These massively popular YouTubers lost a ton of money after their work was ripped off and put on Facebook
A YouTube comedy trio's most popular video has been viewed hundreds of millions of time online, but the group is only earning a profit for fraction of those views due to Facebook's lax rules regarding intellectual property.
YouTube comedy group "SketchShe" has over 600,000 subscribers. Their most popular video, "Mime Through Time," features the three comedians lip syncing their way through songs from various decades, dressed in different costumes for each era.
While "Mime Through Time" has been viewed a staggering 29 million times on SketchShe's YouTube channel, it's even more popular on Facebook, where the video has been shared over 200 million times without their permission, the Wall Street Journal reported.
YouTuber Hank Green recently published an article on Medium, calling out Facebook platform for this practice, known in the content-creator world as "freebooting."
"They'll take the video down a couple days after you let them know," Green explained. "Y'know, once it's received 99.9% of the views it will ever receive." SketchShe's creative producer has tried to contact Facebook users who steal her client's content, but with little success, the Wall Street Journal also reported.
YouTubers earn revenue based on advertisements that run before their videos, an system that Facebook doesn't currently support. With top YouTubers like "PewDiePie" earning reported millions of dollars, there's the potential for a lot of money to be lost from freebooted Facebook videos.
Check out "Mime Through Time" here on YouTube or below.