Image source: http://www.tubefilter.com/2016/02/01/the-fine-bros-react-world-reaction/
Over the last few years, Benny and Rafi Fine have been recognised as two of the most successful and profitable YouTubers and have been particularly influential in cultivating the reactionist genre of YouTubers on the legendary video website. Many have praised them for finding a smooth and quickly-produced format of giving opinions on current and topical videos while many others (myself included) have criticised them from devaluing the original source material that they show in each episode of their multiple reaction series by playing the videos in their entirety and not editing the videos in any manner.
Now, regardless of what your opinion may be on reaction videos may be, one must admit that the Fine Bros made a genius discovery to quickly produce profitable and easily-consumberable content when they formed the 'Kids react!' series. It does make sense to maximise profitability in as a short a space of time as possible even more so once you look at how many spin-off series that the Fine Bros made including reaction series for elders, teens, YouTubers and adults (not sure how that would work with the elders sub-genre already having been made).
Over the last couple of years, the Fine Brothers have exploded in popularity with all of their multiple spin offs reaching approximately 14 million subs on their main channel and almost 6 million on their secondary REACT channel. considering that in the last 3-4 years that they have reached almost half the subscriber count of highly popular Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie (who currently sits at about 41.93 million subscribers, good lord, well done mate), you have to admit, regardless of your own views on the reactionist genre of YouTube, that the Fine Bros made a very profitable way of making reaction videos into an easily-consumable format.
This was never so much my train of thought with the Fine Bros as I personally think that reactionist channels devalue from the original source material they react to and don't really add much to the videos that they react to. This was less so the case when the channel primarily concentrated on everyday people reacting to videos as it was more of a raw, everyday and realistic assessment of the videos that the Fine Brothers found than what might more commonly be seen on their channel in the last year or two.
This came crashing down around the Fine Brothers in late January 2016 when the two brothers announced on their main channel that they would be creating a website initiative called 'React World' whereby people could create reaction channels using similar formats and titles under contract with the two YouTubers who would then take an appropriate share of the add and click-based revenue. On the base of it, this doesn't seem all that terrible as it could've been seen as a chance to create a huge parent-network of the likes of Normal Boots or ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com. However, over the last week or so, more and more information has surfaced indicating that much of this initiative was meant to monopolise the genre of reaction videos and possibly set a harmful precedence for YouTube genres in the future.
I would put the video link for the original announcement video and the subsequent update video put up a couple of days later but the two videos have seemingly been taken down on account of the massive controversy that erupted around the announcement that the two brothers made. Understandably, many people were concerned that the two brothers were trying to monopolise reaction videos but the truer extent of this initiative was not realised until about a week after the announcement was made. Initially, many big-name YouTubers such as Phillip DeFranco or Boogie2988 made very diplomatic reactions to the Fine Bros announcement imploring people to get informed on the issue before going crazy and they're still right. However, in the light of information released about the Fine Brothers allowing their fans to digitally bully the Ellen show for apparently copying one of the brothers shows for one TV episode of her show or how they have attempted to copyright the actual term and concept of 'react', it seems that greed and sinister business malpractice is more so behind the brothers 'REACT WORLD' initiative than initially seems.
Link for Ellen show controversy screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/idasVMZ.png
Fortunately, this seems to have lessened over time with the brothers reaching out diplomatically to Ellen subsequently after the controversy about their fans attacking her show and have rescinded their copyright on the term 'react' since the internet blew up about the 'REACT WORLD'...uh...reaction.
Links for copyright to term 'react':
Link 1: http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/fine-brothers-youtube-scrap-react-licensing-trademark-backlash-1201694781/
Link 2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35459805
Link 3: http://uk.pcmag.com/internet-products/74945/news/fine-brothers-ditch-plans-to-trademark-react-video
Broadly speaking, many other YouTubers (which I'll link below) have expressed concern recently that had this copyright and initiative gone through then it could've set a dangerous precedence for other YouTube video genres. If the brothers had monopolised reaction videos, who's to say that others wouldn't be able to copyright vlogs, make-up tutorials, music remixes or let's plays'? Sadly, it seems like this is becoming more and more of a trend with bigger companies as shown when Sony tried to copyright the term 'let's play' in 2015.
Link for Sony copyrighting let's plays: http://stayontheblack.com/2016/01/sony-is-trying-and-failing-to-trademark-lets-play/
With the informal free-market that the internet and YouTube in particular seem to operate on, this thankfully seems unlikely to happen on such a grand scale as the Fine Brothers or Sony have attempted but the potential of it happening is possible albeit very unlikely and this frightens me. I personally believe that operating the internet and YouTube on a free-market basis is the right way to go and monopolising concepts and terms like 'let's play' or 'react' is extremely harmful to this kind of market and the creative freedom of content creators in general. Therefore, I implore everyone to resist these forms of concept and idea monopolisation and copyright as it does more harm than good. Even if the intentions of the Fine Brothers were good, the effects of this kind of initiative are more negative than positive.
