§ 01 · The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Tyler Chow opens with a landlord metaphor that lands harder than any statistic: you are a tenant on YouTube land, and they can evict you with no explanation and no obligation to reverse course. By the time she adds that 12.4 million channels were terminated in the last nine months of 2025 alone, the threat is no longer abstract.
Who's talking.
00:36hostSean Cannell
00:36guestTyler Chow
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 07:39
01 · Legal landscape 2026 -- AI enforcement wave
AI enforcement errors, 12.4M channel terminations, YouTube as private landlord, email list as survival insurance.
07:40 – 09:43
02 · YouTube Second Chances program
Narrow reinstatement eligibility, COVID-era policy reversals, Trump $2.245M settlement context.
09:43 – 29:47
03 · Fair use, copyright strikes, and lawsuits
Ethan Klein suing reaction creators, IP trolls, Coffeezilla/Logan Paul trial, Kevin O Leary $2.8M default judgment.
29:48 – 35:22
04 · AI demonetizing original content
Animation channels hit as AI slop, proving human creative involvement, YouTube black-box enforcement.
35:23 – 42:24
05 · How to sell your YouTube channel
5 PE evaluation criteria, CreatorArc 7-step framework, 100M exit case study.
42:25 – 50:52
06 · Learning from creator brands
MrBeast/Feastables model, Prime Hydration collapse, Mark Rober CrunchLabs subscriptions, neobanks.
50:53 – 67:15
07 · Creator economy opportunities 2026
Unilever 300K creator network, nano/micro influencer value, social media addiction lawsuits, educational content rising.
Lines you could clip.
06:04
"You are a tenant on YouTube land. YouTube is the landlord, and they can kick you or evict you at any point."
61:01
"You are the new studio heads. You just do not know that yet."
06:57
"Data is the new oil. Private equity funds are coming out of the woodworks wanting to buy channels and creator-led businesses."
Things they pointed at.
Word for word.
HOOK opening / re-engagementCTA the pitch
00:05HOOKIt's not the government. They don't need to do anything they don't want to. You are a tenant on YouTube's land, and they can kick you or evict you at any point.
00:14HOOKYouTube just deleted over 4,700,000,000 views worth of AI slop videos. It's becoming clear YouTube is declaring war on deepfakes.
00:22HOOKI've actually stopped taking on channel terminations because I can't get the channels back. 12,400,000
00:29HOOKchannels were terminated. What's happening? Why are channels being deleted and demonetized?
00:32HOOKThis will be a lesson for all creators. Alright. We're back on the Think Media podcast with the creator's attorney, Tyler Chow.
00:45HOOKWe have so much to talk about. There's a lot of legal news. There's a lot of relevant news for creators.
00:49HOOKLast time we talked, though, you said one wrong move, and your whole channel could disappear overnight. Since then, have things gotten worse or better? I think they've gotten worse because
01:00HOOKYouTube and, you know, my focus is always YouTube because I I think if you wanna build a media company, you need to build on YouTube. But it this applies to all the platforms. I think all the platforms are using AI to detect
01:12violations or AI content, and AI, as we know, is not perfect. They make mistakes.
01:18So I'm seeing a lot of creators come to me losing their channels because of violations that aren't right, you know, are not it's it's not correct.
01:28And what kind of violations at least what are they being told? Well, we've seen in the news where AI is detecting AI made content, but it's not really AI made content.
01:38So that's an issue. We've talked about on YouTube how community violations,
01:44violations of the terms of service are really on an uptick.
01:50I think YouTube is doing major cleaning house right now. They're trying to get rid of kind of slop content.
01:58They want their audience to have a good experience when they come on YouTube. So they want to make sure that the quality of content is high so that you stay on the platform. Platform.
02:07That's That's the always the goal. And would that be closely linked with they want advertisers to also keep paying them? Sure.
02:13They want advertisers to have clean content, safe content, safe creators to put their con you know, run their ads through.
02:22What do you say to creators that are maybe curious about you could be within community guidelines even if your content is still more adult or has more cursing in it or things like that, you could still be okay? I mean, look.
02:35There's content that does curse, and and they do find, and there's a certain audience for that that loves it. But I know more and more creators who are, you know, maturing as a business.
02:46I I I know we're gonna dig into that. But a lot of creators who are treating their YouTube
02:52channel as a business, and they want to be brand safe. They wanna make sure brands will work with them.
02:57So they're cursing less. Yeah. And they're becoming
03:00a little more buttoned up and more adults in the room. Are you seeing that? I know.
03:05It makes sense. I mean, if you want to be brand safe, you make a conscious decision to either are you gonna die in the sword of, you know, more adult content or the sort of being broader
03:16appeal. And I suppose there's always a place because you could still get advertising on adult content.
03:23It's maybe the HBO side of YouTube that leans that way. Whereas if your broadest appeal possible,
03:30you know, family friendly or just, yeah, brand safe, as you said, you'd have the most financial opportunity, I would imagine. And your CPMs might be higher too. Yeah.
03:39That's fascinating. So going a little bit deeper into things are worse right now, there does seem to be a ton of buzz over deleted channels, demonetized channels.
03:4812,400,000 channels were terminated in the last nine months
03:53of 2025 alone. Mhmm. What's happening?
03:56Why are channels being deleted and demonetized? Again, I think this is YouTube wanting to
04:02just take away the headaches because
04:07the content that's out there that's, let's say, not safe or they're scammy or they potentially might trick the audiences. And and I'm thinking about,
04:18you know, gambling or lot of sweepstakes and giveaways.
04:22A lot of channels are trying to buy, you know, views and and subscribers by by giving away things. And I think YouTube is really doing away with those because the more that happens, the more complaints they get.
04:35And the more complaints they get, it's like more man hour that YouTube has to put into policing these channels. So why not just get rid of them and allow
04:46healthy channel that really is is
04:50growing the platform to to thrive and to stay? Yeah. That that's really my thought.
04:56So there's a story of an automotive creator named Chase Carr who actually the body of YouTube ruled his termination as night not rightful.
05:06So his channel was terminated, but yet YouTube was still refusing to comply four months later. It seems to be that they're that YouTube is not subject to normal legal accountability
05:17the way that most entities are. Meaning, YouTube did not honor this ruling.
05:23Without looking at the details, what's your take on that? These are people trying to appeal their channel being wrongfully terminated.
05:29Well, so here's the thing that people have to realize. Being on YouTube is a privilege.
05:35YouTube is a privately owned company. It's not the government.
05:40They don't need to do anything they don't want to. YouTube gets to decide the rules. If they decide these types of channels are better for our platform, then we're gonna grow those.
05:49If they decide these types of channels pull our platform down, we're going to terminate them or or not let them come back. And I think this is the point I really want to drive across to every creator out there. You are a tenant
06:04on YouTube's land. Mhmm. YouTube is the landlord, and they can kick you or evict you at any point.
06:10This is why I always talk about you have to build on your own land. You have to have your email list. You have to know who your audience is away from the platforms.
06:17And that's really been a big focus for me in the last year since our last conversation even. So go a little bit deeper on that. What what are the practical steps that every creator listening should be doing?
