Well, so here's the thing that people have to realize.
Being on YouTube
is a privilege. It'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. YouTube just deleted over 4,700,000,000
views worth of AI slop videos. It's becoming clear YouTube is declaring war on deepfakes.
I've actually stopped taking on channel terminations
because I can't get the channels back. 12,400,000
channels were terminated. What's happening? Why are channels being deleted and demonetized? This will be a lesson for all creators.
Alright. We're back on the Think Media podcast with the creator's attorney, Tyler Chow. Hi, Sean. It's good to be here in person. Good to be here in person for this episode. We have so much to talk about. There's a lot of legal news. There's a lot of relevant news for creators.
Last 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
YouTube 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
violations or AI content,
and AI, as we know, is not perfect. They make mistakes. So 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. And 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. So that's an issue.
We've
talked about on YouTube how community violations,
violations of the terms of service are
really
on an uptick. I think
YouTube is doing major cleaning house right now. They're trying to get rid of kind of slop content.
They 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. That's That's the always the goal. And would that be closely linked with they want advertisers to also keep paying them? Sure. They want
advertisers
to have clean content, safe content, safe creators to put their con you know, run their ads through. What 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. There'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. I I I know we're gonna dig into that. But a lot of creators who
are treating their YouTube
channel as a business,
and they want to be brand safe. They wanna make sure brands will work with them. So they're cursing less. Yeah. And they're becoming
a little more buttoned up and more adults in the room. Are you seeing that? I know. It 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
appeal.
And I suppose there's always a place
because you could still get advertising on adult content. It's maybe the HBO
side of YouTube that leans that way. Whereas if your broadest appeal possible,
you 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. That'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.
12,400,000
channels were terminated in the last nine
months
of 2025 alone. Mhmm. What's happening? Why are channels being deleted and demonetized?
Again, I think this is YouTube wanting
to
just
take away the headaches
because
the 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,
you know, gambling
or
lot of sweepstakes and giveaways.
A 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. And 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
healthy
channel that
really is is
growing the platform to to thrive and to stay? Yeah. That that's really my thought.
So there's a story of an automotive creator named Chase Carr who
actually
the body of YouTube ruled his termination as night not rightful. So 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
the way that most entities
are.
Meaning, YouTube did not honor this ruling. Without looking at the details, what's your take on that? These are people trying to appeal
their channel being wrongfully terminated. Well, so here's the thing that people have to realize.
Being on YouTube
is a privilege.
YouTube is a privately owned
company. It's not the government. They 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. If 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
on YouTube's land. Mhmm. YouTube is the landlord, and they can kick you or evict you at any point. This 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. And 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? Building 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
do you know who's in your audience? If your YouTube channel were to go down tomorrow,
would you know how to access your
audience?
Most creators say no. Mhmm. And 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.
Private 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.
Do you actually have the emails,
phone numbers? Do you have an ability to reach those audience members to sell something to them? Mhmm. And so I would say, give a free p PDF.
Give something of value to your audience,
and 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. But 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,
but I'm sure listeners have not heard about this thing from YouTube called Second Chances.
Mhmm. It's a program for terminated creators
that I think happened perhaps during
the pandemic.
One of the biggest ones
was there's actually a settlement with Donald Trump. $2.24500000
dollars Mhmm. YouTube
settled
for Trump's $20.21 account suspension lawsuit.
So 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. They 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. Give us some context for what do you think is happening. So, yes, the second chance program is exciting
from the surface.
So 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. I 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,
or 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
and
it's a very narrow definition of who gets their channels back. There are, I think, some
who 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. Got you. So I wanna talk a little bit about fair use, copyright strikes, and some of the lawsuits.
This is always an evolving,
um, kind of topic.
One, fair use
is a massive opportunity because there's react channels that are building huge businesses,
movie 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. That's right. And now the creator who literally won the landmark fair use case in 2017
is actually suing other reaction creators. Have you heard about No. So
Ethan Klein, who who won that original reaction case,
actually sued Casey Tron,
Denmis, and Frogen in June 2025. Mhmm. A $150,000
per violation.
Casey Tron already settled.
I'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
the nuances of who's using what or who's reacting to what could be defamation,
these different things like that? Well, so
I think, you know, I've said this before
on our conversations,
but it repeats
repeating to creators
who might need to hear it a second time. So
anytime you use someone else's content in your content,
that original IP holder
let let's say somebody takes one of your videos Yeah. And 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. They didn't license it. They didn't pay you. Right. And YouTube
can make that rule.
