We had a jolly time at Folk by the Oak yesterday, which is a terrific day out if you like your festivals over and done with in a single day so you can be in your own bed by midnight. This morning I went looking for clips on YouTube and found the same thing I have found after other recent gigs – videos which claim to be of that event but are patently fake, and loads of them too.
I don’t click on them because they are so obviously bogus, but what’s the deal here? Would I be sent to a link where I would be asked to enter my bank details to watch or something like that? And as this is, I’m assuming, some sort of scam, or at the very least sneak advertising, why does YouTube permit it on such a scale?
Yes, I too have noticed this and wondered?
I’m not sure but I’m guessing they’re linked to a monetised AdSense account and thus getting paid small amounts per click.
I noticed this when I was looking for Mercury Rev clips last week (including live streams of a gig that wasn’t due to take place for another six or seven hours). They are all designed to take you off YT and onto another site, and I’d be pretty sure there’s a cost attached – not sure that it’s AdSense because they seem designed to take you out of the Google ecosystem. I suppose they get away with it thanks to the sheer scale of YT – I don’t suppose anyone is policing videos of small folk festivals or provincial gigs in one territory.