06:29Building an email list, or is there other options? I think number one is the email list. If you take away anything from this conversation, it's
06:37do you know who's in your audience? If your YouTube channel were to go down tomorrow, would you know how to access your
06:46audience? Most creators say no. Mhmm.
06:49And that's a problem because YouTube and Meta and TikTok don't give you access to that data. And I would say data is the new oil.
06:59Private equity fund is coming out of the woodworks wanting to buy channels and creator led businesses. And the number one thing that they look at is your data and your audience numbers.
07:09Do you actually have the emails, phone numbers? Do you have an ability to reach those audience members to sell something to them?
07:17Mhmm. And so I would say, give a free p PDF. Give something of value to your audience,
07:23and and you need to grab those emails for your newsletter, for your community. And those are kind of other revenue streams that I really help creators build out beyond AdSense and brand deals. In just a moment, I wanna unpack that conversation a little bit more.
07:36But on this idea of some of the legal stuff that's been happening on YouTube, uh, I know that this is maybe more fringe examples,
07:43but I'm sure listeners have not heard about this thing from YouTube called Second Chances. Mhmm. It's a program for terminated creators
07:51that I think happened perhaps during the pandemic. One of the biggest ones
07:57was there's actually a settlement with Donald Trump. $2.24500000 dollars Mhmm.
08:04YouTube settled for Trump's $20.21 account suspension lawsuit.
08:11So he not only then would get that money, but obviously get reinstated. Mhmm. I mean, maybe it's a simple take on what's happening there.
08:20They had no emission of wrongdoing and no policy change, um, but it might seem that maybe what would be, uh, perhaps overreach during the pandemic is now being pulled back in.
08:31Give us some context for what do you think is happening. So, yes, the second chance program is exciting from the surface.
08:39So many creators, so they say, couldn't get a chance to get their channel back. And I but but it's very narrow on the definition of who are the creators who can get their channels back.
08:50I think during the pandemic, there were certain rules that YouTube put into place as to there are certain things you can't say about about COVID or about treatments or you name it. Right? The kind of taboo things,
09:04or you can't give false medical advice. And YouTube has decided since it no longer applies that they're going to give those creators a second chance to get their channels back. I believe the rule is they have to start at zero again
09:18and it's a very narrow definition of who gets their channels back. There are, I think, some
09:26who might have talked about the election or about the news in certain ways, and those restrictions are no longer applicable. So YouTube is saying those channels who maybe talked about the election can get their, um, a second chance to get their channels back.
09:41Got you. So I wanna talk a little bit about fair use, copyright strikes, and some of the lawsuits. This is always an evolving,
09:48um, kind of topic. One, fair use is a massive opportunity because there's react channels that are building huge businesses,
09:57movie review channels, or people commentating, making video essays using fair use in a lot of creative ways. But you told us last time that fair use is not a real protection on YouTube.
10:09That's right. And now the creator who literally won the landmark fair use case in 2017 is actually suing other reaction creators.
10:18Have you heard about No. So Ethan Klein, who who won that original reaction case,
10:26actually sued Casey Tron, Denmis, and Frogen in June 2025. Mhmm.
10:32A $150,000 per violation. Casey Tron already settled.
10:37I'm just kind of curious. Does this change how reaction creators should structure their content? And you don't know the details of this exact case, but it's kinda interesting
10:46the nuances of who's using what or who's reacting to what could be defamation, these different things like that? Well, so
10:54I think, you know, I've said this before on our conversations, but it repeats
11:00repeating to creators who might need to hear it a second time. So
11:06anytime you use someone else's content in your content, that original IP holder let let's say somebody takes one of your videos Yeah.
11:14And puts it as b roll in their videos. You could technically go put a copyright strike on their video because they didn't get your permission.
11:23They didn't license it. They didn't pay you. Right.
11:25And YouTube can make that rule. And they have made a rule because there are so many violations of IP,
11:34you know, improper use of IP now that they're allowing the parties to just hash it out themselves. In the past, I I believe a few years ago, for a long time, YouTube would step in and try to kind of mediate between the parties and figure out, like, was there a fear fair use? You know, is this a proper usage?
11:50YouTube is not doing that anymore because just from a pure volume standpoint, they can't step in and police that anymore. So in court, let's say, you know, and and this is where Ethan's,
12:03um, lawsuits are interesting. If he's going to court and saying, you're using my content without permission, that defendant could say to the judge, well, your you know, your honor,
12:15I use this content because it's it was transformed. You know, it was a parody. It was for educational purposes.
12:22You know, for a fair use test is four prong test. Perhaps the judge could say, oh, okay. That was a fair use.
12:28But on YouTube, that is not a defense anymore. And I think a lot of creators get caught up thinking, well, I can use this clip, you know, because I'm doing a critique on it or it's it's it's kind of a news coverage,
12:42and it's fair use. And it's just not the case anymore. I can't remember if we talked about this last time about IP trolls really
12:51attacking the bigger reaction channels. And Expand on that. IP trolls?
12:57IP trolls are basically looking at big YouTubers who are doing reaction channels, and then going to the smaller creators and then either buying or licensing their content and then going back to that big creators and saying,
13:12I own 25 of the b roll clips in your compilation. And if you don't pay me the 6 figure ransom fee, basically, I'm gonna take your channel down.
13:21And I've had to deal with several of these IP trolls, and we basically, um, have to pay the ransoms.
13:28Have to settle. And so I'm telling a lot of big YouTubers to no longer do reaction videos
13:34or to clear those videos before they use them. And that's very interesting. I think listeners might lean on that.
13:41If they're hesitating to react to different types of things, it would seem that some things might be okay,
13:50like some industries, like if you're reacting to, um, uh, the recent
13:57White House press press briefing? News news tends to be a little bit, uh, from what I've seen.
14:04It's not a 100%. Right? News,
14:07um, when people pull a clip from it and they use it sort of in a very neutral way Yeah. It's fine. This is something that creators can think about when they're trying to use someone's footage.
14:17If you're going to be neutral or positive about the usage, it's probably gonna be okay. But if you're going to, like, go after someone and it's derogatory, it could potentially be defamatory, that there's more of a likelihood that person's gonna come after you.
14:32K. If someone takes one of your video, Sean, and, like, it says why you're a bad person, you're probably gonna go after them. But if they're like, oh my god.
14:38Look at Sean's channel. He's teaching educators. You know, he's educating creators.
14:42You're probably not gonna go after them because there's also a cost of policing. I used to work at Disney,
14:50and we would not actively go after infringers. Not be because we didn't want to, but just because there was I Disney owns so much IP to go after every infringer. Now if somebody brought
15:05a case of, wow, they're really, you know, like, talking really bad things about Disney, you should go after them. That's what usually when is we would go after an infringer is for that violation is if it was making us look bad or hurting our business.
15:21And we were informed.
15:24We were given notice of that violation. That's usually when companies would go after people. So
15:30for the creator that wants to, um, I mean, we're talking about news, but we're living in a world where if you wanted to storytell
15:38around politics, around health, about around anything, you also might recount the story Mhmm. And edit in a photo of the person Sure.
15:48B roll clips. You know, there's whole faceless channels, meaning, you know, there's no brand behind it, but it covers
15:56all things Tesla and Elon Musk, and they get big views. Because they'll they'll cover everything SpaceX is doing, and they'll cover all these new batteries in this new place.
