This year had its ups and downs for creators. Here’s what the Internet Creator’s Guild was up to — and how you can help support these efforts going forward.

Internet creators are basically 50,000 separate small businesses. 50,000 voices with different needs, different levels of interest, different stories, and they’re almost all too busy creating amazing things to fight for their needs until things go terribly wrong.

Currently, when creators have problems with platforms, they take care of it the main way they know how: by making content about it.

This is an effective strategy if you have a big enough audience that your concerns will be heard and if you aren’t concerned about possibly making a life-long enemy of one of the largest corporations in the world.

But this is only effective to a point. Creators can make a lot of noise on their own and hope for a response, but productive dialogues with platforms don’t often occur and therefore, things often don’t change or get fixed. Platforms can dismiss the issue as confusion, or as something happening to a small sub-set of users, or as something they need more data about in order to prove it’s happening.

But by working together, staying informed, sharing data, and speaking up as a group, creators will have increased leverage with platforms. This leads to a more sustainable profession.

Creators need a seat at the table. They need to be able to compete with major media companies, which have CEOs who talk regularly with leaders at YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, and others. Those companies can influence those platforms in a way creators haven’t been able to so far.

As of yet, no one has been advocating for the massive up-swelling of small businesses and independent artists who are building strong communities and making the best and most popular content in the world right now.

The Internet Creators Guild is advocating and building the framework for creators to gain that seat at the table.

What does that look like?

In the fall, one of the three goals we identified was to understand how creators currently work with platforms in order to build systems to better represent them. As we’ll show below, we’ve tried out a number of methods during different crises.

In the coming months, we’re going to lean into this advocacy work, focusing on proactively bringing together creators who have common concerns, and productively reacting to the next big platform development or news story. Already, multiple creator groups have reached out to us with interest in organizing around a cause or problem. As one example, we’ll be joining Fight For the Future and a large coalition of internet companies to gather creators fighting for Net Neutrality.

The methods we’ll continue using for this advocacy work include:

1. Productive dialogue between the guild and the platforms that matter most to creators, based on what we hear in surveys, Town Halls, roundtables, and other forms of outreach. We will bring to platforms feature requests, escalated concerns, and recommendations on how to implement/improve direct communication with creators.
2. Collective action with unified statements or petitions to fight to keep the systems that support the creator economy in place.
3. Communication with press, to make sure they understand how issues are affecting creators, emphasizing focus on the legitimate concerns of these businesses so that creators can stop getting trite questions about how they make money on YouTube.
4. Providing analysis and clarification in response to crises and times of confusion as a careful, expert voice that creators can trust to have only their interests at heart. Through careful investigation, outreach and data collection, and focus groups, we will be able to exert pressure on platforms to fix things quickly.

What Do We Need?

Support. If you are a creator who wants to show the world the power of creators, and you want to have an organization working on behalf of all internet creators… please join us.

We believe this organization can be a representative that looks out for the interests of creators, a megaphone for creators to respond to platforms, and an advocate for best practices that protect them.

To do that, we need financial support and participation from active members of the creator community.

Membership is more than just money. When we go to a platform to tell them that our membership is going to be angry when we tell them about a new policy or a lack of features, having the voice of a large number of creators behind it is monumental.

We will look to our membership to form opinions, choose issues, and spread information. When we do so, we need to be able to reach a wide range of the creator community when something is happening and to inform you about changes in the industry that will affect your business — and we need you to tell us when you’re facing a challenge you can’t overcome alone.

We’re in the process of adding more membership tiers, including an option for monthly giving, so you can choose the dues amount that feels right based on the stage of your career. If you join this week, your membership will be at the rate for our first year members.

With your help, we can build the framework for creators to be heard.

Creators — We cannot do this without you. Join here.

ICG’s First Year: An Overview

This was a tumultuous year in online video. Several times, creators somewhat joyfully paraded on twitter under the #YouTubeIsOverParty hashtag. That is, at least until the ad boycott started and the hashtag felt a little too close to reality.

We want to highlight some of the work the Guild did during this hectic time and what we learned from it.

De-Monetization

Earlier this year tons of creators suddenly got emails saying that their videos had suddenly been de-monetized. It seemed like a massive change and people were furious.

The Internet Creators Guild got to the bottom of what was going on and explained that YouTube had started de-monetizing videos years ago, but were just now instituting a tool that would notify you and allow you to appeal de-monetization. The change was good! The communication was horrible. This incident made creators more aware of YouTube’s monetization systems and advertising guidelines.

ICG helped clearly communicate what was happening, and creators trusted our voice as a source of insight different than a platform that has its own interests.

Unsubscription

About halfway through the year, many creators began reporting that their audiences were saying they had been unsubscribed from their favorite YouTube channels. The ICG has continued to track this and collect data, making sure it got to the right teams at YouTube. We were not able to identify concrete examples of subscriptions being removed. To be clear, we have every incentive to go after platforms when things go wrong, but we have been unable to find verifiable evidence in this case.

We were able to work with YouTube to look across the experiences of a wide range of creators in this situation.

Restricted Mode

As it became clear, thanks to the work of Rowan Ellis and others, that YouTube’s Restricted Mode (which exists to help convince schools and libraries to unblock YouTube) was blocking educational content due to the recognized presence of LGBTQ+ people, we were reaching out to YouTube quickly behind the scenes. Our message, “This is going to escalate very quickly if you do not confirm that this problem exists and let people know how you’re working to fix it.”

A week after our first message, and as creators became increasingly vocal, frustrated, and confused, YouTube confirmed that the problem existed and began working to fix it, though we’ve spoken with some creators who still have unanswered questions and concerns.

ICG will continue to work with creators to make sure their concerns are heard as quickly as possible. We will continue strengthening our relationship with YouTube to ensure they consider creators needs and seek to improve communication between the two groups. And we will keep working to establish these relationships with other platforms.

The Ad-Pocalypse

A boycott of YouTube by many large advertisers affected not just the financials of some creators over the past few months, but resulted in changes to the YouTube advertising guidelines with effects that remain to be seen. The Guild has been working for the last two months to gather data in order to put more pressure on YouTube, magnify the impact of this issue on creators in the press, and speak with the creators who are hurt by these new policies.

As we increase guild membership, which expands our resources and reach, we can also expand these efforts.

MCN and Brand Deal Contracts

The ICG worked with over a dozen lawyers to create a document that demystifies brand deal and MCN contracts which usually have little regard for the rights of creators. We published this as part of an article that includes best practices outlining what creators should look out for when a contract comes across their desk.

ICG can continue working with groups of industry members and creators to develop best practices and increase awareness of pitfalls rising creators face.

Brand Deal Rates

After surveying Guild members, the ICG was able to make some pretty compelling statements about the challenges many creators face with brand deals, which creators often don’t speak up about on their own for fear of repercussions. As a conclusion of this study, we set a guild minimum for sponsored content, and full integration brand deals.

We will expand to do research that gathers information like this, helping creators know their value and negotiate effectively.

Help us do more of this work…

Join the Internet Creators Guild

Protect what you have created, and help keep the path open for more innovation and more creation.

Creators Need a Seat at the Table was originally published in Internet Creators Guild on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Imagine, if you will, a wealthy theme park owner has discovered a technique for bringing dinosaurs back to life. He would like to build a dinosaur theme park (because dinosaurs are very cool, and thus economically valuable) and this theme park guy has built lots of other parks — so what could possibly go wrong?! (We know what you’re thinking: someone should make a movie about this!)

Now imagine these theme park owners are brands/advertising agencies (or MCNs), and the dinosaurs are the deals they’re making with creators. Because it turns out that Jurassic Park is a surprisingly helpful model when thinking about digital contracts between these two groups.

The theme park owners want to protect themselves, and they want to use the same systems they’ve spent decades developing. But these dinosaurs are unique animals, separated by 65 million years (or 10 internet years) of evolution. Since the owners have experience putting appropriate safeguards in place, every creature gets a fence, with bigger dinosaurs requiring more drastic protections.

These safeguards are contracts. And as a creator, if you want the T-Rex deal, you’re going to have to work with the T-Rex precautions.

The ICG spoke to almost a dozen lawyers, as well as industry members and creators, to understand their perspectives about why contracts exist and how to think about them. We’ve used this as an opportunity to outline a few examples of what to look out for in common deals.

