In 2007, YouTube started its partner program and made it possible for creators to begin making money right away. The basic gist of how this partner program works is you upload a video, turn on ads, and get paid. This program is a major reason why YouTube is the biggest video sharing platform today.
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for YouTube since implementing its partner program. There have been a ton of people ripping off other people’s content as their own. You see it everyday where someone will upload a popular music video and gain millions of views. It may not seem like a big deal when you’re monetizing off bigger companies, but it really hurts the smaller content creators who spend hours perfecting their videos.
YouTube took an initial stand against content copycats by implementing a report system that was effective in stopping thousands of channels. YouTube announced today that it is once again raising the bar for anyone who wants to make money through YouTube. You will not be able to make money through the partner program until your channel has accumulated 10,000 views. To clarify, this is 10,000 total views on your channel and not just one video. YouTube feels this is the necessary threshold to analyze whether a channel is legitimate or not.
In the upcoming weeks, YouTube is taking further measures to protect content by rolling out a review process for new applicants of the partner program. This is a measure to once again check to make sure the content follows YouTube’s policies.
YouTube is definitely taking a step in the right direction. The people complaining that this is unfair to new content creators need a reality check. If you are getting less than 10,000 total views on your channel, you probably aren’t making much anyways. If anything, YouTube is raising the standard for content creators to produce higher quality videos. The coming months will show how effective this new policy is on curbing content impersonation and the effect on new YouTubers.