As I have several videos on YouTube that have received several thousand views each, and as I have a degree in Film I was quite interested to hear that YouTube now offers a partner program that allows you to earn revenue from the videos you make and upload.
This is great, I can earn money for my fonejacker style videos and any old spoofs I’ve made.
My excitement was tempered slightly however when I read the terms. They are as follows:
- You create original videos suitable for online streaming.
No problem, all of my videos are original and they’ve been streamed on YouTube and Google video for some time now. - You own the copyrights and distribution rights for all audio and video content that you upload — no exceptions.
Yeah, all of my videos are original. This is all sounding good so far. - You regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of YouTube users.
Again no problem. I’ve had videos with tens of thousands of views each. - You live in the United States or Canada.
You fuckers. Why restrict this to US and Canadian residents? My videos are watched by people all over the world, where I live is irrelevant.
So you see, once again a great opportunity to make money online is denied the UK public because we’re not Americans. Wake up Google and realise that people live outside of the USA.
Darren Jamieson, aka MrDaz, is the Technical Director and co-founder of Engage Web and has been working online in a career spanning two decades. His first website was built in 1998 and is still live today.