And they have made a rule because there are so many violations of IP,
you 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? YouTube 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,
um, 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,
I use this content because it's it was transformed.
You know, it was a parody. It was for educational purposes. You know, for a fair use test is four prong test. Perhaps the judge could say, oh, okay. That was a fair use. But 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,
and 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
attacking the bigger reaction channels.
And Expand on that. IP trolls? IP 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,
I 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. And I've had to deal with several of these IP trolls, and we basically,
um,
have to pay the ransoms. Have to settle. And so I'm telling a lot of big YouTubers
to no longer do reaction videos
or to clear those videos before they use them. And that's very interesting. I think listeners might lean on that.
If they're hesitating to react to different types of things, it would seem that
some things
might be okay,
like some industries,
like if you're reacting to, um,
uh, the recent
White House press press briefing?
News news tends to be a little bit,
uh, from what I've seen. It's not a 100%. Right? News,
um, 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.
If 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. K. 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. Look at Sean's channel. He's teaching educators. You know, he's educating creators. You're probably not gonna go after them because there's also a
cost of policing.
I used to work at Disney,
and 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
a 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. And we
were
informed. We were given notice of that violation. That's usually when companies would go after people. So
for
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
around politics,
around health, about around anything, you also might recount the story Mhmm. And edit in a photo of the person Sure. B roll clips.
You know, there's whole faceless channels,
meaning, you know, there's no brand behind it, but it covers
all 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. And 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.
It
again, it's not necessarily fair use. It's more that the IP holder here, Tesla, has probably made a business decision
saying this is good for our business because it's basically free marketing. Yeah. Again Talking about it. Yeah. 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. You I'm sure you've seen it. You know, Steven Barlett's Diary of CEO is huge now. Yeah. And there's so many people clipping
Yes. Their clips and using it.
And
people have asked me, well, come you
Diary of CEO, Steven Barlett hasn't gone after them? Now 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.
Or 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. I'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. He doesn't have to do it himself. Yeah. Mhmm. So you you mentioned if you're if you're speaking positive,
then
you you're probably good there. But It's not bulletproof. Right? But Yeah. Most likely.
But if it is more potentially defamatory,
you know, there's the Logan Paul versus Coffey, Zillow Yes.
Which is going to trial on May 4. Oh, fascinating. I didn't I didn't know it got a trial date. What happens to creator commentary
culture depending on who wins?
This will be a lesson for all creators.
If you talk
about somebody in a negative
light, in a potentially
defamatory
Yeah. You might always
get hit with a lawsuit.
And because that's the beauty and nightmare of living in The US. Right? You can soon be sued by anybody. Yeah. But
that 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. And
had he had it, that insurance would have covered his litigation costs.
So that's number one. For creators out there, get your insurance.
If you're doing product reviews or talking about people, you should have defamation
insurance
coverage. But you always run into this risk.
I'm
really excited to see what's going to happen because a lot of behind the scenes
information will come out during discovery and during trial.
But
depending on the verdict or what happens to this trial,
it 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
defense will be
a defense to defamation is the truth. Yes. So 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
and and does
this is that tie into the term where allegedly
might not be enough saying the word allegedly?
Because 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,
he potentially scammed people.
Is is that protection for him depending on
To a point, yes. Saying this is my opinion.
This is what's been alleged.
I think always,
um,
I think lessens
how how visceral and how
negative 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. Right? Because it's two prong. It's not just big thing. It has to you have to prove damages. Yeah. It can't just be, oh, this person
hurt my feelings. The courts have to have something that they can give back to someone who's been damaged. Yes. They have to be able to say, okay. Logan Paul, your business took a 3,000,000
hit this year,
and 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,
you 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. It 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,
uh, against a crypto influencer who called him a murderer
Oh. On X.
So I'm guessing that was false too. So it's quite the bold claim. But on February 2026, Ben Armstrong,
Bip Boy Crypto Mhmm. Default judgment for not even responding.
Uh, mental health was rejected as excuse, and two point point eight million was awarded. So the defamation exposure,
most creators
are probably under misunderstanding
it. 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
Sure. Affair thing. Mhmm. I in in the faith space,
uh, that's kind of, you know, partly my world. I have a background in church. There'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. This makes me wonder, you know, Kevin O'Leary
won
probably because
he was able to he's probably not a murderer, I'm guessing. Yes.