Regardless of this though, the PR reaction to the Fine Brothers has been nothing short of disastrous for their fanbase and reputation considering that as of this blog post, the brothers have lost about half a million subscribers on their main channel and about 150,000 subscribers on their secondary channel and there is now an abundance of streams recording the downfall of the brothers subs count in real time while countless YouTubers have themselves created reactions to the 'REACT WORLD' initiative, absolutely lambasting it and its effects and intentions.
This in turn has resulted in the brothers having to not only rescind their copyrights but also completely scrap the 'REACT WORLD' initiative as they announced a few days ago: https://medium.com/@FineBrothersEnt/a-message-from-the-fine-brothers-a18ef9b31777#.9f1yj9guy
Ultimately I think this is the right thing to do. The initiative and copyright was highly impractical and clearly massively unpopular as telling by the glut in Fine Brothers subscribers over the last several days. However, the Fine Brothers are still losing subs at an alarming rate and are going to be forced to do some massive damage control before long lest they have to give up their diamond subscriber button. Unfortunately for the brothers, regardless of how well they handle the fallout, this PR and policy disaster will undoubtedly tarnish their legacy particularly more so thanks to their condescending way of initially announcing the initiative in the first place.
To conclude, I initially thought that the brothers were simply being misinformed and acting with interesting intentions in the wrong way but now I think that their intentions may have been far more greedy and sinister than initially foreseen. Had the brothers simply implied they were going to be setting up a parent-network for other reaction channels then this wouldn't have imploded as badly as it has done. For one, I've never subscribed to the brothers and I definitely never will after this. You guys decide for yourself but I most definitely think that this controversy has called the honour and moral balance of the brothers into disrepute from this point onwards. I wish I could say otherwise but the more information that comes out about this controversy, the more that such a thought seems like daydreaming hopefulness.
In any case, I hope that this has helped to light up the situation for some of you out there and if it hasn't quite done that then I highly recommend you take a look at some of the links below in order to become better informed about the controversy. So until next time, take care, have fun with whatever you're doing and don't do anything I wouldn't do.
H3h3 productions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwcmWhPcTk8
Boogie2988: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN-vhZoO7wM
I Hate Everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjOKNSOflhk
Phillip DeFranco: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_3HESGr52A
TheGamerFromMars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8nrvch0tNY
Saberspark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kElEmlKZ0oY
Special thanks:
I'd like to give big thanks to my friend Tom.M for sending me the H3h3 productions reaction to the Fine Brothers announcement.
I'd also like to give special thanks to my gaming buddy and good friend Pujge_Egjup for sending me the link about the Ellen show controversy and telling me about that whole situation and how it tied into this current one. Please check out Pujge's gaming channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/PujgeEgjup
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHmq7KX4Qc46VGhYzWqQfOg/playlists
Now, regardless of what your opinion may be on reaction videos may be, one must admit that the Fine Bros made a genius discovery to quickly produce profitable and easily-consumberable content when they formed the 'Kids react!' series. It does make sense to maximise profitability in as a short a space of time as possible even more so once you look at how many spin-off series that the Fine Bros made including reaction series for elders, teens, YouTubers and adults (not sure how that would work with the elders sub-genre already having been made).
Over the last couple of years, the Fine Brothers have exploded in popularity with all of their multiple spin offs reaching approximately 14 million subs on their main channel and almost 6 million on their secondary REACT channel. considering that in the last 3-4 years that they have reached almost half the subscriber count of highly popular Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie (who currently sits at about 41.93 million subscribers, good lord, well done mate), you have to admit, regardless of your own views on the reactionist genre of YouTube, that the Fine Bros made a very profitable way of making reaction videos into an easily-consumable format.
This was never so much my train of thought with the Fine Bros as I personally think that reactionist channels devalue from the original source material they react to and don't really add much to the videos that they react to. This was less so the case when the channel primarily concentrated on everyday people reacting to videos as it was more of a raw, everyday and realistic assessment of the videos that the Fine Brothers found than what might more commonly be seen on their channel in the last year or two.
This came crashing down around the Fine Brothers in late January 2016 when the two brothers announced on their main channel that they would be creating a website initiative called 'React World' whereby people could create reaction channels using similar formats and titles under contract with the two YouTubers who would then take an appropriate share of the add and click-based revenue. On the base of it, this doesn't seem all that terrible as it could've been seen as a chance to create a huge parent-network of the likes of Normal Boots or ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com. However, over the last week or so, more and more information has surfaced indicating that much of this initiative was meant to monopolise the genre of reaction videos and possibly set a harmful precedence for YouTube genres in the future.
I would put the video link for the original announcement video and the subsequent update video put up a couple of days later but the two videos have seemingly been taken down on account of the massive controversy that erupted around the announcement that the two brothers made. Understandably, many people were concerned that the two brothers were trying to monopolise reaction videos but the truer extent of this initiative was not realised until about a week after the announcement was made. Initially, many big-name YouTubers such as Phillip DeFranco or Boogie2988 made very diplomatic reactions to the Fine Bros announcement imploring people to get informed on the issue before going crazy and they're still right. However, in the light of information released about the Fine Brothers allowing their fans to digitally bully the Ellen show for apparently copying one of the brothers shows for one TV episode of her show or how they have attempted to copyright the actual term and concept of 'react', it seems that greed and sinister business malpractice is more so behind the brothers 'REACT WORLD' initiative than initially seems.
