IMPORTANT: Heads up for all you who post videos on YouTube!

RSram · November 2019

For a brief history: The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)) was enacted by Congress in 1998 to address concerns about children's access to obscene or harmful content over the Internet. For a long time, YouTube avoided being fined because Youtube's tried to use the excuse that all its content was for children over 13 years old and that there was a disclaimer stating as such. Unfortunately, YouTube was sued by many groups who were upset that many of the advertisements on the Youtube videos were targeting children under 13 years of age. In short, Google, the owner of Youtube, lost the lawsuit earlier this year and had to pay out a multi-million-dollar settlement, and is obligated to enforce the COPPA regulations starting on Jan 1, 2020.

On January 1, 2020, The FCC will also be enforcing the COPPA regulations on YouTube creators. In short, if the FCC decides that your video is not appropriate for children under 13 years old you could be fined $42,000 per video. YouTube has provided an option to tag your video for children over 13 years old, and you can do this either to your entire channel, or per video. Many of us in the forums post videos of tutorials, and other fun stuff we do in ESO, but the COPPA regulations are strict in that just using a word that is inappropriate for a child under 13 could land you a $42,000 fine, if the video is not tag for children over 13 years of age.. I included a link to a YouTube video which explains this in more detail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwDrHOe43E

Ydrisselle · November 2019

This should be pinned.

Dottzgaming · November 2019

This is a good share that all content creators need to look at who make content on YT.

Specifically for ESO, we theoretically should be fine, since ESO fundamentally is targeted at people 16+, the FTC would have a hard time proving that we are making videos that are targeted to kids under 13.

Theres more and more info coming out on this topic each day. Supposedly, there actually is a "general" clause in the FTCs COPPA guidelines that allows "general" content, aka content that appeals to children AND adults, to not be subject to COPPA law. Go figure though that YouTube would make an all or nothing system where its either for kids only or not for kids at all. Ian Corzine, the guy in this video, has another video covering that topic.

We'll have to see how this continues to shake out over the coming month. Hopefully YT makes a better system that really does coincide with all aspects of COPPA law. But, we as ESO creators i think should be ok marking our vids as not for kids and be safe.

RefLiberty · November 2019

That is fine and this is useful post for US tubers, but COPPA is a United States federal law, so good luck sending $42K to EU RU or Nigeria.

Bucky Balls · November 2019

So, a US only thing, then. With some generalised commercial consequence.

Interesting, though.

RinaldoGandolphi · November 2019

Dottzgaming wrote: »

This is a good share that all content creators need to look at who make content on YT.

Specifically for ESO, we theoretically should be fine, since ESO fundamentally is targeted at people 16+, the FTC would have a hard time proving that we are making videos that are targeted to kids under 13.

This is not true. Google/YouTube themselves tried to use this same line of defense in this case and lost.

Since I am a nice person, I am going to share what I have learned and save all of you a lot of money and headache. My Best Friend (since we were 5 years old) owns a law office, and has 2 lawyers who work under him. I went to him a few weeks ago when i heard about this.

(This case was actually settled on September 4th, Google has just recently put controls in place)

After a few weeks, he gave me a call, I sat down with him, and this is the expert legal advice I was told by 3 fully qualified lawyers:

All video game related YouTube channels that are monetized are certainly in violation of COPPA the way the law is currently written. (unless marked for kids)
The Federal courts opinion(the only one that matters) sees the video game industry as largely marketed towards kids, and even the ERSB will agree with this assessment. For this reason, if you are sued by the FTC over your video game channel, the odds are very very very very slim you could win with the way the law is currently written. Especially when your content is centered on a subject matter that is largely marketed towards children.
This won't be something you can contest via YouTube like a Copyright claim, the FTC will actually serve you, probably via certified mail, an actual lawsuit you will be required to show up in Federal Court. In the time between your court date they will probably offer to settle with you for a substantial amount of money (20grand per video or so)
Depending on your location it will cost you between 5-7k dollars to get an attorney to respond to this suit, and then ongoing fees there after. If you lose your case it could cost you over 100,000 dollars in court and legal fees.
The way the law is written it is simply against the law to show any advertisements, monetize videos contextually, and to mine user data(in this case Google) to kids under 13. Again, Since the courts see video games as largely marketed towards children, you don't want to be on the wrong side of these FTC lawsuits.
The FTC is on record stating they are going after YouTube creators AGGRESSIVELY in January. They are not going to watch every single YouTube video they flag, they are going to flag it, and then send you a letter to settle for a large amount of money and remove your stuff, you refuse, they sue you. What they flag will be what they see as kid targeted, not what we think, big difference, and it will be up to you to prove otherwise. Remember, in civil cases, they only have to prove a "Preponderance of Evidence" not "beyond a reasonable doubt" its much easier for them to win a civil lawsuit than a criminal case.
The FTC has given examples which I will show below, but the key point is :On the other hand, if your content includes traditional children’s pastimes or activities, it may be child-directed. Video games have been traditionally a childrens past time and activity. Even though Adults play them too, kids do just as well. This is where video game channels are in hot water. I