A few disclaimers:

• We don’t know you specifically;
• The lawyers who contributed to this article are not your lawyers, so the information provided in this article is not legal advice;
• This article is not meant to cover every possible pitfall that a creator might encounter in a contract.

We say all this to emphasize that everyone’s circumstances are different and the best advice and representation should be specific to you. Therefore, if you have questions, we strongly suggest you consult a lawyer directly.

The most important thing for all creators is to fully understand what the other side expects — therefore, don’t sign anything you don’t understand. Seriously.

We hope this primer will help protect creators’ rights by raising the general level of knowledge and increasing awareness of common pitfalls.

Why Do Contracts Exist?

Unlike making a dinosaur, creating a contractual relationship is quite simple.

Party A makes an offer to Party B, Party B accepts the offer — Voila, the parties have a contractual relationship. Offer + Acceptance = Contract. Even without fancy language or a lawyer involved.

In a perfect world, for example, a brand deal would go something like this:

Brand: I’ll pay you $10,000 to feature my product in your video.

Creator: I accept!

Creator makes a video and features the product just as Brand expected/desired.

Brand pays Creator and everyone is happy.

However, in the real world, there are countless ways that the Creator could satisfy the terms of the above-agreement in an unsatisfactory manner to the Brand. To prevent this, companies like to have their expectations and understanding of the deal written down. In simple terms: the more they write down = the fewer the loopholes = less risk of not getting what they want from a deal.

Thus, those who are engaging creators are incentivized to make their offers as robust and unambiguous as possible. So, the next time someone hands you a contract and says “this is our standard/basic form/boilerplate,” be aware — this could mean “here’s a completely lopsided agreement, drafted entirely in my favor that doesn’t include clauses that benefit or protect you.”

Every sentence in a contract has a purpose. Some of these sentences are benign and some are not, but they were specifically crafted to either state an obligation, grant/reserve rights, or clarify an uncertainty. It’s pretty safe to assume that if you didn’t draft a sentence, then it’s not in your favor.

Contracts are meant to be the absolute, final, agreed-upon terms of an agreement, which only really become necessary when there’s a disagreement. As such, contracts favor over-inclusiveness because they want to pre-settle disputes before they arise.

Moreover, a contract’s merger clause (which is discussed in the standard terms resource below) means that the contract is THE deciding document; no matter what was discussed before, and no matter what a prior email, conversation, or meeting may have stated.

If this article can teach you one thing it’s to always make sure you read and understand your obligations in the contract. This is the one section that should never be over-inclusive and should mirror exactly what was discussed and agreed upon. Your obligations should never be open-ended or TBD. If you need clarification, the other side should always be able to explain the agreement.

You should be able to answer the following questions about any potential contract/agreement:

• Who are the parties?
• What are your/their obligations?
• What’s the pay?
• How long does the agreement last?

These elements don’t always need to be stated as over-complex legalese and a seemingly simple agreement featuring a daunting language should raise a few red flags. However, as you (and your deals) grow, so do the risks for the other side. As risk grows, so does the contract’s length and complexity, and lawyers are often the only ones to actually read and understand the entire situation. The more money at stake in a deal, the more you may need a lawyer to review it.

What Terms Do You Need To Know?

We all know that the legalese of any legal contract is not exactly the most exciting to anyone who is not a lawyer. Most people skip over standard terms, considering the provisions to be “boilerplate” (and therefore not of much concern), and preferring to focus more on the fun stuff like how much they are getting paid.

We don’t blame you, but the lawyers we know are shuddering at the thought of anyone simply breezing through these aspects of the agreement.

The ICG goes through some clauses in an accompanying PDF resource.

If this didn’t cover something, Nolo’s dictionary and encyclopedia are great resources to look up basic terminology and concepts.

The ICG’s Recommended Best Practices

Many creators and their teams have learned by trial and error. Our hope is that in pointing out a few common pitfalls and their corresponding fixes, other creators can learn from these experiences. We also call on brands, MCNs, and members of the industry to help move deals in a creator-friendly direction with these best practices. We’ve started with two common types of deals creators encounter, and hope to expand this in the future.

Brand / Sponsorship Agreements

1. All services/deliverables should be spelled out in detail. Changes to this, such as additional posts, should come with additional fees. For example, a brand may ask for just one Instagram post, but then after the contract is signed, also ask for a Tweet or Facebook post.
2. Revisions/edits/creative approvals should be specified and limited. Your time is valuable and you do not want to be wasting it doing tons of revisions, so specify the number of edit rounds; indicate that the message/deliverables must be in your own style, tone, and voice consistent with your previous videos; and require final creative approval as long as you have followed all the agreed brand messaging points.
3. Content ownership stays with you. You own the distribution channel(s), so ideally, you’ll retain ownership of any content and you’ll license the content to the brand for a limited amount of time in certain territories on certain media. In turn, they will license to you use of their trademarks and logos and any other intellectual property they may have provided to you to use in the branded content.
4. Your fee should be clearly outlined–including how much, when, and ideally some up-front payment. As creators advance in their career, many make a point of getting a percentage upon execution of the Agreement. So, a typical payment structure might be: a non-refundable 25% upon execution of the contract, 50% payable after the first post, and 25% payable once all services have been completed. Also, it’s in the creator’s favor to get “Pay or Play” language inserted, meaning if the brand terminates the contract after it was signed, they still have to pay you the full fee even if you do not perform any or all services (as long as you are not in breach of the agreement).
5. The brand’s usage should be specified, and any exclusivity should be short and not too broad. How the brand uses the content you create and the number of times they can re-post it should factor into the fee you are being paid. Additionally, most, if not all brands, will ask you to be exclusive to them for a period of time. In other words, if you do a deal with Airbnb, they will not want to you create any content for Airbnb-type services for a specified period of time. The brand wants this period as long as possible, but you want to be able to resume doing deals with other brands. Therefore, a long exclusivity period should result in a higher fee, and the exclusivity should not be too broad beyond the brand’s “category.”

Multi-Channel-Network (MCN) Agreements

1. Get the services you need. The MCN you are signing a contract with should be fully able to meet your needs, so pay attention to their connections, expertise, professionalism, and services. Do some research on the party offering you this contract as, if one MCN is willing to offer you a deal, odds are there are more out there willing to do the same. MCNs often say they can help in the following ways, and you should be clear on what you want, and what they’re agreeing to do for you:

• Seeking out branding and sponsorship deals
• Administrative services — helping you to collect your AdSense dollars, administer the back end logistics of your channel(s), etc.
• Video production and editing services to help create content
• Advice on how to increase your following/subscriber #’s, channel optimization
• Distribution of videos, i.e. an MCN may partner with another platform so you and your videos get exposure to a new audience
• Enhanced analytic dashboards, and productivity tools to connect with your audience
• Access to royalty free content, i.e. stock footage to use in videos and/or music
• Opportunity to collaborate with other YouTubers in the network1

2. Terms should be short, ideally with a trial-period. Watch out for auto-renewal clauses! Six months to one year term is ideal so that you’re not tied down for too long — and you may be able to ask for a thirty-day to three-month trial period. Within the term, some agreements have an auto-renew clause: if the creator is not happy with their network and wants to leave, they must send notice (often up to 3 months before) in the manner specified in the agreement. This is a big red flag, the ICG is advocating for eliminating all auto-renewal clauses from MCN contracts. It’s essential you keep track of the dates in the agreement and what’s required of you if you wish to leave.

3. Compensation could include more than just the % split. Offers can include: a flat CPM rate, an initial signing bonus, or a minimum guarantee with respect to brand deals/sponsorships/endorsements. (With this last one in particular, note the catch that you may only be allowed to pass on a maximum of 2–3 deals that they bring you.)

4. Make sure the content included in the deal is outlined. Networks may try to stipulate that any new content/channel you develop during the term will be included within their network, which may not be in your interest. They may ask for rights to distribute on other platforms besides YouTube, often with language such as “in any and all media now known or hereafter devised,” meaning “even if the platform didn’t exist when the agreement was signed”. Finally, there may be language regarding time frames for publication and content quality control, or even the amount of content you must push out each month. Make sure that the terms used in these sections match your existing content creation practices, and don’t agree to make more content than you already do.