Link for Ellen show controversy screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/idasVMZ.png
Fortunately, this seems to have lessened over time with the brothers reaching out diplomatically to Ellen subsequently after the controversy about their fans attacking her show and have rescinded their copyright on the term 'react' since the internet blew up about the 'REACT WORLD'...uh...reaction.
Links for copyright to term 'react':
Link 1: http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/fine-brothers-youtube-scrap-react-licensing-trademark-backlash-1201694781/
Link 2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35459805
Link 3: http://uk.pcmag.com/internet-products/74945/news/fine-brothers-ditch-plans-to-trademark-react-video
Broadly speaking, many other YouTubers (which I'll link below) have expressed concern recently that had this copyright and initiative gone through then it could've set a dangerous precedence for other YouTube video genres. If the brothers had monopolised reaction videos, who's to say that others wouldn't be able to copyright vlogs, make-up tutorials, music remixes or let's plays'? Sadly, it seems like this is becoming more and more of a trend with bigger companies as shown when Sony tried to copyright the term 'let's play' in 2015.
Link for Sony copyrighting let's plays: http://stayontheblack.com/2016/01/sony-is-trying-and-failing-to-trademark-lets-play/
With the informal free-market that the internet and YouTube in particular seem to operate on, this thankfully seems unlikely to happen on such a grand scale as the Fine Brothers or Sony have attempted but the potential of it happening is possible albeit very unlikely and this frightens me. I personally believe that operating the internet and YouTube on a free-market basis is the right way to go and monopolising concepts and terms like 'let's play' or 'react' is extremely harmful to this kind of market and the creative freedom of content creators in general. Therefore, I implore everyone to resist these forms of concept and idea monopolisation and copyright as it does more harm than good. Even if the intentions of the Fine Brothers were good, the effects of this kind of initiative are more negative than positive.
Regardless of this though, the PR reaction to the Fine Brothers has been nothing short of disastrous for their fanbase and reputation considering that as of this blog post, the brothers have lost about half a million subscribers on their main channel and about 150,000 subscribers on their secondary channel and there is now an abundance of streams recording the downfall of the brothers subs count in real time while countless YouTubers have themselves created reactions to the 'REACT WORLD' initiative, absolutely lambasting it and its effects and intentions.
This in turn has resulted in the brothers having to not only rescind their copyrights but also completely scrap the 'REACT WORLD' initiative as they announced a few days ago: https://medium.com/@FineBrothersEnt/a-message-from-the-fine-brothers-a18ef9b31777#.9f1yj9guy
Ultimately I think this is the right thing to do. The initiative and copyright was highly impractical and clearly massively unpopular as telling by the glut in Fine Brothers subscribers over the last several days. However, the Fine Brothers are still losing subs at an alarming rate and are going to be forced to do some massive damage control before long lest they have to give up their diamond subscriber button. Unfortunately for the brothers, regardless of how well they handle the fallout, this PR and policy disaster will undoubtedly tarnish their legacy particularly more so thanks to their condescending way of initially announcing the initiative in the first place.
To conclude, I initially thought that the brothers were simply being misinformed and acting with interesting intentions in the wrong way but now I think that their intentions may have been far more greedy and sinister than initially foreseen. Had the brothers simply implied they were going to be setting up a parent-network for other reaction channels then this wouldn't have imploded as badly as it has done. For one, I've never subscribed to the brothers and I definitely never will after this. You guys decide for yourself but I most definitely think that this controversy has called the honour and moral balance of the brothers into disrepute from this point onwards. I wish I could say otherwise but the more information that comes out about this controversy, the more that such a thought seems like daydreaming hopefulness.
In any case, I hope that this has helped to light up the situation for some of you out there and if it hasn't quite done that then I highly recommend you take a look at some of the links below in order to become better informed about the controversy. So until next time, take care, have fun with whatever you're doing and don't do anything I wouldn't do.
H3h3 productions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwcmWhPcTk8
Boogie2988: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN-vhZoO7wM
I Hate Everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjOKNSOflhk
Phillip DeFranco: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_3HESGr52A
TheGamerFromMars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8nrvch0tNY
Saberspark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kElEmlKZ0oY
Special thanks:
I'd like to give big thanks to my friend Tom.M for sending me the H3h3 productions reaction to the Fine Brothers announcement.
I'd also like to give special thanks to my gaming buddy and good friend Pujge_Egjup for sending me the link about the Ellen show controversy and telling me about that whole situation and how it tied into this current one. Please check out Pujge's gaming channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/PujgeEgjup
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHmq7KX4Qc46VGhYzWqQfOg/playlists
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