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2019/11/youtube-channel-owners-your-content-directed-children

Simply put, if you are a video gaming directed channel, and primarily post videos about video games, you would be wise to mark your channel and your videos as "content directed towards kids" Failing to do so, you do at your own peril. As soon as the FTC is done going after the BIG money makers on YouTube, they will then be coming after you. That lawyer that posted that video from is from California(most liberal state in the nation) He obviously has nothing to worry about because his channel is focused on business and legal advice, but he wasn't focusing his advice on video gaming channels. He touches on it very briefly and warns he is "worried" about certain YouTube Channels with gaming being one of the ones he was most concerned with.

I was advised by my legal counsel to remove all of my videos from YouTube and to pull out now. Its simply not worth the legal ramifications of 6 figures worth of fines and debt. I have all my videos on my hard drive, if the law changes, i can put them back. For now, as the law stands now, you run the real risk of being sued out of existence.

The only sure way to stay out of legal trouble with the FTC after January as a video game related channel is to mark all your videos as content directed towards kids. You will lose most of YouTube features, comments, and monetization, but the alternative is being sued in Federal Court or fined.

It;s very doubtful you could convince a Federal judge that your video gaming channel is not kid targeted content when the entire video game industry is marketed to kids. Thats a very slippery slope to try and walk up on. Unless you have spare 200,000 dollars laying around to fight this in court for years, you would be wise to mark the videos as "kids content" or simply stop uploading to Youtube and find another platform. As the law stands now, it is illegal to monetize personalized contexual ads to kids in videos that kids are the targeted audience, and video games is predominant marketed to kids even though adults play them.

Take care

belial5221_ESO · November 2019

It affects everyone,not jsut US,look at this portion of the rules on COPPA site

"7. The Internet is a global medium. Do websites and online services developed and run abroad have to comply with the Rule?

Foreign-based websites and online services must comply with COPPA if they are directed to children in the United States, or if they knowingly collect personal information from children in the U.S. The law’s definition of “operator” includes foreign-based websites and online services that are involved in commerce in the United States or its territories. As a related matter, U.S.-based sites and services that collect information from foreign children also are subject to COPPA."

Jolipinator · November 2019

2020 sounds better and better every day. Can't wait.

belial5221_ESO · November 2019

If only they'd punish parents,insted of everyone else....

Ackwalan · November 2019

For people that think this won't have an affect on people outside the USA that post, good luck on keeping your videos up. Even if the fine can't touch you, Youtube will cancel and delete your account to avoid getting the fine themselves.

SickleCider · November 2019

The only sure way to stay out of legal trouble with the FTC after January as a video game related channel is to mark all your videos as content directed towards kids.

@RinaldoGandolphi I have a question. How would you say this works in regards to video games that are very clearly not marketed toward children? Like, say, Bloodborne, with all the flesh rending and blood and so forth. Couldn't you be accused of bad conduct by flagging something like that as okay for child consumption?

Sordidfairytale · November 2019

Good share.

BoraxFlux · November 2019

Does it also count for Twitch?

ArchMikem · November 2019

So im going to get fined for my video of staring at a picture of the High Elf with the large rack in Crypt of Hearts?

Sylvermynx · November 2019

Thank you VERY much @RinaldoGandolphi - I don't have yt videos, but I have a friend who does. And a friend who died had a YT channel, and we have some of his vids on a forum I run privately. They'll have to go.... He can't be sued, but as the site owner, I CAN. Can't do it....

Valykc · November 2019

Great post, funny timing too because I was just studying COPPA in my cyber law class for college lol

RinaldoGandolphi · November 2019

Versispellis wrote: »

The only sure way to stay out of legal trouble with the FTC after January as a video game related channel is to mark all your videos as content directed towards kids.