16:05And they pulled together clips and video clips and livestreams. It seems like they're getting away with it, and that would be under fair use.
16:14It again, it's not necessarily fair use. It's more that the IP holder here, Tesla, has probably made a business decision
16:23saying this is good for our business because it's basically free marketing. Yeah. Again Talking about it.
16:28Yeah. If it's not negative, it's not derogatory, it's not hurting their business, a lot of the businesses will allow it to happen. I mean, there there's a huge trend now.
16:37You I'm sure you've seen it. You know, Steven Barlett's Diary of CEO is huge now. Yeah.
16:42And there's so many people clipping Yes. Their clips and using it.
16:46And people have asked me, well, come you Diary of CEO, Steven Barlett hasn't gone after them?
16:53Now we don't know what happens behind the scenes. A lot of times people might reach out and say stop using it. So it might be happening and they don't make it public.
17:00Or they just think it's good marketing for them. Yeah. Because if they have a show a sixty second clip, it sends them to the long form because that happens to me sometimes.
17:08I'll I'll think, well, that's a cool conversation, and then I'll go watch the full episode. So all of these channels are basically clipping for Stephen Barlett.
17:18He doesn't have to do it himself. Yeah. Mhmm.
17:21So you you mentioned if you're if you're speaking positive, then you you're probably good there.
17:27But It's not bulletproof. Right? But Yeah.
17:28Most likely. But if it is more potentially defamatory, you know, there's the Logan Paul versus Coffey, Zillow Yes.
17:37Which is going to trial on May 4. Oh, fascinating. I didn't I didn't know it got a trial date.
17:42What happens to creator commentary culture depending on who wins? This will be a lesson for all creators.
17:51If you talk about somebody in a negative light, in a potentially
17:57defamatory Yeah. You might always
18:00get hit with a lawsuit. And because that's the beauty and nightmare of living in The US. Right?
18:06You can soon be sued by anybody. Yeah. But
18:10that you know, Coffeezilla story, and I and I love talking about it because his insurance agent really failed him, didn't give him the defamation coverage.
18:20And had he had it, that insurance would have covered his litigation costs. So that's number one.
18:26For creators out there, get your insurance. If you're doing product reviews or talking about people, you should have defamation insurance
18:35coverage. But you always run into this risk. I'm
18:39really excited to see what's going to happen because a lot of behind the scenes
18:45information will come out during discovery and during trial. But depending on the verdict or what happens to this trial,
18:54it might inform creators whether or not they can do these kind of journalistic content or not and and and kind of maybe give guidelines as to how they should approach it. And I think Coffeezilla's
19:05defense will be a defense to defamation is the truth. Yes.
19:10So if he can prove what he said was true, then he will most likely not, you know, not be found liable for damages. And so
19:18and and does this is that tie into the term where allegedly might not be enough saying the word allegedly?
19:26Because a lot of what Coffeezilla will do is at a point, will be like, allegedly, this is the news so far. This is what's happening. I think going out there and saying, like, Logan Paul is actually a scammer versus allegedly,
19:40he potentially scammed people. Is is that protection for him depending on To a point, yes.
19:48Saying this is my opinion. This is what's been alleged. I think always,
19:54um, I think lessens how how visceral and how
19:59negative it could be. But at the end of the day, if Logan Paul can prove that what he said was false, right, what Coffey Zella said was false, and it hurt his business.
20:10Right? Because it's two prong. It's not just big thing.
20:13It has to you have to prove damages. Yeah. It can't just be, oh, this person
20:17hurt my feelings. The courts have to have something that they can give back to someone who's been damaged. Yes.
20:24They have to be able to say, okay. Logan Paul, your business took a 3,000,000 hit this year,
20:30and we can and, you know, they'll they'll probably need forensic accounts to come in and say, you know, to show. If not for Coffeezilla's reports,
20:38you know, his business would have done this. It can't just be, your honor, he hurt my feelings and said bad things about me. No.
20:44It actually has to hurt his business. You know, it makes me wonder how boldly creators can or should talk about real people. This isn't everybody's niche, but there's actually, um, Kevin O'Leary just won $2,800,000,
20:58uh, against a crypto influencer who called him a murderer Oh. On X.
21:03So I'm guessing that was false too. So it's quite the bold claim. But on February 2026, Ben Armstrong,
21:09Bip Boy Crypto Mhmm. Default judgment for not even responding. Uh, mental health was rejected as excuse, and two point point eight million was awarded.
21:18So the defamation exposure, most creators are probably under misunderstanding
21:25it. Because YouTube gives us this opportunity to maybe commentate on a scandal, commentate on people, of course, all had their opinion on the cold play
21:35Sure. Affair thing. Mhmm.
21:37I in in the faith space, uh, that's kind of, you know, partly my world. I have a background in church.
21:43There's been a lot of different, like, moral failings in these big churches across America. And there's a whole bunch of YouTube creators that get a lot of views covering this. Mhmm.
21:51This makes me wonder, you know, Kevin O'Leary won probably because
21:57he was able to he's probably not a murderer, I'm guessing. Yes. Yeah.
22:01So I think the truth was not a defense there. Yeah. So I'm just curious how boldly creators should be thinking about if they're gonna be talking about real people
22:10and starting these small YouTube channels. Or maybe you start small, but your video goes viral. All of a sudden, you know, you're on blast talking about somebody else.
22:18Listen. This brings to mind, you know, the Blake Lively and the Justin Baldoni lawsuit that's been happening there. Explain the details of that.
22:26Um, so the these two, you know, actors were on a movie together, and Blake Lively claimed that, um, the director, Justin Baldoni, um, sexually harassed her, you know, on set.
22:40And so it became this huge thing where discovery was done and, you know, their publicists and their managers and and Taylor Swift was brought into it because Taylor's a friend of Blake's. And all their text messages came out. So it's like, just realize that during litigation,
22:57everything comes out. Anything you put in writing might be shown to the world.
23:04And what happened there was a lot of people started covering it, journalists. There's one woman particularly,
23:13her channel completely, I think blew up to a million because she was covering it every single day. Yeah.
23:19And she took a position as to who was the bad person.
23:25I think, like and and don't quote me because I can't remember if if she, like, was more on Justin's side or more on Blake's side. But the point here is she took a side. And let let's say she she was against Blake.
23:38Right? So Blake could potentially come after her and say, your coverage of this entire time in the dispute really hurt my image and my business.
23:47And there are headlines now that say nobody wants to hire her anymore. And you know she's Ryan Reynolds' wife, so it's just like, this could hurt her career as an actress. And could she prove that because of this woman's coverage of her every single day that put this false narrative out there that it hurt her business?
24:05Yeah. I think every creator has to approach
24:09these kind of journalistic channels,
24:14their content, with
24:18some caution. Yes. Because they might get sued
24:23because they're talking negatively about somebody. Totally. This would apply to creators who do products, product reviews, tech reviews.
24:31We certainly have seen those headlines where a creator says, oh, this is crap. You know? Sorry.
24:36My language. This is a terrible product, and and then that product tanks. Right?
24:41And and so we have a lot of power as creators. We have potentially sometimes millions of people listening to us.
