Consider this. You plan to launch a new video website that will host only movie trailers and music videos. The traffic for such an ‘entertainment’ portal is almost guaranteed and there are no costs involved because you can easily find content for your portal on YouTube.
You just need to search for relevant clips on YouTube and embed them into your site. YouTube also offers content via APIs so you can just hire someone at Rent-a-Coder to write a bot that generates content for your site automatically. Once traffic builds up, place AdSense ads on the video pages and start making revenue.
Sounds like an effective business plan with no investment, right? Here are some YouTube clones that seem to follow exactly this approach:
YouTube Clone from Smashits.com
YouTube clone from Bizhat.com
If you too have plans to venture into similar territory, drop the idea now because you never know when Google pulls the plug on your site and then all embedded clips will stop working. Here’s what the updated Term of Use document from YouTube has to say:
"We will enforce our Terms of Use against, say, a website that does nothing more than aggregate a bunch of embedded YouTube videos and intentionally tries to generate ad revenue from them."
According to YouTube Terms, websites may not use the YouTube video player "for the primary purpose of gaining advertising or subscription revenue" - this is however relaxed if occasionally embed YouTube videos "in your blog to comment on it or show your readers a video you like, even if you have general purpose ads somewhere on your blog."
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/google-against-youtube-clones/5756/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Thanks for the info Amit..
I was almost about to buy a YouTube clone site!
Just droped the idea after seeing this post.
Thanks again :)
Written by SATISH — Technotip.org on 12.01.08
Hi Amit,
i am not sure if it’s updated version cause that term has been there for ages, here is a forum post made way back in january link regarding the same link.
I think i read this term last year when google acquired youtube.
Cheers
Written by Mandeep singh Bhangu on 12.01.08
Amit
so will these websites get a ban from youtube or from adsense or what else ?
Written by foxyboy on 12.01.08
What about sites like uLinkx .com ?
Written by Chetan on 12.01.08
This seems to be a good step taken by Google to safe the unique identity of Youtube.com. As the saying goes “The king makes rules for the citizens” and others have to obey”. Well I personally have no planning for video website or making you tube clones .But its seems to be a tragic news for all those persons who are invested energy, time and money in making you tube clones.
Written by Royalblogger on 12.01.08
I agree from your view that You tube clear said in terms and condition
“You agree not to use the Website, including the YouTube Embeddable Player for any commercial use, without the prior written authorization of YouTube. Prohibited commercial uses include any of the following actions taken without YouTube’s express approval”
But , I want to know , If your blog is for education purpose and you are taking youtube video for the reference in the educational post for publication of your online journal . Is it posible that youtube will ban for taking youtube video for uncommercial purpose also ?
Written by Vinod Kumar on 12.01.08
So what google is saying is us youtube but don’t link to your own video, or we will cut them from you website.
Written by jonathon on 12.01.08
How about popurls which shows video from youtube along with others like metacafe ? is this legal ?
Written by Kevin on 12.01.08