@RinaldoGandolphi I have a question. How would you say this works in regards to video games that are very clearly not marketed toward children? Like, say, Bloodborne, with all the flesh rending and blood and so forth. Couldn't you be accused of bad conduct by flagging something like that as okay for child consumption?

that's a good question. My understanding is there is a difference between "kid friendly" and "targeted towards kids" For example COPPA doesn't care if their is violence, gore, rated R content or any of that. What they are concerned about is if the content is targeted towards kids specifically as the audience.

Best example is Call of Duty, despite that game being rated M ERSB for Mature 17+, that game is largely marketed towards children, and a very large part of that games population is kids under 13. So obviously if your making videos on Youtube about Call of Duty(a shooting game where you kill people) despite it being rated M, its still content targeted towards a kids audience.

Also, marking content as "target towards kids" is not the same as a kid friendly rating. Youtube does have a seperate Age Restriction setting on your videos that you cna restrict views to people under a certain age but using it removes your monetization options on those videos

At the end of the day I guess its your call on what you want to risk.

oddbasket · November 2019

I don't think even children would visit my Youtube page, but nevertheless, I updated my settings when scary people plan to cast nets and sue for lots of money.

MajBludd · November 2019

If people with 50k subs are worried, Eso vids will be no more on YouTube.

RinaldoGandolphi · November 2019

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Thank you VERY much @RinaldoGandolphi - I don't have yt videos, but I have a friend who does. And a friend who died had a YT channel, and we have some of his vids on a forum I run privately. They'll have to go.... He can't be sued, but as the site owner, I CAN. Can't do it....

I would think if you marked them as "private" and only shared them with a select few people you could keep the videos active.

I am just going by what I was told/advised. Things are muddy right now, and simply put not many people have the money or time to deal with something like this. Everyones situation is different.

My best suggestion is you know your content best., Ask yourself if you think kids under 13 could be a large portion of the audience to your videos, and be hoenst with yourself about that. If so then you probably want to mark them, if not you have to decide if the risks are worth it to you.

PS: lots more kids play ESO than you think. All my nieces and newphews that are 12 and under play on Xbox and PS4, you would be surprised how many of those players that never get on voice comms, etc are actually young kids. Don't think only older people play ESO.

Sylvermynx · November 2019

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Thank you VERY much @RinaldoGandolphi - I don't have yt videos, but I have a friend who does. And a friend who died had a YT channel, and we have some of his vids on a forum I run privately. They'll have to go.... He can't be sued, but as the site owner, I CAN. Can't do it....

I would think if you marked them as "private" and only shared them with a select few people you could keep the videos active.

I am just going by what I was told/advised. Things are muddy right now, and simply put not many people have the money or time to deal with something like this. Everyones situation is different.

My best suggestion is you know your content best., Ask yourself if you think kids under 13 could be a large portion of the audience to your videos, and be hoenst with yourself about that. If so then you probably want to mark them, if not you have to decide if the risks are worth it to you.

PS: lots more kids play ESO than you think. All my nieces and newphews that are 12 and under play on Xbox and PS4, you would be surprised how many of those players that never get on voice comms, etc are actually young kids. Don't think only older people play ESO.

While the forum IS private, you almost can't keep google from scraping stuff, so a few of those links are likely out there. I'ma just take them down until I see how stuff shakes out.

SickleCider · November 2019

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Versispellis wrote: »

The only sure way to stay out of legal trouble with the FTC after January as a video game related channel is to mark all your videos as content directed towards kids.

@RinaldoGandolphi I have a question. How would you say this works in regards to video games that are very clearly not marketed toward children? Like, say, Bloodborne, with all the flesh rending and blood and so forth. Couldn't you be accused of bad conduct by flagging something like that as okay for child consumption?

that's a good question. My understanding is there is a difference between "kid friendly" and "targeted towards kids" For example COPPA doesn't care if their is violence, gore, rated R content or any of that. What they are concerned about is if the content is targeted towards kids specifically as the audience.

Best example is Call of Duty, despite that game being rated M ERSB for Mature 17+, that game is largely marketed towards children, and a very large part of that games population is kids under 13. So obviously if your making videos on Youtube about Call of Duty(a shooting game where you kill people) despite it being rated M, its still content targeted towards a kids audience.

