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Youtube Case Summary

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Details of the Article Ethan and Hila Klein are married team content creators on the video platform YouTube have managed to form a following of 3.6 million subscribers, their channel name, H3H3 Productions. In the early summer of 2016 the YouTube personalities, known for their satirical videos dissecting content made by others, were sued for defamation. Matt Hoss filed the defamation claim; commonly know as The Bold Guy, after H3H3 Productions released a video critiquing one of his videos. While reaction videos of other’s content are extremely common and generate a large amount of the traffic as well as income on YouTube, there have been very few lawsuits placed prior to this case. The ones that have occurred are usually resolved or dropped prior to any further legal action. …show more content…

Essentially, if the defendants lose this case, this will set the precedent that people can sue others based on the online reactions to their content. Likewise, another detail that makes this case unique is the cost. The case has been open for nearly a full year now and has cost the defendants over $200,000 and the only reason they were able to pay it was because fellow YouTube content creator, Phillip DeFranco, created a GoFundMe page which raised over $170,000 in donations. The victim claimed the Kleins “ripped 75% of an independent creator’s most successful video without so much as asking permission.” While it is true the Klein’s did not ask for permission, the judge will look at a couple things, one of which is how does the review financially impact the victim. This is good for H3H3 since YouTube creators generate income based on number of views and their lengths. Since the video was made the victims channel has generated a large number of new views, most of them are angry with the victim, but is income nonetheless. How the Article Relates to

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