5. Content ownership stays with you. Creative control — the ability to fully determine what goes into and what comes out of content — should always remain with the creator. Furthermore, be sure to retain your copyrights, trademarks, and every other proprietary rights, which should be expressly reflected in the terms of your contract. The rare cases where you may not own a video you make (ie. a branded video) should be negotiated on a case by case basis and not within the overall MCN Agreement.

Know Your Power

Creators must recognize that they have power in these relationships. Creators are beautiful, unique creatures that businesses want to work with because of the economic value they can provide. Those businesses are going to want to protect themselves, and the stability they can provide is vital now more than ever, but don’t let them fence you in completely.

Have you learned from past experiences in terms of the contract clauses you avoid or include? Please get in touch, as we hope to continue growing these guidelines in the future.

Special thanks to:

We’re grateful to all the lawyers who spoke to us for this project, especially these contributors who helped draft the article and resource:

Danny Miller is a talent lawyer at Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum Matlof + Fishman. While he and his firm continue to represent some of Hollywood’s most notable actors, directors, writers, and producers, Danny has carved out an expertise in all things digital. His clientele ranges from some of the largest and most influential creators in the space to emerging and dynamic creators.

Anita K. Sharma is an entertainment lawyer & producer based in New York City. She is the founder of SHARMA LAW PLLC, a law firm that focuses on digital media, branded entertainment, film, television and intellectual property law. Anita is a passionate advocate for her clients and over the past four years, she has developed a specialized digital media practice representing top YouTubers and digital creators throughout the world.

Ryan Morrison has made a name for himself through ensuring the law protects everyone. Deemed “The Video Game Attorney” by the countless developers and YouTubers he has helped through his free online legal Q&A’s, Ryan understands that this new and innovative industry requires a new and innovative approach to law.

The Internet Creators Guild is a non-profit organization that advocates for professional creators through collective representation and action. We rely on membership dues from creators for funding to sustain our small team, volunteer board, and growing community. To support us as a member or learn more, visit us at internetcreatorsguild.com

Confronting Creator Contract Concerns was originally published in Internet Creators Guild on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The State of the Brand Deal

We surveyed and interviewed over 100 representative professional creators about brand deals to understand what they struggle with and how they decide what to charge.

The open secret in the world of online video is that you probably can’t make it with YouTube rev-share alone. Absolutely, those dollars are vital, and depending on the kind of content you make, they can be a huge piece of your income pie.

But it’s rarely the whole pie, and for many it has been shrinking. Another key slice of that pie is the brand deal. Basically, instead of an advertisement running on top of, beside, before, or after your video, a creator includes the advertisement or endorsement in the video they make.

Unfortunately, these deals are often intentionally mysterious and difficult to negotiate and creators are legally prevented from disclosing the terms. As a result, many creators, especially those trying to grow this part of their business, remain in the dark–confused and frustrated. With this study, the ICG is hoping to shed some light on a confusing topic, and highlight a few suggestions for creators and brands.

Brand Deals Generally Take One of Two Basic Forms

The Full Integration

The creator and the brand work together to make a video that is, in its entirety, an advertisement for the brand in your style. These are, in the best cases, collaborative. But it can sometimes be difficult to come to a place that works for the brand (or their agency) and the creator equally.

When it does work, it works very well.

But, authenticity is often the most valuable part of a creator’s relationship with their audience, so they have to be careful not to mess it up.

The Sponsor Mention

Also called “podcast-style”, “endscreen callout” or simply “sponsorship” this is when the creator takes a break from your video to tell everyone that the video was “made possible” or “brought to you by” a sponsor. The creator shares the the sponsor’s message, but it isn’t integrated into the rest of the video. These are much easier to pull off for both creator and brand, but pay lower rates.

Sponsor Mentions tend to be advertisements for services or products that keep close track of conversion rates and will stop working with creators whose audiences don’t immediately buy the advertised product. Those who sell effectively, however, can work to raise rates.

So Let’s Talk About Rates

There is some resistance to discussing this because so many factors affect rates and so there is no rate that fits every deal. We do not want to give ammunition to brands saying that they are being over-charged, but we feel that we need to share this information because we have heard so much confusion from the many creators who have no representation and no recourse when a brand makes an offer.

According to our survey, rates vary wildly, and many creators are able to (and should) charge significantly more, but there was significant clustering in a fairly well-defined bell curve.

Cost Per View (CPV) is typically based not on delivered views, but on an estimation of future viewership. That estimate is based on average views of 5–10 recent videos in their first 30 days after upload.

So, if your last 5 videos received around 10,000 views in the first 30 days after upload, and you’re charging $300 for a sponsor mention, that’s a $0.03 CPV. Because creators should be paid on upload (not waiting to see how many views the video gets) future viewership is estimated based on past performance.

On the high end, a creator with 10,000 average views might have a full integration brand deal worth more than $18,000 with a CPV of $1.80. On the low end, that same creator could do a sponsor mention at a 0.2 cent ($0.002) CPV and be paid $20.

What accounts for this tremendous range?

1. Creators that bring a unique skill to a video (i.e. music production or motion graphics) and have a proven track record of great brand deals have much higher rates.
2. Creators that have desirable audiences (adults in affluent countries) got higher rates. As did creators whose content focuses on important consumer products (like automobiles). The lowest rates we saw were from South American creators where average incomes are much lower.
3. If you have a smaller audience, rates may be all over the place, possibly because these creators are still learning what to charge or have varying levels of experience doing brand deals. Both the highest and lowest rates from ICG members replying to the survey were from channels with fewer than 5,000 subscribers.

Note: We asked creators for their “average” rates for brand deals, so this does not reflect the highest and lowest deals on individual channels.

Even after doing a bunch of deals I still always feel kind of cheated. We are not exactly cheap but I still feel that we don’t know what we are worth and other people get more.

— Educational Content, 2M+ subscribers

How Do I Know What to Charge?

Many creators would like to see standardized rates, but in our conversations with creators, we find that they also say there are no standard audiences, standard videos, or standard deals.

So, instead, we took what we learned from these interviews and put them into a list of suggested best practices based on what top creators and managers are selling and how they sell deals for more:

Fit: Understand how your strengths align with the brand’s goals — some campaigns are about general brand awareness, whereas others want a specific number of views or even clicks / download conversions. If you have a skill or demographic the brand wants, use that to negotiate.

Competition: Creators with niche channels or other qualities that make them unique can often increase the amount they charge due to scarcity.

Workload: Carefully consider the amount of work a campaign will be. Full integrations with brand feedback can easily take five times longer than your average video. Tell the brand how much time you expect to spend and charge accordingly.

Creative Freedom: Working from a set script can be stifling unless you have a format that allows for burned-in sponsor mentions. Full integrations can be particularly messy when a brand might require approval of the final product. When this is required, creators often charge more.

Review: Creators are starting to contractually specify a set number of revisions and then charge if the brand goes beyond that for extra review.

Social Posts: Campaigns often include additional promotion for the campaign across other platforms, but past a limited number of posts, they are an opportunity to up-sell a brand. Different platforms (Instagram) may be worth significantly more than others (Twitter (sorry Twitter)).

Benefits: Creators are sometimes (but not always) willing to charge less if they receive product, experiences, or even the prestige of working with a big name and cool brand. However, creators are wisely moving away from accepting things like product and gift cards in lieu of payment entirely.

Package Deals: If you find a productive and well-matched relationship, brands and creators often prefer working on multiple videos for a campaign, or developing an ongoing ambassadorial role. In these cases, creators will often create packages with slight discounts.

Communicate: Tell the brand what you can and can’t do and stick by it. If a deal can’t be worked out that doesn’t mean you failed, it just means that the deal isn’t worth doing for either of you.

Keep Up to Date: Your audience will change, your channel will change, and your relationships with brands will change. You can (and should) increase rates as your relationship progresses. And you should also be in communication with other creators about their strategies and rates.

I feel like my numbers have changed so much, so fast, that it’s hard to me to stay up to date with valuing my channel for integrations.

— Vlogger, 500k+ subscribers

It may not work for everyone, but a rate sheet can be a useful tool to start conversations with brands, cutting down on the back & forth or weeding out the deals that aren’t going to be in a reasonable range. Create this document based on understanding of what you are bringing to the table, and some knowledge of industry average rates from this article and talking with creators or industry members. With the help of Sarah Weichel, the ICG has created a sample rate sheet here. (to make a copy for yourself, click “file” and then either “make copy” or “download”)

We also suggest creators look into services like Social Bluebook and Famebit as a tool for gathering rates and connecting with sponsors.