Yeah. So 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
and 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. Listen. This brings to mind, you know, the Blake Lively and the Justin Baldoni lawsuit that's been happening there. Explain the details of that. Um, 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.
And 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,
everything comes out.
Anything you put in writing
might be shown to the world.
And what happened there was a lot of people
started covering it, journalists.
There's one woman particularly,
her channel completely,
I think blew up to a million because she was covering it every single day. Yeah. And she took a position
as to who was
the bad person.
I 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. Right? 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. And 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? Yeah. I think every creator has to
approach
these kind of
journalistic
channels,
their content,
with
some caution. Yes. Because they might get sued
because they're talking negatively about somebody. Totally. This would apply to creators who do products, product reviews, tech reviews.
We certainly have seen those headlines where a creator says, oh, this is crap. You know? Sorry. My language. This is a terrible product, and and then that product tanks.
Right? And and so we have a lot of power as creators. We have
potentially sometimes millions of people listening to us. We 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. Okay. And she
has been talking at length about
Charlie Kirk's
death Mhmm. But also all with all kinds of theories,
and many would say conspiracy theories. Mhmm. I'm talking at length, like daily hour to two hour podcast. And 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
files 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
choosing to sponsor content that could be
if it is commentary,
if it's getting into that environment? That'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. Yeah. But in this situation,
because it's mutual, it would protect the brand. So if the brand got sued because of what the creator
said Yes.
Then
the 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.
I'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.
I would be very hesitant. I would tell the brand, be very careful here about working with a creator
whose content
is very risky.
It's you know, it might open you up to liability for a lawsuit.
And so in that in that sense,
if 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. I'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. Mhmm. That's a that's that's powerful. That's why people should work with you. Yeah. 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. There'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.
I think we were talking about different,
say, gaming companies. Most are fine with you streaming their content.
Some crack down more. Mhmm. You know? But actually, Nintendo sued a streamer for $7,500,000
for streaming prerelease games. Mhmm. So they must have
known they were prerelease and maybe was willing to do that. I don't that's that's a scary amount. I 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
sought.
I'm curious your take on, like, gaming creators or emulation
or the myth that Let's Plays are safe. Again, it really depends on the game developer.
Some are a lot more relaxed and some because it helps them. Right? You you think about Roblox, you think about Minecraft.
Like, it helps their brand
to allow creators to
react and, you know, and and and and stream on with their content.
Nintendo 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
Right. 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,
it 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
precedent 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. And you have potentially
hurt us by maybe
it's it's it's 25%.
Maybe 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. We mentioned it a little bit earlier, but YouTube's
AI is demonetizing
even original animation channels,
mistaking them for AI slop. So the question is how do you prove if your content is real? In February 2026,
Dino Meat Mania
Mhmm. Over a million subs and other animation channels were hit by an AI policy as
one of the channels in our community got
inauthentic
content.
They had a bible stories channel. They were making $30,000 a month in YouTube ad revenue. Wow. Um, 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. The 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. How do you navigate that? So this is where
really being
a more buttoned up business comes into play. You have to start
keeping track
of your content.
And
this is the copyright rule.
If
original content is created by humans, that's
the most broad copyright law.
If you use AI to create your animations,
let's say,
you
should be able to show, like, this is the first version that AI made for me. But then a human
animator or editor went in and actually made changes
to make it
not
AI, not fully AI. I don't actually know. Again, this is a little bit vague because YouTube doesn't actually share their methodologies of how they determine something purely
AI or not AI.
And 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. The the idea of clearing b roll, clearing reaction channel videos, like, it's just a lot. And it kills the creative spirit.
Does. It 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. So
for the AI,
it's
the 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.
But 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. The
AI couldn't have made this content without the human input.
And so that's where you might even have to show.
You put in the prompts. You do screenshots.
You show the content.
You have to prove a record of what is the human elements
of this content.
And
we'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. Right. 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. And 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
I 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. You'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,
yeah, 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. So now I just don't take them on anymore. Interesting.
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and talk with other people who love creating content and love YouTube.
Usually, I don't get to do that, so this is really special. You can check it out at thinkmediamastermind.com.
Yeah. I 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,
it's not something you have to worry about. Correct.