Also, marking content as "target towards kids" is not the same as a kid friendly rating. Youtube does have a seperate Age Restriction setting on your videos that you cna restrict views to people under a certain age but using it removes your monetization options on those videos

At the end of the day I guess its your call on what you want to risk.

Thank you for the insight! It didn't provide clarity, exactly, but it did enlighten me on how much stickier this is than I even thought. This is going to be, as Mr. Lawyer in the video said, "chaos."

Zorgon_The_Revenged · November 2019

Is this COPA or COPPA? Because they seem different to me.

mayasunrising · November 2019

I'm so confused. Does this apply to any videos containing ESO content or just ones that might have adult themes. I have a few videos on my channel just showing the things that I've built in ESO housing. I've shared them here in the Housing forums. There's no kind of adult content. It's basically showing say an arena I constructed, or a planetarium. Should I remove those to @RinaldoGandolphi ?

Thank you so much for sharing the information from your friend and thank for the OP making us aware of this.

Bobby_V_Rockit · November 2019

So because parents cant control what their idiot kids watch on youtube, they killed youtube? Way to go Moms and Dads of America

Sylvermynx · November 2019

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

So because parents cant control what their idiot kids watch on youtube, they killed youtube? Way to go Moms and Dads of America

As a US citizen I have to agree. However, please absolve our Canadian friends, because while they are Americans as well, they are not so mid-victorian stupid as people in the US.

MajBludd · November 2019

This is YouTube trying to be netflix or something similar. It has to do with money and getting rid of what they deem unprofitable.
They dont care what kids watch. If they did they'd flag half the crap on youtube.

If a parent isn't concerned with what their child watches, that's on them. All this is is more people trying to tell you how to raise your kids.

Control, control, control and idiots eat it up

Acrolas · November 2019

It's a complicated issue, and it's likely far from over.

But as the current COPPA material mentions "fantasy" as being subject matter that is appealing to children, ESO sits in a weird gray area between mature subject matter and random Skyrim memes.

The best way to better define that gray area is to include a public comment expressing your concerns and offering personal insight on how the content you currently create or view is impacted.

Request for Public Comment on the Federal Trade Commission’s Implementation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule
https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FTC-2019-0054-0001

Upper right,

Comment Now!
Due Dec 9 2019, at 11:59 PM ET

Dottzgaming · November 2019

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Dottzgaming wrote: »

This is a good share that all content creators need to look at who make content on YT.

Specifically for ESO, we theoretically should be fine, since ESO fundamentally is targeted at people 16+, the FTC would have a hard time proving that we are making videos that are targeted to kids under 13.

This is not true. Google/YouTube themselves tried to use this same line of defense in this case and lost.

Since I am a nice person, I am going to share what I have learned and save all of you a lot of money and headache. My Best Friend (since we were 5 years old) owns a law office, and has 2 lawyers who work under him. I went to him a few weeks ago when i heard about this.

(This case was actually settled on September 4th, Google has just recently put controls in place)

After a few weeks, he gave me a call, I sat down with him, and this is the expert legal advice I was told by 3 fully qualified lawyers:
All video game related YouTube channels that are monetized are certainly in violation of COPPA the way the law is currently written. (unless marked for kids)

The Federal courts opinion(the only one that matters) sees the video game industry as largely marketed towards kids, and even the ERSB will agree with this assessment. For this reason, if you are sued by the FTC over your video game channel, the odds are very very very very slim you could win with the way the law is currently written. Especially when your content is centered on a subject matter that is largely marketed towards children.

This won't be something you can contest via YouTube like a Copyright claim, the FTC will actually serve you, probably via certified mail, an actual lawsuit you will be required to show up in Federal Court. In the time between your court date they will probably offer to settle with you for a substantial amount of money (20grand per video or so)

Depending on your location it will cost you between 5-7k dollars to get an attorney to respond to this suit, and then ongoing fees there after. If you lose your case it could cost you over 100,000 dollars in court and legal fees.

The way the law is written it is simply against the law to show any advertisements, monetize videos contextually, and to mine user data(in this case Google) to kids under 13. Again, Since the courts see video games as largely marketed towards children, you don't want to be on the wrong side of these FTC lawsuits.