24:49We have to be careful, I I think, the power that we hold sometimes. Can brands be implicated? So there's a there's a there's a creator named Candice Owens.
24:58Okay. And she has been talking at length about
25:04Charlie Kirk's death Mhmm. But also all with all kinds of theories,
25:10and many would say conspiracy theories. Mhmm. I'm talking at length, like daily hour to two hour podcast.
25:16And for a while, I was getting one to two to 3,000,000 views. Wow. Number one, it brings up the idea that is there a time when Turning Point USA
25:27files a lawsuit. Number two, though, as she's going through these episodes, you know, mid episode, she she might be like, today's episode is brought to you by and when you insert the brand, is the brand completely safe in the midst of
25:40choosing to sponsor content that could be if it is commentary, if it's getting into that environment?
25:46That's a great question. So I guide a lot of creators about having mutual indemnity when they do their brand sponsorships. Usually, it's to protect them against the brand.
25:55Yeah. But in this situation, because it's mutual, it would protect the brand.
26:01So if the brand got sued because of what the creator said Yes. Then
26:08the creator would have to pay the brand's legal fees if they get pulled into it. Okay. So this is why brands are very careful about the types of creators that they work with.
26:19I'm I don't know what type of brand is sponsoring her content. I mean, it's just for for someone who represents I represent brands and agencies and creators.
26:28I would be very hesitant. I would tell the brand, be very careful here about working with a creator whose content
26:36is very risky. It's you know, it might open you up to liability for a lawsuit. And so in that in that sense,
26:44if the brand still decides to go forward, I would make sure that their indemnity is very strong. I would may even confirm that the creator has defamation in E and O insurance and add the brand as an additional insured onto that policy, which can go both ways, by the way.
27:00I'm doing a big campaign for one of my clients right now with Google, and we're we're making Google add my client onto their additional insured. Wow.
27:09Mhmm. That's a that's that's powerful. That's why people should work with you.
27:13Yeah. Well, you do get that extra layer of protection, I think, when you work with an attorney. Which I got many more questions for you, but I want to you mentioned a few things that we've covered in past episodes that I wanna remind listeners.
27:24There's a couple good ones in the archive to listen to after this, and, of course, all your info in case people wanna reach out. Before we move on to the next topic, you actually mentioned Nintendo by name in our last conversation.
27:37I think we were talking about different, say, gaming companies. Most are fine with you streaming their content.
27:43Some crack down more. Mhmm. You know?
27:45But actually, Nintendo sued a streamer for $7,500,000 for streaming prerelease games. Mhmm.
27:52So they must have known they were prerelease and maybe was willing to do that. I don't that's that's a scary amount.
27:59I can't imagine the streamer can hang with those numbers, but the streamer was Everyday Guru. Mhmm. And this was filed in 2024 in Colorado with 7,500,000
28:09sought. I'm curious your take on, like, gaming creators or emulation or the myth that Let's Plays are safe.
28:17Again, it really depends on the game developer.
28:23Some are a lot more relaxed and some because it helps them. Right? You you think about Roblox, you think about Minecraft.
28:30Like, it helps their brand to allow creators to react and, you know, and and and and stream on with their content.
28:42Nintendo has notoriously been really more strict than other game developers. I haven't heard about this case, but just the the the fact that you said it was a prerelease
28:53Right. So this really hurt their bottom line because this this goes back to the same analogy as pirated films. When when films are not yet released and they get, you know, put onto the, you know, these black market websites and people stream them ahead of time and then they release all the the kind of spoilers,
29:12it hurts. Like, would anybody pay to go to the theater so they can just watch it at home? So I think there have been a lot of historical
29:20precedent where companies will go after infringers because they need to basically send a message out to the public that you can't do this. You can't pirate. You can't prerelease our content because we're looking to make millions of dollars from it.
29:34And you have potentially hurt us by maybe it's it's it's 25%.
29:40Maybe it's 50% of our revenue. So that's why I'm not surprised at that big number that they they went after this creator for. Talking about copyright claims versus strikes and how what AI is changing.
29:53We mentioned it a little bit earlier, but YouTube's AI is demonetizing even original animation channels,
30:01mistaking them for AI slop. So the question is how do you prove if your content is real? In February 2026,
30:08Dino Meat Mania Mhmm. Over a million subs and other animation channels were hit by an AI policy as
30:16one of the channels in our community got inauthentic content.
30:20They had a bible stories channel. They were making $30,000 a month in YouTube ad revenue. Wow.
30:26Um, you know, AI writing the scripts, AI voice, AI animation, but they're, you know, making these episodes and the whole channel got demonetized. I don't know if you're any of your clients.
30:37The question, how do you prove your content is real if you're appealing this and it feels like there's just these broad strokes by YouTube? Yeah.
30:46How do you navigate that? So this is where really being
30:52a more buttoned up business comes into play. You have to start keeping track
31:00of your content. And this is the copyright rule.
31:06If
31:09original content is created by humans, that's the most broad copyright law. If you use AI to create your animations,
31:19let's say, you should be able to show, like, this is the first version that AI made for me.
31:25But then a human animator or editor went in and actually made changes to make it
31:32not AI, not fully AI. I don't actually know.
31:37Again, this is a little bit vague because YouTube doesn't actually share their methodologies of how they determine something purely AI or not AI.
31:49And I know that this type of record keeping and bookkeeping is something that trips up a lot of creators because we just have to get our content out there. Sometimes people make five videos a day.
32:00The the idea of clearing b roll, clearing reaction channel videos, like, it's just a lot. And it kills the creative spirit. Does.
32:07It kills speed, and it kills the speed. But and we'll talk about this later. You know, when you wanna sell your business, when you wanna license your content, you have to prove that you own it all.
32:17So for the AI, it's
32:21the cleanest answer would be to to make your own content and not use AI. That's the biggest defense if if YouTube were to say, this is AI content.
32:31But if you're using AI to do your animations, I mean, that's it's so tricky because you could say, well, the prompts were done by me, a human.
32:40The AI couldn't have made this content without the human input. And so that's where you might even have to show.
32:49You put in the prompts. You do screenshots. You show the content.
32:53You have to prove a record of what is the human elements of this content. And
33:00we'll see it more play out, guess, as more creators get hit with this. But it's sort of a black box. YouTube doesn't show like this is how we decide certain things.
33:10Right. I've worked on so many copyright strikes or channel terminations. And sometimes, we just get a channel back, and we never get an explanation why or we never get it back.
33:19And they also don't explain why. So it's really hard for me to guide. And I will share with you, Sean, I've actually stopped taking on channel terminations because
33:29I can't get the channels back sometimes, and I don't want to take on a case where I can't You're saying it for that result.
33:36You're like, maybe I'll get it back. Maybe I won't, but that's and I don't have enough information. And I don't like taking money from creators where,
33:42yeah, maybe 50% of the time I'll get your channel back. But like, I don't wanna take the chance that you're the other 50 that I can't get it back.
33:49So now I just don't take them on anymore. Interesting. If you're an entrepreneur or a creator that wants to scale their online business, that's why we created the Think Media Mastermind.
33:58I have so much more clarity as to my ideal target audience now, which means my content is about to be so much better and more targeted towards the exact person I'm trying to reach. Super intimate, high level strategy.
