Beato himself discussed this recently in a video talking about his own experience with fair use on the YouTube platform.

I know there are some people here who watch my channel, who are in the comments, who don't necessarily agree with everything Rick does on his channel as far as his opinions and point of view go. But the fact still remains that Rick does make good quality content.

He makes thoughtful content that comes from a place of passion. And given the critiques and observations and analysis that often comes with anything on his channel, from an interview to an entire musical breakdown of a particular pop song, the videos he makes and uploads on YouTube on a regular basis, most definitely without question, pass the muster of fair use. You can see it on the screen here.

What Rick is doing is most definitely, undeniably, an example of fair use. And featuring and showcasing the musical works of the artist that Rick is talking about or talking to in his videos, I would say, is paramount to the quality of his videos and how effective they are in hooking in viewers and getting them to really see and grasp what it is he's getting at in his videos. I just don't think Rick's videos would function the same if he was not able to incorporate various clips of the songs and are in music that he's referencing.

To further bolster that Rick's content functions as an example of fair use, in no ways are his videos meant to, or even are they functionally a replacement for the music he is discussing. People are actually interested in the songs he's pulling apart, or the artists he is featuring aren't going to his videos to be exposed merely to those works and then going on about their day. If they actually want to hear that music, the primary place to go and do that is either on a physical copy they have purchased or through a streaming platform.

When I want to hear Sergio Mendes's "Never Going to Let You Go", I'm going to go on Apple Music to go hear that. I'm not going to go to Rick Beato's video, breaking it down as the most complex pop song ever. So again, Rick's content doesn't exist merely to replace the experience of consuming the art itself that he is talking about.

Now, everything I'm saying up to now in this video might sound annoying or obvious or like I'm just belaboring the point or delaying or wasting time. But no, I'm pointing all of this out and illustrating it to say that what is obvious to you and what is clear to you reading this is apparently not clear to the copyright holders of the music Rick is talking about in his videos.

Despite Rick's content not being a replacement for the music he's discussing and always featuring a healthy amount of critical analysis and critique, Rick, over the years on his channel, has still faced countless, countless strikes and revenue claims from labels and copyright holders. And as he says in this video I was referring to earlier, it's to the point where he's made little to nothing off of some of the biggest videos on his channel.

"Over the course of my channel, I've made some videos, actually a bunch of videos related to YouTube content ID claims and record labels, not only claiming videos, but blocking them. Now, for years, I didn't do anything about these content ID claims. Anytime I got one, whoever made them made all the money from my videos. And this is hundreds and hundreds of videos. Some videos would get 20 copyright claims on them, content ID claims. Meaning if I did a top 20 countdown, I get 20 content ID claims, and the 20 labels would split the money of my video, so I'd make no money on them. Some videos that I've made – let's say I do a top 10 countdown on Spotify, maybe eight of the songs will have a content ID claim, but two of them don't for whatever reason, they never got around to it. So you fight those eight claims, then you win those, but then six months later, two more claims go in, you have to fight those. So it's a constant battle." - Rick Beato

And recently, he has had to bring in a lawyer to basically fight off these hundreds of claims for him. As a result of that, he's finally seeing some semblance of relief. But still, it's absolutely positively insane and ridiculous that it's even gotten to this point.

And look, I'm not just highlighting this because I think it's specifically unfair to Rick for this to be happening to him. This is an issue that impacts the wider YouTube platform and any creator on it who tries to build a brand on critiquing media in any way, shape, or form.

I mean, we even face these issues over on this channel, and occasionally on my main channel, too, despite the fact that I pretty much do everything I can to avoid having to put any copyrighted material in my videos. On the rare occasions that I do, me and also Austen is the person who's going out there and responding to a lot of these revenue claims and sometimes DMCA strikes or outright blockages of our video from being viewed.

But yeah, when we are featuring a fair amount of copyrighted material in a video, which obviously it's music, it is media I am critiquing, nine times out of 10, we are seeing some claim or strike or something. In fact, we're just anticipating it ahead of time and expecting that if we're going to do a track review video or maybe like an Instagram reels music reaction, there's going to be some claim at some point, and we're going to have to respond to that as a result. Despite the fact that, again, even if in the video with it being an Instagram Reels reaction, it's a little silly, it's a little funny, it's still an opinion, it's still an observation, it's still a critique, it's still a reaction.