Creator Pain Points

Negotiating a rate is only a tiny and early piece of what goes into a successful brand deal. Full integrations often involve extensive conversations between the brand or agency and the creator. This can involve input on the script, production, and even final product. It isn’t unheard of for a brand to walk away after the video is done but before it’s uploaded.

The hardest part? Getting the brand to trust that I know what I’m doing and let me sell the product in a way that’s authentic to my audience

— Vlogger, 1M+ subscribers

Unsurprisingly, it appears that creators like creating, they do not like negotiating contracts or taking notes from corporate marketing teams.

“Have you had a hard time getting paid?” was a last minute addition to our survey. We had been told by a few creators that brands had, at the last minute, decided they didn’t like the video and, even though the video had already gone online, refused or delayed payment.

We expected something in the low single digits, 29% is very discouraging.

I still haven’t been paid $30,000 for a brand deal because the company simply never got back after the video was uploaded. Everyone at my MCN acted like it was no big deal.

— Vlogger, 1M+ subscribers

How are Deals Happening?

Nearly 30% of creators who responded to our survey had never done a brand deal, and of those, 70% wished they had been able to. About half had never had the opportunity, while the other half just hadn’t had the right opportunity.

By far the most common source of a brand deal is the brand themselves (or their agency) reaching out directly to the creator. 75% of respondents who have done brand deals reported that at least some of those had come directly from the advertiser.

The second most common path was reaching out directly to the brand, and coming in at #3 were marketplace services like Niche, GoSnap, or Famebit.

Marketplaces like Famebit have been a Godsend for someone of my size.
 — Product Reviews, 25k subscribers

Conclusions and Recommendations

Brand deals are a vital way for creators to monetize their work, but great integrations are hard to come by and even harder to feel great about, especially when considering the amount of work that goes into negotiating the rate, communicating with the brand, and creating a final product everyone is happy with.

Developing a productive relationship with a brand is much easier when they have time to spend with a creator rather than trying to work with dozens or hundreds of creators at a time. Of course, that also means the more productive deals go to the larger channels.

While smaller channels need the extra income, they are the most likely to end up promoting products they don’t love or being pushed into creating content that doesn’t feel natural on their channel.

When you’re used to being honest with your audience but you don’t like the product, it comes down to how badly you need the money, and that’s not a good feeling

— Beauty Creator, 20k subscribers

Unfortunately, we don’t currently have enough data to tease out more patterns regarding audience demographics, country, race, and kind of content. We hope to repeat this survey in the future as our membership and partners in the online video industry grow in order to investigate further.

Creators, a rate kit is a good place to start. It will of course be negotiable, but having a firm starting position will allow negotiations to move much more smoothly, or to end before everyone involved wastes a bunch of time.

While it is impossible to set standard rates when every deal is different and is informed more by demographics, audience engagement, and technical skill than absolute reach, we can say that two cents per view for a full integration is not enough.

The ICG suggests

• Guild members should be paid no less than 5 cents per view* for full integrations.
• Guild members should be paid no less than 1.5 cents per view* for sponsor mentions.
• Contract terms that indicate payment should be delivered on upload and limit the number of revisions.

*by “per view” we mean per expected view after a 30 day period based on an average of 5–10 videos that indicate past performance.

We expect the vast majority of deals to significantly exceed these minimums.

We are outlining minimums only as a guideline to those who are confused and unsure of when they are or are not being taken advantage of. It should be noted, that these minimums are 50% of the median rates. We at the ICG are concerned about hearing guild members ask whether they should do a brand deal at 0.2 cents per view. No, you should not, and a brand should not be making that offer.

We strongly encourage cooperation from brands and agencies in not dropping below these minimums. We know that many campaigns, especially sponsor mentions, are built for conversions and not brand awareness, thus brands will not spend more than their marketing budgets allow. But we think it is necessary for a line to be drawn.

Finally, if you have had problems receiving payments from brands for brand deals and are not receiving support from your representatives, please reach out to the ICG directly.

View and share the full ICG ‘State of the Brand Deal’ Infographic

The Internet Creators Guild is a non-profit organization that advocates for professional creators through collective representation and action. We rely on membership dues from creators for funding to sustain our small team, volunteer board, and growing community. To support us as a member or learn more, visit us at internetcreatorsguild.com

The State of The Brand Deal was originally published in Internet Creators Guild on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

YouTube — when it comes to uploading, it’s is a site that does not discriminate. Well, aside from a couple requirements you need to get started like a computer, an internet connection, and a webcam…eh, scratch the webcam, might as well upgrade to a DSLR while you’re prepping for your channel launch! That’s what most kids are shooting with these days!

Once you’ve got those things though, you’re set! Unless of course you live in China, Iran, Pakistan or one of the countries where YouTube is banned.

After that, you’re golden! Except for…

I think you can see where I’m going here.

Often when people sing YouTube’s praises we frequently hear things like, “Authentic videos that reflect everyday people!” and “A place where anyone can upload regardless of race, age, gender, or orientation!” While these these claims might be true, you wouldn’t know it by looking at just the top tier creators.

Just a cursory glance at Social Blade’s 50 most subscribed to channels will show you that although it’s a global platform, YouTube’s biggest stars are predominantly white (approximately 65%), and are even more so predominantly male (approximately 71%). What’s more, nearly all of these channels are run by able bodied, straight, cisgender people.

This lack of diversity amongst top tier creators shouldn’t surprise anyone, we’ve seen it since the birth of the platform (which has only ever had one non-white and two female leaders since 2006.) We were reminded of this lack of diversity it in 2015, during black history month, when Akilah Hughes pointed out the number of tweets YouTube posted promoting black creators was only 15 compared to the 167 tweets they posted promoting white channels. And we still see it today, in 2016, when the only channel amongst the top 30 that stars an LGBT+ person, is TheEllenShow. Yikes.

Thankfully change might be in the air. YouTube’s latest ad campaign for the YouTube Music App seems to be an ode to diversity, featuring Alex, a gender non-conforming teen, Jaysn a young, swaggy, Korean hip-hop connoisseur, and Afsa, a woman who wears a hijab and can rap Blackalicious’s music almost better than the man himself.

Another exciting show of support for diversity was when VidCon, one of the largest annual conventions celebrating YouTube content, offered its first panel spotlighting gender diversity this year. The panel featured creators who identified as trans, nonbinary, gender neutral, agender, and questioning. YouTube’s 2016 #Proudtobe video also featured gender and sexual identities just as, if not more, diverse.

Watching YouTube and conventions embrace diversity over this last year has been exciting, but one only needs to look in the comments section of these projects to know that there is long way to go before diverse identities are widely accepted.

We can’t sit back idly and simply wait for acceptance to happen however. If creators hope for the platform to become a place that truly celebrates and represents all kinds of people, we need to start taking action. This is why below I offer four tips for creating and supporting diversity in content.

1. Actively seek diverse perspectives

Every creator needs to understand that the scope of diversity that exists on YouTube is wider than they might expect. Often minority groups are not spotlighted by YouTube, so they can take a little digging to find.

I remember last June I was telling a fellow content creator how excited I was that there was going to be nonbinary representation on VidCon’s Gender Diversity panel. Not only was my fellow content creator unaware of what being nonbinary meant, but they were even more surprised to learn how many nonbinary people have channels on YouTube. I told my friend there was a whole community of nonbinary creators which was made up of hundreds (if not thousands) of people! I told them that nonbinary YouTubers might not be promoted by the site, they might not be in the top 10 or even 1,000 channels, but if you find even one person like this, you could go for hours clicking in the their “Related Channels” boxes finding more and more!

One of my favorite YouTube creators, Leslie Datsis, calls this “falling down the YouTube rabbit hole.” It’s when you find yourself clicking and clicking around on YouTube until you end up in a place or on a channel you would have never found otherwise. I encourage anyone interested in broadening their view to people different from themselves to fall down this rabbit hole.

After all, it’s important to remember that diverse perspectives don’t often just land in our laps. Sometimes they are hidden, and we have to be active in our pursuit to find them.