34:10I had the skills that I already knew sharpened. I feel like I went to my next level. For entrepreneurs
34:18and creators that wanna scale with YouTube. This was the first time that I was able to get in a room with a lot of other serious YouTubers and talk with other people who love creating content and love YouTube.
34:31Usually, I don't get to do that, so this is really special. You can check it out at thinkmediamastermind.com. Yeah.
34:38I think it's that's scary for creators. They might have a fear of starting, but what you're saying, of course, if you're creating original content,
34:46it's not something you have to worry about. Correct. Um, but if you do wanna step into using
34:51AI, it it sounds like what I'm hearing is you need to professionalize your business. Yes.
34:56Like and if you're you should be thinking this many moves ahead. What maybe what will happen the day if I'm questioned? Yes.
35:03And if you're ready for the day you're questioned, oh, yeah. This is our process. Because there's plenty of animation channels which YouTube loves.
35:10Mhmm. AI is just a tool potentially to create that animation that's now at a barrier of entry that's available almost to anybody Exactly.
35:18At this point. Mhmm. Um, okay.
35:20So, um, let's talk about these
35:25exits. You know, I want people to lock in because if you're just starting, you might not be thinking about exiting your YouTube channel. But this really is a mindset that could help every Think Media podcast listener
35:36be thinking about, man, what's possible over the next five, ten, fifteen years? What could I build? Because I believe you're representing a $100,000,000
35:44exit right now. Is that true? Yes.
35:46That is wild. So when you look at at Creator's business today, what's the one thing that maybe kills a deal before it starts?
35:53I don't know if it's one thing. Yeah. But I'll share with you these are the five elements
35:57that I always try to tell creators they should think about and probably earlier on than they they think. Okay.
36:04So so through my business, my creator arc business, which is my M and A advisory arm,
36:12I take creators basically through and arc is basically a life cycle for creator. So there are seven steps. Step one is your very first upload all the way to exit.
36:21And within those, I ask creators to think about growing their revenue streams beyond AdSense and brand deals.
36:29So a private equity fund or studio or streamer are starting to look at YouTube channels as viable media companies and assets that they want to acquire. They look at certain things such as your audience size, that does matter,
36:44but also your connection to your audience. How loyal is your audience to you? They look at your revenue.
36:51And not just pure revenue, but also recurring revenue. What is something that gets paid when you're sleeping that is away from your face?
37:00They look at data. You know, what do you own your your email list? Do you own your audience?
37:07They look at your team. You know, like, who who do you have working for you? Like, could you, Sean, take two weeks off
37:14and everything still keeps running? Yep. And
37:18what I didn't mention is the creator themselves. Because what
37:22these buyers have to mitigate is the key man risk. Mhmm. Because when they're buying a channel,
37:29and we look at examples like Matt Pat, Atheoris and Veritasium as sort of the two big exits. And actually last night at dinner, I sat down and spoke a long time with Stephanie Patrick,
37:42and I got so much insight into their exit. She's potentially going to come on my podcast Creator to CEO to talk about their exit because I think a lot of creators are starting to get really interested in what does that look like for me. Yeah.
37:54How do I get off this hamster wheel? Right. So
37:58that question of how do we take the risk off of of this creator's face so that not everything is reliant on them? Because in this calculation that buyers are looking at, your YouTube channel should be a small fraction of that. The client that I'm working on with the $100,000,000
38:17exit, if his channel were to go down tomorrow, yes, it would hurt, but it's only a small fraction of his his revenue.
38:24Interesting. His community, his
38:28courses, his newsletter, his tech app. So the tech app, this app is
38:34something that can be sold and rolled up for 30 or $50,000,000. So I wanna take you back a little bit about this journey with this client. So two about eighteen months ago, we took him out to market because he said to me, he said, Tyler, I wanna sell my channel.
38:48Can we see how much it would be worth? Yes. What's the valuation?
38:51So we took him out, spoke to four private equity funds, and they all gave us a range of about 30 to 35,000,000, which is a
39:00very healthy, great number. Yeah.
39:05But I actually said to him, I said, you know what? I think we should wait. I think you could hit a 100,000,000 in probably three three to five years was what I said.
39:14But in the meantime, we should do these things. So this is what I do through CreatorArc. I actually sit down with creators, and I go down the next two years with them, three years with them, or five years, you know, to ready.
39:26To get ready for that. Yes. 35 mil to a 100 mil plus.
39:29So we we look at diversifying the revenue stream. We look at making sure their corporate structure is properly structured.
39:36There's a parent company. There are subsidiaries holding, like, the YouTube channel, the, um, the community, the products so that if if one company got sued, the other assets would be safe.
39:48Um, we make sure their IP portfolio is clean, clean chain of title, that you own every single b roll, every piece of music you have in your videos, every independent contractor you have, every employee you have has work for hire language, that everything they're doing is owned by you.
40:05You have all your trademarks for all of your brands. These are all the things that the private equity funds will look at. And this often takes
40:14a good year or two for me to clean that up if you're not doing it from day one. Now I have some clients interestingly, and they they happen to be more professional
40:24educational channels who are coming from me, who are coming to me from day one even before they start their channel and saying, I need you to do my LLC. I need you to structure me properly.
40:35We're gonna do the trademarks. Give me independent contractor agreements. Tell me how to get the proper b roll, the music.
40:43From day one, they're thinking about it in the right way. Because more and more professionals are becoming YouTubers.
40:50They're doing this on the side maybe to quit their full time job. And so they're getting ready. And so many of them understand
40:58that the endpoint is an exit. Yes. That's a whole different level of thinking.
41:03It's interesting in our community. Like, this year, 2026, it seems like
41:08this may be more of a normal conversation. It might have been as it might have been five, seven years ago, there was an 8 figure exit of one of our students.
41:19And and now multiple, maybe not quite 10, but more than five of our students have exited their YouTube channel. Interesting.
41:26And who are the buyers? Uh, one was a kid's brand. They took over a
41:31female's channel and hired her back and then started adding other creators to the channel for kids products. One overtook
41:40like a you'd call it like a ecommerce service business Mhmm. For like countertop stuff.
41:46And there was already a big ecom thing. They figured they could professionalize it and scale it.
41:51Nice. And the YouTube channel was the engine of these businesses. Just the marketing arm.
41:55Yeah. It was the marketing arm, but there was other things there. So that is a wild way of thinking about this creator economy thing's huge.
42:04You never know what it's gonna turn into. And even just so you have a couple layers. My takeaway is, one, just listening to this podcast,
42:10you gave us a whole different way of thinking of how we set up our business. Two, maybe you wanna set it up from day one, trademarks. Mhmm.
42:16And three, you always can pivot, but it might take some time to clean up your business if, like, I never knew all the success would, you know, come my way or whatever. I'm curious of a couple
42:28your your thoughts on MrBeast. Feastables is now outperforming MrBeast's actual YouTube channel.
42:35But I wonder if it's an interesting model because the numbers that I was able to pull was 250,000,000 in revenue for Feastables versus his media business losing 80,000,000. Mhmm.
42:47And on the headlines, people are like, mister Beast is losing money, you know, which I peep people lose the context.
42:54Like, oh, I knew it. He's failing. It's like, I think you read the headline wrong.
