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Fediverse @lemmy.world
SolarPunker @slrpnk.net

What if we started uploading YT videos to PeerTube?

Obviously excluding videos whose authors explicitly do not want to, or copyrighted content that could create problems for individual instances.

By doing this PeerTube could become a kind of youtube database of quality content, excluding shorts and toxic/futile videos. What do you think of this approach? Could it make PT more attractive, or would it create problems for the platform?

I'm sure many creators would do it themselves but don't have time, or many would do it but don't even know about the existence of the Fediverse. Perhaps you could start by making “fan channels,” with all the most important and significant videos on a youtube channel (so without having to stay up-to-date on recent releases).

32 comments

  • I think every creator should be contacted before doing duch a thing and I guess a lot would not agree since most of them wouldn’t make any money on Peertube except if people support them through something like Patreon.

    • I partially agree but could this actually not be a problem? Users who watch them on YT will still continue to do so, and instead people who prefer to use FreeTube/NewPipe or alternatives will still continue not actively supporting creators on YT but instead spreading their videos elsewhere. Right now the prediction of PeerTube taking views away from YT is quite utopian for most people.

      • Generally it's just better to ask, even if you were legally / ethically / morally in the clear.

        • if someone doesn't want it, it's going to turn them against peertube / fediverse platforms
        • they might not understand what it is, and use their platform to share those feelings

        Meanwhile if someone DOES want it, letting them know will give them the option to do it themselves. It makes less work for you, and they will feel invested. If they want it and they don't want to upload it themselves, at the very least they'll let their viewers know that peertube is an option.

        As for the legal/moral side, I still feel like there's a reason why you shouldn't do this but I'm not aware of what that might be.

      • The Youtube algorithm that pushes videos (and thus advertisement income) is very opague and there is a kind of mystic cargo cult by many creaters on Youtube trying to game it (but they usually end up being manipulated by Google instead). Suggestions to move outside of this cult is often met with a lot of hostility as they don't want to endanger their imagined connection with the algorithmic gods.

      • No it couldn't not be a problem. That's their decision to make, not yours or anyone else's.

  • You can do it with videos that’s under the CC license.

    I have myself setup a mirror of the official Guild Wars 2 channel, so I can watch their videos on PeerTube. I haven’t asked, but I don’t think they have a problem with the free advertisement.

    Best people can do is convince creators on YouTube to also post their content to PeerTube, as well as engage with their audience on PeerTube.

  • The “we started uploading” is a can of worms.

    At some point, the “we” will be sued unless the legal paperwork with consent from the authors is well done. Not to mention the ton of copyright materials and music that are actually licensed for use on YouTube but not anywhere else, not to mention everything that is clearly worthy of copyright strikes but YouTube failed to notice they were serving.

    While YouTube may have the legal muscle to deal with copyright infringement and appease the rights owners with some checks, a network of volunteers is not equipped to play those “games.”

  • Because, contrary to what you may think you've observed over the past ten+ years, copying and republishing anyone's content without their permission is a US copyright infringement.

    So yeah; if you want to get their permission, ensure all their links and such are migrated over, and do all the work for them to mirror content they've created without the benefit of making any money on it, have at it.

  • This is already an automatic option on most peertube instances. My guess is most popular creators are not interested in giving up their ad revenue.

    • it's probably that they're not willing to put in the effort to republish every video on peertube when the status quo works fine, or that they don't know about peertube's existence.

      Louis Rossmann for example definitely cares about FOSS/Free ecosystems is a giant proponent of ad blockers, but doesn't post on peertube.

  • applying the Facebook ai training approach to the fediverse I see, I'm 100% sure this won't villainise the fediverse at all!

  • I'd rather people create original content for it in fields other than tech (especially science and book videos); it's annoying enough when people reupload Tiktok videos to Loops.

  • I think it’s more a question of getting content creators to Peertube and the only way that will happen is if they add monitization which you need $ from ads or donations

    • I don't think most big YouTubers care much about YouTube ad revenue these days, they make so much more money from audience manipulation (e.g. sponsor spots) so the current peertube system would be fine.

      I honestly think the biggest current issues are that it costs a lot of money to host peertube because of the high resource requirements (storage costs are compounding as well) and that the network effect means that very few people will use it

  • I used to see people do this here and there but they got bored after a few months because nobody watched the content. If you could get a bot to do this, I could see this being a longer term project, but if it gets big enough some folks might object as well.

32 comments