Once you have traveled down the rabbit hole, my second tip is to hang out down there for a while. And I mean, for a while.

2. Spend time with diverse communities

Really engage with communities that are different from you. This means watching, liking, and commenting on multiple of their videos. Simply viewing one video by a trans vlogger or a person of color is not enough. Gaining an understanding of diverse perspectives and the adversity minorities face takes time and in-depth conversation.

No one knows this better than Leena from JustKissMyFrog. In her video series “Stupid Questions With Leena” Leena invites peoples who different from her (guests have included queer people, Muslims, disabled people, and more) and shows us she is truly invested in learning about them. What has me so convinced that Leena cares to understand diverse perspectives is that she has 30–45 minute conversations with her guests and uploads the entire discussion to YouTube. Lenna says she does this because,

“The idea is to get people on this channel that aren’t me to tell me to tell me what it’s like to not be me. I’m very aware that being me is one hell of a limited experience. The point of [the videos] being longer isn’t ‘shareable 4 minute content,’ it’s like NO, it takes a long time to understand these concepts if you’re not familiar with them and if it’s not your experience, and you do need to sit down and invest some time to actually bloody listen.”

By actually “bloody listening” like Leena, and engaging in discussions with diverse people in the comments section of their videos, not only will you expose yourself to new perspectives, but you will be indirectly promoting these creators, which is my next tip.

3. Share what you’ve found with your audience

Since platforms often do not advertise these creators, the responsibility falls on us. Share the channel of someone very different than you on your end card, pop their link in your description box, recommend channels in your sidebar, or even better, tweet their video directly to your followers!

4. Collaborate with diverse creators

Lend YOUR platform to minority voices. Now that you’ve spent time finding and engaging with diverse people and you’ve encouraged your audience to do the same by sharing these creators, it’s time to take the next and best step. You can do this by collabing with diverse voices, having them as guests in a video, or maybe even letting them take over your channel!

Davey Wavey does an excellent job at this. His scholarship progam “Rising Rainbow” offers LGBT+ youth with “different lived experiences” from Davey, and less that 10,000 subscribers, the funds to bring them to Los Angeles and collab with him. Davey then posts the video, and puts a diverse voice, in front of his over 1 million subscribers. The first recipient of the “Rising Rainbow” Scholarship was, JD Dalton, who describes the experience below,

“Over a Skype call while planning our collab video, he told me that he chose me because he saw my passion for creating educational content on my channel. Since then I have been recognized as one of the leading voices within the disabled community on YouTube. Several Native American organizations have requested me to speak at a youth leadership summit and other conferences focused on Native education and activism. I was also invited to be a Featured Creator at VidCon 2016 where I spoke on the YouTubers with Disabilities panel for the Creator Track.”

Clearly collabing with Davey opened several well deserved doors for JD. Explaining why programs like this are important, JD continues,

“Although most people may not have as many intersecting minority labels as I do, (legally blind, gay, Native American with albinism) there are definitely those who aren’t as “relatable” to a certain degree. If you are an ethnic minority, disabled, or part of the queer community it’s nice to see representation from someone who can relate to where you’re coming from. Sharing the spotlight on any platform helps to show others that we are just people. Different in our own experiences and perhaps in need accommodations, but we are people of the community.”

Perhaps, not all of us have the resources available to us to offer such an amazing scholarship program like Davey, but we can still raise diverse voices up. I’ve invited several people to “virtually collab” with me by scripting videos together over skype and sending footage to the other via email. My “ABC’s of LGBT+” series is crafted almost entirely from virtually collabs in fact, and one of the episodes, “Everything Ace and Aro”, lifts up over 12 different asexual and aromantic voices in just one video alone.

In the end creating and supporting diverse content on YouTube isn’t always easy, but it is important. Sometimes you have to go on a hunt for these voices and sometimes we have to get creative about how we can help raise them up.

But if we care about focusing ourselves and our audiences on interesting and nuanced looks at our fellow humans, it’s something we will invest the effort in and make happen.

The Internet Creators Guild is gathering perspectives from creators as part of our mission to connect, support, and advocate for people creating content professionally online. We recently announced our 3 Initial Goals to and are grateful to the 700+ members currently supporting our efforts.

If you are a professional content creator or working towards that goal, become a member for $60 per year. You’ll also get access to a growing Knowledge Base of articles and resources, including an in-depth look at this topic, as well as a podcast featuring interviews with top creators, community discussions, in-person and digital hangouts, service discounts, and more.

Supporting Diverse Creators on YouTube was originally published in Internet Creators Guild on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last year, Hank Green pitched me the idea of a membership association BY and FOR creators that would support, educate, connect, and represent them, and which he wanted me to run.

We shopped the idea around with a number of people in the early days and everyone was enthusiastic. We kept hearing that creators wanted ICG to exist. This includes our wonderful Board of Directors and our Advisory Board, who quickly signed on (with one of them agreeing within 4 minutes of having sent the email). There was a similar response when we announced the guild to the world.

Clearly, the community of professional creators wants this to be a thing.

Four months later, we want to say thank you to the nearly 650 members who are already supporting us. In speaking with members so far, the Internet Creators Guild has been looking for tangible ways to make creators’ lives easier. We are aiming to look across the lives of thousands of individuals in the industry and find systemic problems to solve.

We’ve identified 3 Primary Goals to tackle first:

1. Contracts. Creators don’t understand the deals they’re signing and things to look out for when negotiating with networks, employers, brands, and production companies. We’ll research contracts, talk to legal experts, and create samples with explanations to help navigate this important and often intimidating part of the business.
2. Brand deal rates. Creators struggle to know how much to charge or expect for sponsored content. We’ll conduct a survey to understand rates and what influences those rates.
3. Representation to platforms. Creators are frustrated when they feel platforms are difficult to reach and don’t clearly explain decisions that affect their livelihoods. Because creators have no unified voice, they don’t have a seat at the table with these companies. We’ll create a system to consult with a wide spectrum of creators and establish direct points of contact at each of the major social media platforms.

In working to solve these initial problems, I’m not alone. Since launching the guild, countless creators, industry members, MCN employees, managers, agents, lawyers, platforms, non-profits, and other individuals have reached out wanting to help.

While we focus on these initial three goals, we’ll continue to develop resources for members and the creator community. We’ve kicked off many of these already, such as:

1. A members-only podcast featuring stories and advice from a varied group of creators.
2. An online ICG community allowing people to ask and answer questions because many creators face similar challenges and feel isolated in dealing with them or don’t have access to each other’s solutions.
3. A knowledge base with resources on personal identity security, budgeting basics, common problems with platforms, moderating your community, as well as case studies.
4. Articles from creators sharing how they overcame specific challenges and the decisions they made.
5. Articles interpreting platform developments, as we did in the YouTube de-monetization situation.
6. Discounts on services, events, and other expenses.

Beyond the value of what an individual is going to get out of membership, annual dues create an organization that represents all creators and provides resources to them.

When members of an industry help educate one another, contribute to understanding challenges, and share in the process of finding solutions to common problems, everyone benefits. Online video is barely a decade old, and ICG has only existed for four months. We can’t see what the industry will look like in 20 years, but we’re here to help create it as we go.

With your support, ICG serves the collective good. We strive to work for all internet creators, whether they’re members or not. This organization represents creators’ interests, solely and primarily. We aren’t answering to shareholders or chasing eyeballs. We’re trying to make the profession of internet creator more esteemed, credible, and sustainable.

ICG is what we do. It is what we all make it.

Here’s how you can help:

• If you are a professional creator, become a member for $60 per year at internetcreatorsguild.com/join. By being a member, you can help us work on the initial goals, develop the next challenges we’ll work on, contribute to the knowledge base, suggest topics, and mentor others.
• If you are a creator or industry member with a unique perspective or expertise, we may call on you to contribute to the knowledge base.
• If you work as an MCN employee, lawyer, manager, or agent, we may reach out for your partnership in helping creators understand contracts and brand deal rates.
• If you are interested in funding or partnering on one of the primary goals, future goals, or discussing bigger projects, please contact us. The ability to scale up or hire consultants is dependent on resources.

To express interest in participating, email info@internetcreatorsguild.com.