42:58Losing 80,000,000 on the media arm is really not a loss if the media is why your chocolate bar and other businesses you're launching is blowing up. What are your thoughts on there on that?
43:09Well, I think he's can certainly not be losing so much money. I think he almost wears it like a a badge of honor.
43:18Like, I can I put all this money back into my content and that's why I'm losing? Yeah. I
43:25think there's a little bit of a, you know, a media attention
43:32angle there. Okay. But the Feastables is really what I wanna focus on.
43:37And this is why I talk to creators day in and day out about how do you grow your business so it's not reliant on your face or your upload schedule.
43:47Yeah. And this exact example shows this is what I'm talking about. He has built a product
43:53that doesn't require his face anymore. Right? I mean, yes.
43:57Like, him talking about his chocolate, but people know enough now when they go into a Target or into a seven eleven. They're just they're gonna grab that Feastables.
44:06Right? Because they like the chocolate. Because it's it's on par with Hershey's now.
44:11But if his channel were to go down tomorrow, his chocolate would still sell.
44:18And that's the point. And that's why it was so great that he didn't call it Mr. Beast chocolate.
44:23He called it Feastables, another separate name, another brand away from his YouTube channel. So that's the gold standard.
44:33I mean, more of a gold standard because consumer goods, the margins are not good is Mark Rober's CrunchLab subscription boxes. I love that type of product.
44:41I mean, my actually, my gold standard is the technical app because you build it once and you can sell it a million times and there isn't manufacturing and distribution the way a physical product has.
44:52But thinking about recurring revenue, a subscription box that you can get your audience to not buy one time for $30, but $30 times 12 or many, many years.
45:03That's what private equity fund looks at as to what is your month over month, year after year revenue,
45:12recurring revenue. MrBeast also acquired a Gen Z fintech app, and the senate banking community sent him a letter about it.
45:20Is this a warning sign for creators who wanna launch financial products? I don't think so. I'm working on two neobanks right now for my clients.
45:28Yeah. So I think
45:31he's thinking in a in the right way. I mean, Step was an educational app. It's not a real bank app.
45:37I I heard through the Gravevines, I think. The speculation is he tried to get a bank charter.
45:43It's very, very hard to get get a bank charter. So this was sort of the in between before I think he he tries to get a bank charter. Here's something that people don't realize that banks have to spend a lot of money.
45:56Banks have to spend, I think it's like a thousand dollars per client. It's called customer acquisition cost. For most YouTubers and creators, that cost could be zero.
46:08So if MrBeast and and we can talk I actually just filmed a video about this that will come out next week about MrBeast's three intent to use trademarks that he just filed.
46:19He just filed Beast Financials. He filed Watchtime Studios
46:23and then an incubator. So these are all potential businesses that he's going to start soon, and it it kind of indicates where his mind is going.
46:34You know, he's thinking about incubating smaller channels. He's thinking about creating banks. He's thinking about being a white label production company.
46:42And thinking three steps ahead is what creators really need to start doing. You can't just be heads down making content every day.
46:49Yes. Okay. When you're starting out, get your first video, 50 videos out, like every week just though you have to put the reps in.
46:56Yeah. But once you're starting to make some money on AdSense and brand deals, let's say you're making $10,000 a month.
47:04That's that's a salary. That's a nice salary that can replace a corporate job.
47:10That then you really should start thinking about what is this as a business? Do separate I have business account?
47:17Do I have an LLC? Do I have the proper agreements in place? Because most of the time when people are coming to me because they got an offer ready for an exit,
47:29it's almost too late. Not too late, but it's just it's it's a lot more work for me to have to clean up after the fact than if I put them in from day one.
47:38I know we're talking about a high level, but creators of all sizes, of course, could dream about what we might create. But do you feel like some of these creator brands could be overhyped? Meaning, for example, Prime Hydration went from 1,300,000,000
47:51to 300,000,000 in two years. I don't know if there's some things you would do differently. What are some lessons from that?
47:57I believe Refresco sued them for $68,000,000. Agorovania
48:03for 13,000,000. There's a class action on caffeine and chemicals. So you've got, like, the headline of, yes, creators launch brand, huge creator, KSI, Logan Paul.
48:13Prime goes to a billion dollars, but also shrinks a billion dollars.
48:20Lessons from that? I think it really comes down to trust. Because at the end of the day, I think the reason why Prime Hydration failed was because
48:30they
48:33use bad products. They potentially
48:39wanted to make the quicker dollar and not do the right thing. And I think we've seen this through a lot of creator
48:47led products where the quality is bad or let's say clothing, the quality is bad or they make supplements and people get hurt or people get sick.
48:58And the way our world is now with how quick social medias and Reddit, talking,
49:06giving feedback in real time is you can't try to shortcut things or make a cheap product and think you're going to get away with it.
49:17It's just not possible anymore. So I think,
49:21I mean Logan Paul has has really, I think lost the trust of his audience several times, you know, with his and all all these different things that he's done. So he he he was maybe under a microscope already, but I think that's what ended up happening.
49:33Even with mister Beast and Feastables, I mean, he has changed the ingredients of his of his chocolate. Remember when he first started out, he said, I wanted to make a great high quality chocolate with organic ingredients.
49:44Yeah. That's no longer the case because he needs to compete with Hershey's and he needs to be For margins, the whole deal.
49:51And so it's it's all things that a
49:56company would think about from day one. Because I think when creators are doing making products on their own and not involving the experts or the third party experts who maybe
50:10if they hadn't brought in a beverage company from day one to partner with them, they could have guided them and said, these are the ingredients we should really think about. And so I think there's
50:20maybe an immaturity, you know, like I think an immature point of view in thinking, well, we could just do whatever we want and it will be fine or so we can make a quick dollar.
50:30I think at the end of the day, it always comes back and and the truth comes out. That timeless wisdom
50:37is timely in that, you know, just because you have influence and a good marketing arm, you know, influence on YouTube or wherever,
50:47that quality product and reputation over time is still what's gonna last. I think so. Yes.
50:53Well, as we land the plane, what what do you think creators
51:00should be doing right now, or what opportunities should they be jumping onto?
51:06Uh, Unilever is putting 50% of their ad budget into influencer marketing. You know about this story.
51:11Can you break this down? It might speak to more broadly what's happening in the creator economy right now.
51:17Mhmm. So I I recently wrote about this. I'm a Forbes contributor, and I wrote this story about how Unilever,
51:24just last week, their CEO announced that they have a network of 300,000 creators that they work with directly.
51:32So they've cut out the agencies, and they're going to these creators as basically their distribution arm and saying, you know, we are launching this new product. We want you to highlight this product.
51:43And they have they're going to very small creators, let's say 10,000 to 50,000. I think that's their sweet spot of like how many they like in their audience because they know those creators have a very close relationship with that audience.
51:57You take a huge creator with 100,000,000 subscribers, though they don't necessarily have that type of relationship with their audience.
52:05So they're going to smaller creators and asking them to basically become their brand ambassadors and and and to
52:13be their commercials, you know, to be to be selling their products.