Um, but if you do wanna step into using
AI,
it it sounds like what I'm hearing is you need to professionalize your business. Yes. Like and if you're you should be thinking this many moves ahead. What maybe what will happen the day if I'm questioned? Yes. And 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. Mhmm. 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. At this point. Mhmm. Um, okay. So,
um,
let's talk about these
exits.
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
be 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
exit right now. Is that true? Yes.
That 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? I don't know if it's one thing. Yeah. But I'll share with you these are the five elements
that I always
try to tell creators they should think about and probably earlier on than they they think. Okay. So so through my
business,
my creator arc business, which is my M and A advisory arm,
I 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.
And within those,
I ask creators to think about
growing their revenue streams beyond AdSense and brand deals.
So
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,
but also your connection to your audience. How loyal is your audience to you?
They look at your revenue.
And not just pure revenue, but also recurring
revenue.
What is something that gets paid when you're sleeping that is away from your face? They look at data. You know, what do you own your your email list? Do you own your audience?
They look at your team.
You know, like, who who do you have working for you? Like, could you, Sean, take two weeks off
and everything still keeps running? Yep. And
what I didn't mention
is the creator themselves.
Because what
these buyers have to mitigate is the key man risk. Mhmm. Because when they're buying a channel,
and 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,
and 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. How do I get off this hamster wheel? Right. So
that 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
exit,
if his channel were to go down tomorrow,
yes, it would hurt, but it's only a small fraction of his his revenue. Interesting. His community,
his
courses, his newsletter,
his tech app. So the tech app, this app is
something 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. Can we see how much it would be worth? Yes. What's the valuation?
So 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
very healthy,
great number.
Yeah.
But 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.
But 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. To get ready for that. Yes. 35 mil to a 100 mil plus. So we we look at diversifying
the revenue stream. We look at making sure their corporate structure is properly structured. There'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.
Um, 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. You 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
a 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
educational 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. We're gonna do the trademarks.
Give me independent contractor agreements.
Tell me how to get the proper b roll, the music. From day one, they're thinking about it in the right way.
Because more and more professionals are becoming
YouTubers.
They'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
that the endpoint is an exit. Yes.
That's a whole different level of thinking. It's interesting in our community.
Like, this year, 2026,
it seems like
this 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.
And
and now multiple, maybe not quite 10, but more than five of our students have exited their YouTube channel. Interesting. And who are the buyers? Uh, one was a kid's brand. They took over a
female's channel
and hired her back and then started adding other creators to the channel for kids products.
One overtook
like a
you'd call it like a ecommerce service business Mhmm. For like countertop stuff. And
there was already a big ecom thing. They figured they could professionalize it and scale it. Nice. And the YouTube channel was the engine of these businesses. Just the marketing arm. Yeah. 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. You 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,
you 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. And 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
your your thoughts on MrBeast.
Feastables is now outperforming MrBeast's
actual YouTube channel.
But 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. And on the headlines,
people are like, mister Beast is losing money, you know, which
I peep people lose the context. Like, oh, I knew it. He's failing. It's like, I think you read the headline wrong.
Losing 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? Well,
I think he's can certainly not be losing so much money. I think he almost wears it like a a badge of honor. Like, I can I put all this money back into my content and that's why I'm losing? Yeah.
I
think
there's a little bit of a, you know, a media
attention
angle there. Okay. But the Feastables is really what I wanna focus on. And 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. Yeah. And this exact example shows this is what I'm talking about. He has built a product
that doesn't require his face anymore. Right? I mean, yes. Like, 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. Right? Because they like the chocolate.
Because it's it's on par with Hershey's now.
But
if his channel were to go down tomorrow,
his chocolate would still sell. And that's the point. And that's why it was so great that he didn't call it Mr. Beast chocolate.
He called it Feastables, another separate name, another brand away from his YouTube channel. So
that's the gold standard. I 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. I 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. But 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. That's
what private equity fund looks at as
to what is your month over month, year after year revenue,
recurring revenue. MrBeast also acquired a Gen Z fintech app,
and the senate banking community sent him a letter about it. Is 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. Yeah. So
I think
he's thinking in a in the right way. I mean, Step was an educational app. It's not a real bank app. I I
heard through the Gravevines, I think.
The speculation is he tried to get a bank charter. It'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.
Banks 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.
So 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. He just filed Beast Financials. He filed
Watchtime Studios
and 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. You know, he's thinking about incubating smaller channels. He's thinking about creating banks. He's thinking about being a white label production company.
