Originally Posted by
Cgcc
Derek, interestingly I have some experience with this. A family member inadvertently took a phone video of a very funny / surprisingly incident involving a chicken. It went on Youtube and scored millions of views. He was contacted by a mob that buys the rights to these, and then they take the clip and try and market it around, get even more views etc. They pocket the revenue and pay a royalty to him.
It seems to work well - they do things your average Joe can't do at scale and as a business - he gets a regular cut that was freely bargained for.
One thing that we noticed was that plenty of copyright infringers pinched the video and re-posted it under other accounts et cetera. What it emerges happens is the purchaser of the rights get onto it, contact Youtube, and if they agree the video stays up but all revenue is diverted to the true owner. I don't know the details although assume the owner could also elect to have it shut down - but why not leave it up if it's just for clicks and ads, and they get the dough.
The outcome is that there are plenty of knock-off versions of the clip, including in compilations, but the revenue is policed and where detected goes back to the owner. If you came across the clip in its many locations you'd think the owner is getting ripped off but in truth (as in so many things in life when non-trivial or easily obtained money is involved) it's more complicated.
I only mention that because, since then, I have been far more relaxed when I've noticed stolen/copied videos.