52:18Last year, I think this was in 2024, the year before, the CEO of Unilever said, we are going to allocate 50%
52:28of our spend dollars towards digital creators. Wow. And I think when that happened,
52:34the market really sat up and took attention. You know, they they really paid attention because Unilever is one of the biggest companies in the world, and they own so many different brands like Ben and Jerry's and Dove and and all these different brands.
52:47And if they're saying, we're not gonna work with traditional agencies anymore necessarily
52:54or we're gonna go straight to creators. I think this signals to the marketplace that creators are real businesses.
53:03They're distribution arms or media companies that we should pay attention to. And that's why in my Forbes article, I said, this is
53:11an indication that private equity funds and big companies are start are going to start acquiring
53:20creator led businesses because it's it's a fully fledged distribution arm that they could just acquire very cheaply
53:29compared to what they would have to do if they were to spend it in into, uh, agencies or if they were trying to build this themselves from scratch. Yes.
53:37So the takeaway is realizing where basically influencer marketing Mhmm. For nano and micro influencers is going.
53:44Yes. 10,000 subscribers and
53:48mac macro companies like Unilever wants to work with you Yes. If you've got a niche audience.
53:55So what do you see coming? What are you excited about in terms of the creator economy? You work with a lot of large and established creators thinking about exiting,
54:04but what do you think specifically for new creators, 2026? You think competition is too fierce to get in the game, or where do you see things going next? No.
54:13I don't think so. I think it's it's the perfect time. If you've been thinking about starting a YouTube channel, this is the time.
54:19Because here's the thing. YouTube and and social media, it rewards consistency.
54:26Just because you start a channel doesn't mean anything. You have to put in the reps. You have to do 50, a 100, a thousand videos to really get good at it and to build an audience.
54:35I think if you this is the best time, I think, for experts to come into the space. Yeah.
54:41I think slower content, you know, is going to start
54:47getting the attention that it it desperately needs. I mean Like the opposite of high retention editing Yes.
54:53For these content? Like like fast content. And, you know, the
54:58recent verdict against Meta and Google,
55:02the $6,000,000 verdict about the addictive nature of social media, I think. Had to pay $6,000,000?
55:09Yes. Which is kinda like nothing, but it's more than But it was a brilliant strategy on the plaintiff's part because
55:17they're trying to make sure that this case doesn't get appealed. Yeah. And so when you have huge numbers I mean, it would have been so much sexier to say, oh, you know, they got a $100,000,000 verdict, but that's more likely to be, uh, overturned on appeal.
55:30So that's one person they settled with? Yes. But it opens up the door for other people like that.
55:35Thousands of lawsuits are waiting in the dockets right now. To essentially say social media is addictive.
55:41Well, so for a long time, the platforms have hidden behind the safe harbor called section two thirty, which states, oh, well, we here are not responsible for what creators put on on the platforms. You know, we're just the platforms. We're just a distribution arm, basically.
55:55But because of this trial, there were some internal memos that were leaked. And I mean, not leaked. I mean, they were they were they were produced
56:03where Meta stated, oh, we have to start really pushing our content to preteens because that's when we can get them. That's when their brains are most, you know, susceptible and and vulnerable to addiction.
56:16And so we need to get them then. Which is crazy because 13 is usually, like, when you can get on a platform, which would mean they're gonna be pushing content to also kids that are underage.
56:26Yes. And those are memos that came out. Does that's not a good look.
56:30No. And this is the analogy I made in in my other Forbes article is like this is almost a big tobacco reckoning that happened for big tobacco companies is they also said, oh, well, we didn't know about the addictive nature.
56:43And then one case happened, and they saw the internal memos, and then it opened the floodgates to thousands of lawsuits. Where would that stop? Will
56:51it ever? I don't know. Right?
56:53Because this one case got through. Right. I think a lot of judges who might have been deciding if they were going to, you know, dismiss the cases in their dockets, they might let it go through now because our our court systems are so respect
57:06you know, we respect precedent. We respect judges. We respect the the the rulings of other judges.
57:12So now these cases probably will go forward. And if we get a 100 of these, I think that's where the platforms will have to stop or change their algorithm so that it can't be so addictive.
57:24And that's why I was saying, I think the slower content, the educational professional channels, a lot of my clients will will start maybe getting
57:32put into the feed more than those kind of fast addictive content. Got it. The kind of the kind of content that is as people perpetually
57:41scrolling YouTube shorts and children Yes. Consuming these crazy YouTube shorts. That's fascinating.
57:46So so what could happen is similar to cigarettes having a surgeon general's warning. There might be what we will see probably the evolution of the platforms for the harmful nature of the addictive nature of the algorithm.
57:58I think this one verdict has opened that door. Wow. Mhmm.
58:02That's pretty is there any other implications of that ultimately that you see coming down the road?
58:08I think this might make creators be a little more careful about the type of content they want to make. Maybe a lot of creators in your audience are thinking, oh, I have to go make that fast content.
58:17I have to go make that addictive content. That's how I can show up on the algorithm. And maybe you and I can say, maybe you don't need to.
58:24Maybe you just make good content that's helpful, that is educational Yes.
58:29That provides value to your audience. And you will find your niche audience.
58:34And maybe you only need 10,000, right? As the Unilever example showed. You don't need million subscribers.
58:40I mean, I'm I'm I'm I'm trying to hit a a thousand a 100,000 subscribers this year on YouTube. Yes. I'm like at 59,000.
58:48So if you guys could go subscribe, that would be amazing. But I think a 100,000 is completely
58:54respected. Yes. And you look at a 100,000.
58:57Actually, you know, a 100,000 is like point 1% of YouTubers. That shows your audience into brands. This is someone who has a dedicated audience who will come back and listen, who will buy from this person.
59:09You know? That's enough. We don't have to kill ourselves trying to get to a million subscribers.
59:14I think there's that fallacy that you have to get really, really, you know, big numbers to be to make a living as a creator. I have four lightning round questions to to end with.
59:26But before we get there, you've got some cool stuff coming on. We'll link it in the show notes. Where could people follow you?
59:31And we'll link to all your stuff. Yeah. So two things, and I'm I'm going to walk the walk.
59:36Right? Yeah. Please sign up to my newsletter because I say this to people all the time.
59:41You know? Please get emails from from your audience. Actually, I do put out a great newsletter.
59:46It's called love letters to creators. And, basically, everything we talked about here today, I I try to write in my newsletters to teach you guys what I'm working on,
59:56why some creators are primed for an exit, whereas other creators need to do, you know, these three or five things to to get caught up.
60:05So and then the other thing I'm working on, Sean, that I'm really excited about is I'm actually going to put on a master class. It's a call it's a mastermind
60:14for creators who are wanting an exit. Because I can't scale myself fast enough, but I'm I'm look I'm doing probably two of these a year. I'm gonna limit it to 10 to 20 creators who wanna come in and sit with me for eight weeks,
60:30meet with me twice a week, and we're going to work on by the end of the eight weeks, they'll have an exit plan. That's cool. And so I'm limiting this to these small cohorts.
60:40And I want to help creators get ready for their exit. And I just don't have enough time in the day.
60:46I'm doing ten to twelve calls a day. It's still not enough time because the
60:51excitement and the demand for exits is so high now.
60:56Everybody wants to talk to me about Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.
60:59And what a unique value prop. And you have the expertise, of course, to do that. And that's, uh, we'll link to that in the show notes.
