YouTube attempts to rectify mistake, after forgetting to credit a video’s creator in tweet

YouTube’s marketing team took to Twitter on December 25, using a popular e-card to celebrate the holidays with its 71.1 million followers. Sadly, the Christmas spirit was marred with criticism after the platform “forgot” to give credit to the creator of the video.

The tweet found itself flooded with fans of domino artist Lily Hevesh, known as Hevesh5 to her 2.1 million YouTube subscribers, asking the platform where her credit was for the lifted video. Hevesh commended the use of sharing around the holiday time, but expressed that she was “a bit disappointed” that YouTube would be among the masses that continuously “rip off” her work.

very glad to see that my Christmas domino e-card is getting good use!

however, I’m a bit disappointed that YouTube would take my video and re-upload it with absolutely no credit. People rip off my work everyday and it’s honestly saddening to see this happen by YouTube itself. https://t.co/TZzMVAyy0u

— Lily Hevesh (@Hevesh5) December 26, 2018

YouTube doesn’t actually have to give credit, as its terms of service mean that video uploads grant the platform a “worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business.” Nonetheless, it sets an awful precedent on a social network that regularly sees the work of content creators taken and re-distributed without proper credit.

Although YouTube forwent any form of apology, it took to Twitter once again on December 26 to offer a correction. “Our mistake–we forgot to credit @Hevesh5 for this video! Check out more of Hevesh5's epic domino art here,” reads the tweet. The original post remains live, with a substantially higher number of views in comparison to the video that was taken, with 668,000 in comparison to 79,000 at the time of writing.

KitGuru Says: Honest mistakes can happen, with Hevesh seemingly approaching the situation in a forgiving manner. Hopefully the added publicity acts as a boon for Hevesh’s work and YouTube enforces a stronger message to its community on how to properly share videos moving forward. How do you feel about YouTube’s rectification?

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