Jenny Nicholson Calls out Major Issue With YouTube

Jenny Nicholson called out a major issue with YouTube last week and why content creators like herself are looking to other platforms to make their living. Nicholson revealed that her most recent video, “The Church Play Cinematic Universe,” was in dispute over a copyright claim that she said was made “in bad faith.” That seriously impacted her income from a long and laborious project.

Like many other content creators, Nicholson relies on income from advertisements on YouTube. Since most of her views come in the days and weeks after a video is released, a copyright claim during this time can cost her the majority of her income from a project that she may have spent weeks or months preparing. There is no way to recoup this loss, even though most of these copyright claims are dropped. In the meantime, Nicholson’s video got over 1.7 million views and she was hardly able to earn a few dollars from the ad revenue.

I'm p sure the limited monetization is up to the discretion of the claimant; I've had previous claims where the video is fully monetized, it just goes into escrow for 30 days until the money is released (tbh inevitably to me, because I've never actually violated copyright)

— Jenny Nicholson (@JennyENicholson) July 28, 2022

“This is why people use Patreon!” Nicholson exclaimed when sharing the information on Twitter. For those that don’t know, Nicholson is famous for making long-form media reviews and analysis, abiding by the fair use guidelines to ensure that she is not in violation of any copyrights. However, copyright holders can still make a claim against a YouTuber like Nicholson at almost no cost to themselves.

Over on Patreon, Nicholson offers six membership tiers for her hardcore fans who want to support her directly. The perks of these tiers include exclusive videos, previews, being named in the credits at the end of each video and the ability to vote in polls on what future videos will be about. This is a common arrangement for content creators like Nicholson, and as these YouTubers often say, it is helpful in ensuring a stable stream of income while ad revenue can be fickle due to copyright claims and algorithm quirks.

Yeah, I always feel bad withholding a video for a whole month when it's technically complete. But that's what I did on my Vampire Diaries video, just made it exclusive to patrons in that time, and it was honestly a huge boost to my patreon so that might be the move from now on https://t.co/CBSnrhLiPP

— Jenny Nicholson (@JennyENicholson) July 28, 2022

In follow-up tweets, Nicholson explained that sometimes copyright claims merely withhold the money temporarily, releasing it once the claim is inevitably dropped. However, in other cases the claim can trigger YouTube to limit the ads on a video altogether, meaning that there could be little or no payout for all those views.

In a later tweet, Nicholson mused that a paid subcription platform like Patreon can help mitigate these losses by forcing viewers to pay to see it. She admitted that this has worked for her before and said that she may be forced to use this strategy going forward. Many commenters vowed to pay for her content in the future.