Laura Chernikoff is the Executive Director of the Internet Creators Guild. Before this, she was the Guest Manager of VidCon where she worked closely with hundreds of creators on security, scheduling, content, and their overall experience at the event. In that role, she was the internal advocate for creators and their priorities and interests. She continues that work on a larger scale at the ICG.

What Is The Internet Creators Guild? was originally published in Internet Creators Guild on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A lot changed when I decided that my social spaces on the internet were the exact same as my social spaces in the real world.

Creators of content on the internet are very commonly creators of community. Often times, this community is the most interesting and the most valuable part of making stuff, and many creators require that relationship to inspire them to make stuff.

But communities usually require support and care and construction. On YouTube, that generally means doing your best to create content that turds won’t care about and trying to ignore them when they show up. And, for the most part, failing.

But YouTube has built out some more robust community management tools now, and I have recently started to really enjoy using them.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that this is a concerning restriction of speech, or that by eliminating people from our communities we are increasing the echo chamber of the internet, but our channels are our homes on the internet, and we need to figure out how to make them safe.

I want to make clear my values (anti-racism, anti-homophobia, feminist, etc) and I want to create a space for people who share my values. I don’t have to entertain “free speech” if that speech is hateful. If you suck, stay out of my video comments! I don’t need fans who hate women or black people or trans people. — Gaby Dunn (youtube.com/justbetweenus)

First, lets talk about where we’re at.

YouTube defaults to a “Top Comment” system which shows not the most recent comments, but an algorithmically selected mix. It seems that the most important data point in this algorithm is how many replies a comment receives.

This sounds like a good idea. It should be that comments that inspire discussion build community, right? Except, y’know, it’s the internet. Arguments are promoted above anything else. Thumbing something down has no effect (algorithmically, or on the “score” of the comment), leading to a “Top Comments” section that is often full of hostility. This makes it seem as if every community on YouTube is rife with controversy when, in fact, they are not.

But YouTube does have a number of moderation tools available to creators. We can ban words (technically, comments with the words are held for review.) We can block accounts from ever commenting on our videos again. We can also empower members of our community to remove comments (though they can’t ban accounts.)

I absolutely believe it is my responsibility to actively shape my community. I hold myself accountable. Like any relationship, it can become toxic without communication, firm values, and compassion. The community YouTubers build is a reflection of their content and values. Hate breeds hate, love feeds love. — Matthew Fredrick (youtube.com/matthiasiam)

What to do?!

Recently, on the Vlogbrothers channel, we decided enough was enough and we rolled out a whole new strategy for community moderation.

First, we asked our community to reply to comments they like with the ‘+’ symbol. That way, the algorithm would promote comments people liked but weren’t necessarily inspiring discussion. The result was a fascinating and immediate change in the kind of discourse on our videos. While the + comments are a little annoying, and can mess with the flow of conversation, no longer are vitriolic, unproductive arguments constantly sitting in the top comments.

I would love to see YouTube take these concerns into account and, specifically, weight controversial comments less heavily when deciding what comments to promote and instead promote comments that get lots of thumbs up.

Also, I wish YouTube would spend more space mixing in comments that have not been seen yet. The current system buries most comments left after the first few hours under an unbreakable wall of “Top Comments”, making participation in the community feel unproductive or useless.

Second, I’ve become ruthless about banning people. If you scream at someone, if you call people names, if you use a racial slur, if you intentionally try to make another person feel bad, if you spout outrageous, bigoted lies, you’re out.

I have decided that the comments section is our home. If you do anything that would end our friendship if you did it in my actual home after I invited you for dinner, you are banned from ever commenting again. I’m not even sorry.

This may seem harsh but, as previously mentioned, the vast majority of comments are buried by YouTube’s comment algorithm and never seen anyway. And when I think of my channel as a home rather than a website, it all becomes much more clear to me.

Third, we empowered a number of credible community members to clean up the comments. I recruited these moderators through a video on my second channel, basically asking them to apply in the comments. About 20 of the applicants I liked (the ones that seemed to have a good grasp on what we want for the community) were approved as moderators.

None of these people are full time in their duties, they just read comments as they normally would. If they happen to see something that would be considered unforgivably rude IRL, they simply remove the comment.

How Fragile Can I Be?

I am not fragile. I have been doing this for a long time and, as long as you don’t find one of my actual insecurities, you’d be hard pressed to hurt my feelings with a comment. But online communities are fragile. They’re also often the most valuable thing a creator has.

The Internet Creators Guild has begun to build some resources outlining some community management strategies, step-by-step instructions for YouTube’s tools, and a list of words for creators to consider banning from comments.

If you would like to become a member of the ICG, explore this topic in-depth, and support our cause, it’s a mere $60 per year.

STOP SCREAMING IN MY HOME was originally published in Internet Creators Guild on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Imagine opening up the YouTube channel you spent the last ten years building, and it’s just gone.

Late one night I woke up and checked my phone to discover one of my worst nightmares had come true. My email address had been taken over…as had all of my other social media. My YouTube channel with 3.5 million subscribers had been deleted. My PayPal account had been raided. I was locked out of everything. To make matters worse, my phone simply no longer worked, telling me the handset was not connected to a phone number.

Everything that I had spent the last decade building online had been destroyed by a hacker.

Up until that point I thought I was entirely secure. I changed my passwords frequently and they were always 16–20 letters and numbers with special characters. I never used a password a second time. I even used two step authentication to basically turn my cell phone into a authentication key. Not only did these steps fail to prevent me from being hacked, but using two step authentication turned out to be my biggest weakness.

The hacker used what is known as ‘social engineering’ to convince my phone provider, Verizon, to give him all of my information. While he did not have my social security number or my special passcode that I had set up as additional security with Verizon, they let him in anyway.

The hacker instructed the Verizon representative to change my phone number from my Samsung to his old burner phone. Once the rep had done this, the hacker basically had my cell phone in his hand and the cell phone next to me had become a worthless brick. He used that device to recover and change the password to my email address and once he had that… he had everything. I had used the same email as the recovery address for my YouTube channel and my PayPal. That was enough for him to do irrevocable damage to everything I had built.

First he changed the passwords to everything. He then began to put his ‘calling card’ and hacker name onto everything. He found my secondary and tertiary emails that I used to keep things a little safer and changed passwords on those. He changed the recovery email addresses. He locked me out of all of my social media and began tweeting links to video game gambling websites to earn money.

At some point his goals became more nefarious. Perhaps it’s because I had woken up and caught on to what was happening and began trying to recover my accounts. He responded by doing what many hackers would consider unthinkable; he began deleting everything. My YouTube account… gone. My Gmail address… deleted. He began to dismantle my career piece by piece.

In less than an hour, this young hacker managed to destroy what took me over a decade to build. Every follower, every subscriber, every video- all of it destroyed in matters of minutes. My wife was frantically attempting to get ahold of someone from Verizon to get my phone number back while I desperately attempted to stave off the damage but it was too late.

The Damage was Already Done

To make matters worse, I was away from home. I was actually at the online video convention VidCon when all of this went down. In less than 6 hours I was supposed to speak in front of 500 people and moderate a panel called “Trolls in the Dungeon” about what it was like to deal with hate on the internet. My first thoughts were, “why did this have to happen at VidCon?” But then I realized that I was at the safest and best place for this to happen. Everyone who was anyone at YouTube or Google was at the convention. Finding a real life person to help would be quite easy. Plus, I had just been given the best story possible for my panel about trolls.

Every YouTuber that heard about my plight reached out to me; they contacted their reps at their networks and before long most of VidCon knew what had happened and were either offering their condolences or their help. After my panel, another YouTuber told me that he’d managed to find a member of the Google engineering team on my behalf. His name was Jeff and after a few hours of hard work we were on the right track.

Jeff taught me quite a lot about what I had done wrong to allow the hacker to have this kind of power over me. He pointed out some big mistakes I had made: using the same email address as the recovery email for everything, and having this be a public email address. He taught me how to make a ‘chain’ of recovery email addresses that used emails that would never be published anywhere.

Jeff and the Google team spent their last day at VidCon putting my channel back online and within the week I had access to my YouTube channel again. I was able to upload and monetize again and fortunately my business was back on track.

However, there was a lot of stuff the Google team could not help me do.

PayPal had been raided but luckily they managed to freeze the assets when they realized something was wrong. I had been locked out of my own account though and it took hours on the phone to regain access.

My Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media had been taken over and on that day I learned how difficult it was to actually regain access to these things after an attack. Reaching an actual human at these companies is next to impossible. Fortunately, I ‘knew a guy who knew a guy’ who was able to get me these accounts back after a few weeks and calling in a few favors.

Of course, not everyone has these connections available to them. And a few months later there are still some accounts and services that I’ll never be able to regain. I have considered them abandoned and they have the name of my hacker floating on them as a badge to his success.

After all of this, I found the hacker who claimed to do all of this and saw his screenshots proving the legitimacy of his claim. I followed him on Twitter and, to my surprise, he followed me back and we had a conversation.

The hacker explained to me that he chose me simply because I was ‘famous’ and that doing these things to me would either net him monetary gain or fame. He might be able to sell my accounts or at the very least, attach the attack to his hacker call sign and gain credit, giving him influence within his community. He actually apologized for any inconvenience he had caused me.

One day after the attack we checked our email and we found personal information about our hacker provided by a fan who also happened to be in private security. We knew exactly who had dismantled our lives in only a matter of minutes: a 17 year old kid who had done all of this from his high school computer lab. I thought I was secure but my entire business had been dismantled by someone who was still wet behind the ears.

It turns out that just being notable on the internet can make you a target. The more successful you are, the more likely you are to be targeted. As you gain notoriety on the web as a content creator you must take your security very, very seriously. If you’re visible to your fans, you’re valuable to a hacker.

I learned from this experience is that no one is truly secure. What we consider to be secure can actually be dismantled within minutes by hackers using the latest techniques and software. There exists a hidden website on the deep web that every hacker dumps information as it’s discovered and it is shared by thousands of hackers who will nip at your security looking for a weak spot.

You most certainly should continue to do the basics, however.

• Use long complicated passwords that you change frequently.
• Use a different password for everything.
• Choose smart security questions with smart answers and be careful about with your private information.
• Avoid fishy emails.
• Do not use your public email address as a recovery email.
• Use two step authentication, but use a phone number that you give to no one, or use an app that is only on your phone, such as Google Authenticator. For this purpose, I got a prepaid phone with a low monthly cost that does not need my name to be attached to it.

As a content creator, you must be vigilant against these hackers. They could target you for money, fame, or both. Include security in the routine maintenance of your business. It’s the only way to keep the nightmare of losing everything from becoming your reality.

The Internet Creators Guild is gathering stories from creators to understand their perspectives working professionally online.

If you’re a creator who has been hacked, share your story with us on Twitter @ICGuild or at info@internetcreatorsguild.com so we can continue to raise awareness of vulnerabilities, research ways for creators to increase security, and work with platforms to streamline the process of recovering accounts.

ICG Members have access to a growing knowledge base of resources, answered questions from an active community of creators, and a weekly podcast featuring interviews with creators big, small, and in between.

If you would like to become a member of the ICG, explore this topic in-depth, and support our cause, membership is $60 per year.

Getting Hacked As An Internet Creator was originally published in Internet Creators Guild on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 2012, YouTube began de-monetizing videos based on new advertising-friendly guidelines. This was not done by people, but by an algorithm that looked at the metadata of videos and other factors to decide whether it was likely to be something an advertiser wouldn’t want to be associated with.

Over the last five years, this algorithm has regularly removed videos from the pool of advertised-upon content. The algorithm’s parameters were broadened in 2015 specifically to catch more content relating to terrorism.

However, it was very difficult to know that one of your videos had been de-monetized. If you did happen to notice while very granularly looking at your analytics for a single video, you could ask YouTube what happened, but there wasn’t anything you could do about it.

Recently, that policy changed. YouTube now:

1. Lets you know when a video has been de-monetized.
2. Shows a notice next to all de-monetized videos.
3. Allows you to request a manual review of a de-monetized video.
4. Re-monetizes videos that the review finds to be not in violation of YouTube’s ad-friendly policy.

In the ICG’s initial investigations, it looks as if re-monetization (if it happens) is happening in between 12 and 24 hours after a manual review is requested.

Thus, we can say that recent changes have actually been universally positive.

But it turns out that, as it was very difficult to know that a video was de-monetized before, many creators were shocked to find that this had been happening at all. Recently, five years worth of de-monetized video notifications flooded into creators’ inboxes. When they received these notifications, creators understandably assumed that this had happened recently, not months or even years ago.

According to a YouTube representative, overall, less than 1% of partner videos have been de-monetized, and the appeal process is currently taking around 24 hours with a high rate of re-monetization.

We, of course, know that YouTube has a lot of very difficult problems to overcome. Ad rates have been declining for years as the volume and growth rate of content continue to rise. On the community front, we have noticed some content on YouTube growing less friendly and more combative over the last year, making the website a less pleasant place for many users.

So we are sympathetic. Everyone wants the internet to be a less unpleasant place. And the Internet Creators Guild is aligned in finding ways to increase ad rates in order to make careers for professional online creators more sustainable.

However, we have a few concerns.

First, the guidelines seem to be a net that is cast too broadly.

Consider the list of things that may result in the de-monetization of a video:

Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor

Violence, including display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism

Inappropriate language, including harassment, swearing and vulgar language

Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and abuse of such items

Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown

It appears to us that this is a big enough hammer that it could be used to hit all but the most bland of YouTube videos. Guidelines that contain something as broad as “subjects related to political conflicts” do not provide creators with useful information. It makes it sound as if YouTube is no longer going to monetize channels that cover current events, which of course is not the case.

Second, many videos were erroneously de-monetized.

Dr. Aaron Carroll runs a channel dedicated to healthcare policy and research and discovered this week that 27 of his videos were de-monetized and had been for months. YouTube has now re-monetized all of the videos. It seems likely that the algorithm regularly flagged a program discussing prescription drug costs, the opioid epidemic, and treatments for diabetes because it thought those videos were celebrating illegal drug use.

It is great that YouTube has created an appeals process. But it is surprising that so many videos that obviously should not have been de-monetized were and for so long. From initial reports, it appears that a very large percentage of manual-review claims are resulting in re-monetization.

Third, erroneous de-monetization will always result in significant lost revenue.

YouTube has confirmed to us that the de-monetization algorithm checks every new video upon upload and will immediately de-monetize a video it flags. Even now that the notification & appeals process is in place, a video could still be de-monetized for hours or days after upload while the manual review is pending. That could particularly hit hard at timely or viral content (which often means news-related and sensitive-subject videos.)

We hope the appeals process can help YouTube refine this system. In gathering data on videos that creators are submitting for manual review and studying what gets re-instated, the platform has the opportunity to refine the algorithm.

Fourth, what will get made now?

Having to go through an appeals process OR having a video stay de-monetized could have the unintended consequence of discouraging creators from making edgy, interesting content. For professional online creators looking to make a living with regular videos that engage their audience, some may re-think the type of content they produce, alter the meta-data of their videos, or feel like their content isn’t welcome on YouTube.

Some suggestions for YouTube.

1. If this is not already being done, algorithmically de-monetized videos should be spot-checked for accuracy. Creators should not have the sole burden of asking for manual review.
2. The video manager should allow creators to sort videos by de-monetization so that there is an easy way for them to review their de-monetized videos without digging through hundreds of videos.
3. Use data from manual spot checks and re-monetized videos to refine the de-monetization algorithm.

The silver lining is that this most recent change in adding a notification and appeals process should help creators. Nothing has changed about the de-monetization process itself except awareness of a long-term policy of algorithmically (and often erroneously) targeted videos.

By sharing revenue with creators for the last ten years while no other social media site has offered similar deals, YouTube has created a vibrant and wonderful content ecosystem. But YouTube also has a particularly difficult job in that tens of thousands of people’s livelihoods depend on it and so quick reactions and fear are to be expected when big changes happen or are perceived to be happening.

We want to publicly say to YouTube: feel free to lean on the Internet Creators Guild in the future if and when communication policies change or new features launch. We know creators, because we are creators.

The Internet Creators Guild is an organization that supports the interests of people who professionally make stuff on the internet. If you would like to reach us for comment, you can connect with us at info@internetcreatorsguild.com. If you are a creator and would like to join the guild, you can do so here.

