YouTube User Sues Google Because He Feels He Deserves Something
A Massachusetts man claims to have applied but been rejected from YouTube’s revenue-sharing Partner Program, a slight he attributes to a deliberate attempt by the video site’s staff to mislead him.
Benjamin Legeri of Rehoboth, Mass., claims to have attracted 3.5 million video views through his YouTube accounts and he believes that’s worth something. So he’s suing Google, YouTube, and several members of YouTube’s support staff for revenue that he believes he should have received.
“…[D]espite the traffic (and notoriety) that Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s content has generated for YouTube.com, and despite hundreds to thousands of hours the Plaintiff has Labored in creating said content, generating said traffic, and managing his YouTube channels and Web pages, Plaintiff has not been paid so much as one cent by Defendants,” the complaint alleges.Legeri claims to have applied to YouTube’s revenue sharing Partner Program but was rejected, a slight he attributes to a deliberate attempt by YouTube’s support staff to mislead him.
“Defendants are quite duplicitous in their dealings,” the complaint states. “They induce and manipulate their account holders and prospective account holders into believing that a certain amount of work on YouTube.com will lead to their success. Defendants do so to create a frenzy of Laborers working to serve the growth of their Web sites.”
To support such claims, Legeri in the
What does this spam have to do with YouTube? Legeri claims that spam campaigns tend to try to exploit ideas that have “reached mass consciousness.” So, by his reasoning, YouTube’s supposed campaign to promote itself as a platform for fame and fortune can be seen in the existence of spam suggesting as much.
Legeri calculates that his daily YouTube traffic of 11,200 views represents between 1/9,000th and 1/500th of YouTube’s 100 million views per day. Thus, he estimates that his traffic is worth between $200,000 and $3.6 million, based on the $1.65 billionGoogle (NSDQ: GOOG) paid for YouTube. He’s seeking $1 million.
Such a self-valuation may be on the high side given that Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in a recent interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC, said that Google still hadn’t figured out how to monetize YouTube.
In any event, Legeri faces an uphill battle with his lawsuit. That’s uphill as in trying to climb a greased pole while being kicked by Google’s legal team. The problem is that Legeri’s complaint neglects to cite any provable unlawful activity on Google’s part. His complaint, like his videos, has some entertainment value, but chances are Legeri won’t get paid so much as one cent for his work.
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