61:05Okay. A couple of lightning round questions as we land the plane. What's one legal myth every creator still believes that could cost them their channel?
61:15I we touched on it. Fair use that you can use footage without permission and that it will be okay.
61:21I think there are still creators who think that. Yes. Mhmm.
61:25What content category
61:28would you tell creators to avoid in 2026? Oh, to avoid reaction? Yeah.
61:33For sure. I mean, I think reactions is just a landmine waiting to happen. And by the way, if you want to exit, you cannot exit with a reaction channel.
61:41Do you realize that? Like, private equity will not touch. What private equity loves and if we could talk about what what are the best niches or the types of channels to have is
61:51do you know the two things humans care about the most? Have I asked you this before? Yeah.
61:55What? Health and wealth. Right?
61:57How do I take care of my my body so I live longer? How do I make more money? How do I save money?
62:02So those are the two best niches. Yeah. I think for format,
62:06podcast is the best. Mhmm. People love hearing, you know, conversations
62:10between experts or between people who've who've walked walked that path already. I think that's why Diary of a CEO is so popular because you get to hear from world class experts Yes.
62:22In an hour and and learn from them. That's interesting. Yeah.
62:25I've heard I've heard that with one other category that health, wealth, and relationships Oh. Are the three big headline.
62:32Meaning, like, find a date, recover from divorce, strengthen your marriage,
62:38make money, save money, and then health could be anything from get the abs to skincare. But, uh, that's interesting.
62:46Um, if a creator gets a strike at midnight tonight, what's the first three things they should do? Not panic. Because sometimes
62:54it's not a real you know, like, it's it's it could be a strike, but it's not real. You can appeal. You can actually go in there and appeal.
63:02You can reach out to that person who put the strike and say, hey. There are solutions. You know, sometimes you if you let's say, were mistaken.
63:09You use someone's content thinking it was fair use. You can say to the person, I'm so sorry. Could I pay you to use this footage
63:18and make this right? How do I make this right to you? I say this to a lot of people and also to my clients and my junior attorneys.
63:25What we do is 90% human behavior and maybe 10% the law. I always ask the other side, what can I do to make this right? What can I do to make this deal?
63:34And they'll always tell you. I've I've dealt with a lot of copyright strike situations where the person just wanted credit. Sometimes we just have to give them credit, or we pay them a small amount, nominal fee, 500 Yeah.
63:45You know, for five clips or something like that. Just make it right. Tell them, I'm sorry.
63:50I didn't know. I thought I could use this under fair use, but clearly, I was wrong. So what can I do to make this right to you?
63:56Got it. And then if you also can appeal. Yes.
63:58You can appeal. And sometimes when you appeal, did you guys know that the next step is that person actually has to go file a lawsuit
64:08to keep that claim up, to keep the strike up? So, basically, if you just appeal,
64:14maybe chances are they're not gonna file a lawsuit. But if they truly believe they own that, I might.
64:21And then Buckle your seatbelt. They might they might dig in. And I've seen situations where the other party files a complaint.
64:27Yep. Mhmm. You went from Disney to creator's attorney.
64:32What did Hollywood teach you that creators don't know yet? Oh, I love this. Um, you are the new studio heads.
64:41You just don't know that yet. And I think there's so much power. You're the like, creators are the American dream.
64:46So I'm representing these new clients called Creator Camp. Do you know them? So they they put out a film called Two Sleepy People.
64:53They made it for a 100,000, and they wanted to get it into the theaters. And they didn't know how to. So they went to the theaters.
65:00Like, they went to AMC and Regal and said, can we put our movie in your theaters? And they said, maybe, which is kind of a cool shift.
65:07And they said, well, we'll give you two theaters. If you can sell 30,000 per theater, we'll give you more theaters.
65:15So they hit those numbers. They got a limited release. Those did really well and then they got a wide release.
65:21And now I'm representing them and we're selling the rest of the world, which we've sold. And now we're probably going to Cannes Film Festival in a few weeks to premiere that film.
65:30Wow. And this is what I mean by, if you're a creator and you have the courage or a story you want to tell and you put it out into the world, millions of people can see it.
65:40And you don't have to wait for a studio head to deem your story worthy of being told. How incredibly powerful that. How incredibly powerful is that?
65:49And I am lit up every day because I get to wake up and help creators protect them and grow out their businesses. And so many of these will become the next studios. That's a great place to land the plane and a very inspiring vision of the future.
66:04Future looks bright for the creator economy, for YouTube, and I just wanna acknowledge you for coming back on the podcast. Thank you. Um, Sean, one last thing.
66:11I actually forgot to ask. Please. Um, I'm
66:14starting a new podcast called Creator to CEO, and I actually have a a request to your audience. If anybody is in here wanting
66:23me to do an audit so I charge $5,000 for these audits, but I will do it for free. If you have anyone in your audience who's making at least a $100,000 a year from their creator business and you want me to do a audit
66:35live, you know, on my podcast Yeah.
66:39CTATo share and teach other creators how to grow out their business so that they're ready for an exit, I'm taking applications,
66:46CTAand I would be, uh, really honored if anybody from your audience would come on. Amazing. So we could put a link to those applications?
66:52CTASo those three things, my newsletter, my mastermind, and the creator to CEO podcast. Amazing.
67:02CTAIf you got value today, wide range of conversation. Hit like if you're on YouTube. Rate and review if you're over on audio.
67:08CTAMy name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel, and we cannot wait to connect with you in a future episode.
— full transcript
§ 05 · For Joe
Five things that decide if your channel is worth buying.
WHAT TO LEARN
Platform loyalty is not an asset -- owned audience data, recurring revenue, and clean IP are the only things that survive a termination or attract a buyer.
- AI enforcement on YouTube is making consequential errors, and the platform has no obligation to explain or reverse its decisions -- the absence of a process is the policy.
- Fair use stopped being a practical YouTube defense years ago. YouTube no longer mediates IP disputes, so the channel damage is done before any court ruling can help.
- An email list is not a growth tactic -- it is the only asset that survives a platform termination. If you cannot contact your audience without the platform, you are entirely at its mercy.
- IP trolls operate a specific playbook: acquire rights to small creators clips, then threaten large reaction channels with channel-killing strikes unless they pay five-figure settlements.
- Private equity evaluates creator businesses on five criteria: audience loyalty not size, recurring revenue, owned data, team independence, and reduced reliance on one person face.
- A creator business generating revenue from a tech app, course, newsletter, and community can be worth three times what the YouTube channel alone would fetch -- the channel is the marketing arm, not the asset.
- The 6M verdict against Meta for addictive algorithm design signals that the platform era of fast, dopamine-optimized content may be legally constrained within a few years.
- Reaction channels are unacceptable to private equity buyers -- unclear IP ownership, no chain of title, and high litigation exposure make them unsellable as a business asset.
- A 100,000-subscriber channel represents the top 0.1% of all YouTube channels and is a sufficient base to build a real business -- reaching that threshold and building recurring revenue beats chasing seven-figure subscriber counts.
- Every piece of content a contractor creates for your channel should include work-for-hire language. Without it, the contractor may legally own what they made, creating a chain-of-title problem that can kill an acquisition.