YouTube De-Monetization Explained was originally published in Internet Creators Guild on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I started paying my bills with YouTube money around the time I hit a million views a month. My content was admittedly low budget and “views” isn’t necessarily the best metric (what it means changes drastically based on platform), but I want you to take a guess at how many YouTube channels now get more than a million views a month? A couple hundred? A thousand?

How about 37,000.

For context, Facebook has 12,000 employees.

At 100,000 views a month, you’re still making a fairly significant bit of income from YouTube. If you can do it consistently, about $2,500 per year. How many people hit that barrier this month?

300,000.

Gone are the days when every successful creator got their own New York Times profile. Nowadays, professional internet creator is just another job…a job that thousands of new people have every month. If “internet creator” were a company, it would be hiring faster than any company in silicon valley.

I’ve spent the last ten years as a part of this explosion in independent (and not-so-independent) online content creation and it’s mostly been an absolute joy. Occasionally, however, I have watched creators get strong-armed and even swindled. I’ve watched people lose their channels. I’ve watched them flee from abuse.

The landscape of professional creation continues to get more complex. Organizations and platforms of all sorts are vying for a slice of the value created by the relationship between creators and their audiences. Creators, on the other hand, are only loosely connected through friend groups and occasional collaborative projects.

When something goes wrong, it’s up to individual creators to take time off from their lives running small businesses to look their gift horses in the mouth. No one wants to complain about platforms or advertisers, they’re our meal ticket. No one wants to be the creator with the reputation for bad mouthing sponsors!

There is no system for protecting creators, many of whom have no experience in any industry, let alone the notoriously cut-throat entertainment industry. I’m ten years into this and I kinda can’t believe that there’s still no centralized organization representing creators.

So I’m creating one.

I am not, however, going to run it. I’m simply starting this organization out with a few tenets and two very valuable assets.

1. $50,000 dollars. This money is coming from VidCon because, obviously, VidCon benefits hugely from the explosion in online content and we’re always looking for ways to give back.
2. Laura Chernikoff, who will be the ICG’s executive director. Laura has worked with VidCon since our very first year (one of only two team members who can say that.) She’s been our guest manager for the last few years and knows more about the wants and needs of online video creators than anyone I know. This makes her perfect for her job, and also makes it very difficult to give her up for it.

Here are some things we want the ICG to do

1. Help the press talk intelligently about online video.
2. Share stories and strategies from professional creators that will be available only to members.
3. Increase transparency about what creators do and don’t receive from MCNs, advertisers, agencies, and managers.
4. Act as a bridge between creators and platforms and advise platforms on how to best serve creators.
5. Help to clarify the role of new products and developments in the world of internet creation.
6. Share useful information on everything from dealing with stalkers to understanding your audience.
7. Advise conferences and events (including VidCon) on how to create great conversations about internet creation.
8. Foster diversity in online video content, including but not limited to language, age, race, gender, and economic opportunity.
9. Provide case studies of successful strategies for community building and monetization.
10. Provide and explain sample contracts for sponsors, managers, MCNs, merchandise, and agencies.
11. Unify the voice of online creators to create change.

Here are some things the ICG WILL NOT DO

1. The ICG can’t get into the game of picking and choosing what kind of content is or is not good for the world. That must be left up to individuals to decide because otherwise the ICG will become the internet morality police, which sounds like an awful job.
2. Riling up angry mobs. The ICG is committed to working with all stakeholders. The ICG will amplify voices and it will take positions, but it will always strive to understand the complexity of these issues, explain them to members, and work with other stakeholders to move forward.
3. Tech support. Not sure what’s wrong with Premiere? Your upload is taking forever? YouTube is down? That’s not our thing.

You keep talking about membership…

Yeah, we want to make this a sustainable organization and it’s gonna cost you…$60 a year. We figure you can spare $5 a month for this…and if we can’t provide enough value to make that investment more than worth it, we’re not doing a good job.

I’ll also say this now, as with all organizations of this sort, dues will not stay flat. As the organization provides more value, dues will increase, but never more than once per year.

If you are making all or part of your living making stuff on the internet, or are working toward that goal, you are eligible to be a member. To start, we are focusing on online video creators (because that’s what we know about), though I think many of our resources would be helpful to creators of all sorts (hence the broader name.) If the majority of your business is creating content, you can be a member.

The ICG is for people, not for corporations. This is a guild, not an industry association. But of course, creators within (and employed by) these larger organizations are also eligible for membership. You do not have to be an independent creator to be a member of the ICG, you only have to be a creator.

If you’re interested in becoming a member, please let us know now.

Our Board of Directors

Our board of directors is responsible for making sure the organization is sustainable and achieving it’s mission in the most effective ways possible. Our founding board draws from a broad array of online video creators in an attempt to be as representative of this community as possible.

Anna Akana is a comic, actress, filmmaker and online content creator who lives with her 4 cats in Los Angeles. She’s known for creating weekly comedic content, short films, and serialized shows. She also co-hosts the podcast Explain Things To Me, has a monthly stand up show at Nerdmelt, and runs the clothing company Ghost & Stars.
Erin “Aureylian” Wayne has been a nerd her entire life, but got involved with both live and VOD content creation in 2012. Currently the Lead Community Manager at Twitch, she is also involved in charitable efforts with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Extra Life, and Game Changer Charity.
Wengie is an Australia’s #1 Asian Lifestyle Influencer, and has previous experience in accounting and marketing. She created her channel part time while having a full fledged career and believes that if you really want to achieve something you can. Sharing her experience in marketing and business to help others is her passion.
Satchell Drakes is a video producer and designer living in New York City. He presents analysis on games and films at the intersection of art and culture, and is passionate about internet ethics and creative productivity.
Jonathan Katz is an entertainment lawyer and advocate for internet creator rights. After seven years of traditional media law practice, he now focuses on the challenges facing online video creators, particularly those victimized by online harassment and exploitation. He most recently founded Clamour Events to provide safe spaces for creators to connect with one another, share experiences, and collaborate on projects.
Ashley Mardell is a vlogger with strong perspectives on social justice and a passion for giving a voice to the community of small creators on YouTube. She’s on the path to becoming a full time content creator and also is working on a documentary featuring small creators, as well as converting her web series “The ABC’s of LGBT” into a published book.
Olan Rogers is a comedian, filmmaker, animator, and entrepreneur. In addition to creating YouTube content, he develops meaningful connections in his community through projects like a Soda Parlor, summer outdoor movie & concert series, and clothing store in Nashville.

Our Advisory Board

Our advisory board exists to provide support and advice when times get tough, and to come to us with ideas for what the organization needs to be doing. The ICG’s advisory board is still being built, but thus far we have:

Burnie Burns: a writer, actor, producer, comedian, host, and entrepreneur based in Austin, Texas. He co-founded Rooster Teeth, one of the first online video companies in 2003. He continues to be a powerful innovator in the online video and gaming industries, creating high production value content such as Red vs. Blue and fostering community connections at the annual RTX event.
Hank Green started making YouTube videos in 2007 with his brother, John. They thought it was a pretty dumb idea, but it turned out quite good. Hank has worked to help encourage thoughtful practices in internet creation and to help more people make a living making stuff on the internet with DFTBA.com, a merch company, and Subbable, a voluntary subscription platform that was acquired by Patreon.
Akilah Hughes is a writer; standup, sketch, and improv comedian; and YouTuber based in New York City. In addition to her insightful and hilarious channel which often focuses on pop culture and race, she has contributed to Fusion, MTV, Hello Giggles, Femsplain, and Refinery29.
Casey Neistat is the co-founder of Beme and a YouTuber. He has also produced two feature films, written and directed an HBO series, and created a number of short films for the New York Times. In early 2014, Casey shifted his focus to creating Beme, a platform that enables users to share their experiences and perspective via video without the burden of having to edit, create, or upload.
Louise Pentland is a mother and lifestyle vlogger and blogger based in the United Kingdom. She shares her experiences, family, beauty tips, and self empowerment recommendations online as Sprinkle of Glitter. She has recently been part of an initiative in partnership with the U.N. as an ambassador for gender equality.

The ICG’s goal is simply to increase the number of people in the world who can be creators professionally. It will do that by providing the protection, representation, and guidance that, thus far, has been tremendously lacking. You can go to InternetCreatorsGuild.com right now if you’re interested and sign up to know more as we approach our launch, which will happen in late June.

Introducing the Internet Creators Guild was originally published in Internet Creators Guild on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.