If I Get One I Will Wear It Proudly

As several of you know by now I'm locked into a battle with You Tube. This may not seem like a big deal to a lot of you but it is to those of us who have to deal with them from a certain angle. Most people when you talk about You Tube see it from the other side of things.  You want to know how to do something, watch a movie, pull up your favorite music video, or watch one of their comedic skits they have on there you can and it’s different.  You love them.  Well outside of the commercials you have to sit through.
If you’re a large company or a big draw you get all the promotion you could want, even if you don’t need it, while the independent artist, regardless of what it is they do, is lucky if someone even finds their videos without specifically looking it up under our names and sometimes even that can be a challenge.  It would be nice if it was done in a more equitable manor but life isn’t fair and most of us accept that.  We get it even.  We can only hope that one day we might make it to the first or even the twentieth video to pop up when someone randomly looks something up.  For most of us that will never happen and again we get it.  If I had a million dollars to drop on promotions I might make it to number fifty on the list but I wouldn’t even count on that.  Since I don’t have that million to drop anyway it really doesn’t matter.
However when someone lays claim to your intellectual property and you’re expected, no made to feel intimidated, to accept it then that’s something altogether different.  Four different companies have laid claim to the intellectual property in one of my videos.  Always the same one.  Then when you do have the guts to dispute the big money company’s claim, yes they have all been big money, they post it as pending while the owner of the copyright reviews it.  The owner of the copyright?  I am the damn owner of the copyright but I have to wait on someone else to come back and tell me yes or no on whether I get to keep my work.  If they say no You Tube will block me using my own work and this other company can use it anyway they want and make money on it.  If they want to push it far enough the two and a half pages they are claiming are theirs, out of my book of close to three hundred pages they can now sue me for any royalties I might have made from the sales of my book.  That’s right, they can sue me.
You would be surprised at how many people are having to deal with this and are losing money to You Tube and Google with some of their practices.  Yes I’m fighting back and I’m fighting dirty.  Oh everything within legal parameters, but dirty.
So please continue to watch your shows, how tos, movies, music videos but remember there is another side to You Tube and Google.  Those of us on the other side are losing money, our work, and having our honor, integrity, and creativity called into question.  Please don’t take that wrong because I’m not calling you out for what you do just please understand that behind all the things you enjoy there are people fighting and losing a battle against large companies and no one is standing up for them.  In a lot of cases they aren’t even standing up for themselves because they are afraid to and with reason.  No one wants a black mark on their name and that is the ultimate threat that You Tube uses against you.  If I get one, and I probably will, I will display it with pride because I will have gotten it for not backing down.  I’m a fighter and I will not go quietly into that dark night.