It actually gets even crazier than that, too. I think one of the most recent claims we had to fight against on the channel was me singing a little tiny vocal lick at the start of my Doeche hate video. And that, apparently, according to the labels, was enough to ding for a claim. "My Anxiety." Yeah, you sing a very much not accurate vocal lick from an artist, and we want to take all your money now.

And what's even more egregious and ridiculous about this is that somebody making a claim like this, even if it's on a video like one of my Instagram reels videos, a single artist featured on that or a rights holder can say, "Yeah, even though I'm featured as one of many artists in this one single video, I want to claim most of the revenue from it." So the relative amount of your copyrighted work to the actual length of the video doesn't even matter in terms of what ridiculous claim you can make.

And believe it or not, a single rights holder can go as far as to claim the entire revenue of the video, even though on YouTube it says that they're just merely seeking a revenue split. Because, yeah, the split doesn't need to be 50/50. It can be 100 and zero. So if you are a reactor or somebody who comments on media in any way, shape, or form, and you're seeing these revenue share claims being put on your content, and you're not actually looking into them, you could be seeing some really nasty splits.

I hop on here to confirm a lot of what Rick is saying in this video is true, to also let you guys know that much of this stuff has been a bit of a pain in the ass for us over here, too. And from there, further highlight how potentially destructive and disruptive this thing is for the broader music community on YouTube. I know for a fact that there are a lot of smaller reactors and commentators out there who, for the most part, are just biting the bullet on this stuff, quietly fighting many of these claims or abuse of revenue shares where and when they can. They're just not saying anything about it or telling their audience or probably presuming that if they spoke out about it, then nobody would care.

And sure, while it is true, there are a lot of great evils going on in the world right now, and I'm sure you guys have more to worry about in your lives than how much revenue we're making on a video over here on the @fantano channel. I would still, though, like to paint a broader picture here and say that this ties into conversations we have been having on this channel, where you guys have echoed these sentiments in the comments of my videos.

You say that the state of music discourse is not really great right now, that across social media platforms, we're seeing more astro-turf discourse, more paid discourse, more botted discourse, more shallow discourse. The only way to truly and effectively combat that is with longer form content that actually inspires thought and passion for the music that we are listening to every day, be that an article, or a podcast, or a YouTube video, or whatever.

You're not going to see or be presented with as much of that discourse if labels through abusing the YouTube copyright claim system are disincentivizing it monetarily, making it difficult for young, thoughtful, up-and-coming creators to build their own platform and brand because the moment that they try to actually engage with and showcase the music that they're talking about, they are punished instantaneously, and any money they would have made off of that video just goes right to the label.

I should also note that incessantly filing these claims against actual instances of fair use, knowingly or unknowingly, is actually illegal. But labels and copyright holders are just routinely blanket grabbing any piece of content claiming it instantly without actually thinking about whether or not it does count as fair use. And they're just hoping to scrape up as much money as possible through that process, presuming that content creators aren't going to go the extra couple of steps to actually defend themselves and their use of whatever music or media they are discussing and incorporating in their content.

Because honestly, there are a lot of YouTubers and content creators of all stripes that don't know what the hell fair use is. They're not educated on it. They don't really understand. Sometimes the back-end on YouTube, when you have to fill out these responses and fight these revenue claims, it looks a little scary, and it seems like, "Oh, no. If I file this and I put my name in here and my signature and my information, am I going to end up in court and get sued into oblivion?" So again, it can be very worrisome and very scary, especially for somebody who is young and is just starting out.

And we should frankly be making it easier for this discourse to happen, not harder, and giving reactors and commentators the financial freedom to actually make the content and give the opinions that they truly feel, which is much better than the current dynamic where you have reactors and commentators routinely getting ripped off. And then when some of them actually want to start making some money off of their content, they're doing it by way of taking a check from the label to promote and speak positively about some up and coming artist they're trying to break and make it seem like there's an organic buzz around them because, oh, look, this reactor is talking about them after we paid them to do so.

Lame. Let me know what you guys think about all of this in the comments down below. I'm sure you will. You guys are the best.

Anthony Fantano. Music. Forever.