The FTC is on record stating they are going after YouTube creators AGGRESSIVELY in January. They are not going to watch every single YouTube video they flag, they are going to flag it, and then send you a letter to settle for a large amount of money and remove your stuff, you refuse, they sue you. What they flag will be what they see as kid targeted, not what we think, big difference, and it will be up to you to prove otherwise. Remember, in civil cases, they only have to prove a "Preponderance of Evidence" not "beyond a reasonable doubt" its much easier for them to win a civil lawsuit than a criminal case.

The FTC has given examples which I will show below, but the key point is :On the other hand, if your content includes traditional children’s pastimes or activities, it may be child-directed. Video games have been traditionally a childrens past time and activity. Even though Adults play them too, kids do just as well. This is where video game channels are in hot water. I

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2019/11/youtube-channel-owners-your-content-directed-children

Simply put, if you are a video gaming directed channel, and primarily post videos about video games, you would be wise to mark your channel and your videos as "content directed towards kids" Failing to do so, you do at your own peril. As soon as the FTC is done going after the BIG money makers on YouTube, they will then be coming after you. That lawyer that posted that video from is from California(most liberal state in the nation) He obviously has nothing to worry about because his channel is focused on business and legal advice, but he wasn't focusing his advice on video gaming channels. He touches on it very briefly and warns he is "worried" about certain YouTube Channels with gaming being one of the ones he was most concerned with.

I was advised by my legal counsel to remove all of my videos from YouTube and to pull out now. Its simply not worth the legal ramifications of 6 figures worth of fines and debt. I have all my videos on my hard drive, if the law changes, i can put them back. For now, as the law stands now, you run the real risk of being sued out of existence.

The only sure way to stay out of legal trouble with the FTC after January as a video game related channel is to mark all your videos as content directed towards kids. You will lose most of YouTube features, comments, and monetization, but the alternative is being sued in Federal Court or fined.

It;s very doubtful you could convince a Federal judge that your video gaming channel is not kid targeted content when the entire video game industry is marketed to kids. Thats a very slippery slope to try and walk up on. Unless you have spare 200,000 dollars laying around to fight this in court for years, you would be wise to mark the videos as "kids content" or simply stop uploading to Youtube and find another platform. As the law stands now, it is illegal to monetize personalized contexual ads to kids in videos that kids are the targeted audience, and video games is predominant marketed to kids even though adults play them.

Take care

Thanks for the writeup, definitely things to consider. Seems things are still being fleshed out at the moment - tons of new videos came out today with new updates from the FTC and YT. We'll have to see how things fall in a month unfortunately

RSram · November 2019

Ok, let me explain:

If you don’t specifically classify a public video or channel as “ not for children under the age of 13”, and in that video you violate any one of the numerous COPPA rules for children under 13 years of age, you then committed a crime; for example, you narrate an ESO raid in a video and use specific curse words, or the video ran an advertisement for a kid’s toy, you could be fined by the FCC, and have Google delete your entire account once Google gives the FCC the forensic evidence to support the COPPA violation.

BUT, If you classify a videographer channel as “for children under the age of 13” then Google will demonetize the video or entire channel and disable the video’s comments section; this is not Google’s fault but what Google needs to do to protect it’s self from future fines. Again, I must emphasize that If you are perceived by Google as to violating COPPA, Google then has the right to delete your entire account, that includes gmail, google pay, Google games, and etc.

In effect, Google will on January 1, 2020, will demonetize thousands of children channels!

And finally, if an under age child sees your private video, like a many that are posted in the ESO forums, you still can be fined if that video violates COPPA.

The problem with COPPA, is that the regulation doesn’t concisely define the difference between children and adult subject matter. Many of the YouTube channels cater to both children and adults.

To protect yourself, just insure that your videos or channels have the “not for children under 13” option checked. Take a screen shot of the checked box for proof and email it to yourself it time stamp it, and save the email on the email server - forever! You could also preamble your videos with a “not for children under 13” disclaimer message by narration, or by a warning message that appears before the video title.

Another precaution is to download and backup all your YouTube videos to a local storage device, and create a second Google account just for your YouTube videos. Note that in the YouTube video manager you can transfer ownership of the channel to another Google account.

I hope this clarifies what the main issues are.

Saucy_Jack · November 2019

I personally have marked all my videos as "not targeted towards kids". If I get served I am happy to show them my analytics page, which has 99.5% of my traffic as being 18 years or older.

If they would like to argue that my channel is "kid-targeted" while my viewers are comprised of less than 1% people aged 13 or younger, they are free to do so; they are also free to admit they are following no conceivable form of logic.