And
thinking three steps ahead is what creators really need to start doing. You can't just be heads down making content every day. Yes. 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. Yeah. But once you're starting to make some money on AdSense and brand deals, let's say
you're making $10,000 a month. That's
that's a salary. That's a nice salary that can replace a corporate job.
That then you really should start thinking about what is this as a business? Do
separate I have business account? Do 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,
it'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. I 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
to 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? I believe Refresco
sued them for $68,000,000.
Agorovania
for 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. Prime
goes to a billion dollars, but also
shrinks a billion dollars. Lessons 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
they
use bad products.
They potentially
wanted to make the quicker dollar and not do the right thing. And I think
we've seen this through a lot of creator
led
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.
And
the way our world is now with how quick social medias and Reddit,
talking,
giving 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. It's just not possible
anymore. So I think,
I 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. Even 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. Yeah. That's no longer the case because he needs to compete with Hershey's and he needs to be For margins,
the whole deal. And so
it's
it's all things that a
company 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
if 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
maybe 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. I think at the end of the day, it always comes back and and
the truth comes out. That timeless wisdom
is timely
in that, you know, just because you have influence and a good marketing arm,
you know, influence on YouTube or wherever,
that quality product and reputation over time is still what's gonna last. I think so. Yes.
Well, as
we land the plane,
what what do you think creators
should be doing right now, or what opportunities
should they be jumping
onto?
Uh, Unilever
is putting 50% of their ad budget into influencer marketing. You know about this story. Can you break this down? It might speak to more broadly what's happening
in the creator economy right now. Mhmm. So I I recently wrote about this. I'm a Forbes contributor, and I wrote this story about how Unilever,
just last week, their CEO announced that they have a network of 300,000
creators
that they work with directly.
So 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. And 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. You take a huge creator with 100,000,000 subscribers,
though they don't necessarily have that type of
relationship with their audience. So they're going to smaller creators and asking them to basically become
their brand ambassadors
and and and to
be their commercials,
you know, to be to be
selling their products.
Last year, I think this was in 2024,
the year before,
the CEO of Unilever said, we are going to allocate 50%
of our spend dollars towards digital creators. Wow. And I think when that happened,
the 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. And if
they're saying, we're
not gonna work with traditional agencies anymore necessarily
or we're gonna go straight to creators.
I think this signals to the marketplace that creators
are real businesses.
They're distribution arms or media companies that we should pay attention to. And that's why in my Forbes article, I said,
this is
an indication
that
private equity funds and big companies are start are going to start acquiring
creator led businesses because it's it's a fully fledged
distribution arm that they could just acquire
very cheaply
compared 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. So the takeaway is realizing where basically influencer marketing
Mhmm. For nano and micro influencers is going. Yes. 10,000 subscribers
and
mac macro companies like Unilever
wants to work with you Yes. If you've got a niche audience.
So 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,
but 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. I 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.
Because
here's the thing.
YouTube and and social media, it rewards consistency.
Just 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. I think if you this is the best time, I think, for experts
to come into the space. Yeah. I think slower content,
you know, is going to start
getting the attention that it it
desperately needs. I mean Like the opposite of high retention editing Yes. For these content? Like like fast content. And, you know, the
recent verdict against Meta and Google,
the $6,000,000
verdict about the addictive nature of social media, I think. Had to pay $6,000,000?
Yes. Which is kinda like nothing, but it's more than But
it was a brilliant strategy on the plaintiff's part because
they'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. So that's one person they settled with? Yes. But it opens up the door for other people like that. Thousands
of lawsuits are waiting in the dockets right now. To essentially say social media is addictive.
Well, 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.
But 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
where 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.
And 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. Yes.
And those are memos that came out. Does that's not a good look. No. 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. And 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
it ever? I don't know. Right? Because 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
you know, we respect precedent. We respect judges. We respect the the the rulings of other judges. So 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. And 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
put 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
scrolling YouTube shorts and children Yes. Consuming these crazy YouTube shorts.
That's fascinating. So 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. I think this one verdict has opened that door. Wow. Mhmm. That's pretty is there any other implications of that
ultimately
that you see coming down the road? I 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. I 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. Maybe you just make good content that's helpful,
that is educational
Yes. That
provides value to your audience.
And you will find your niche audience. And maybe you only need 10,000, right? As the Unilever example showed. You don't need million subscribers.
I 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.
So if you guys could go subscribe, that would be amazing.
But I think a 100,000
is completely
respected.
Yes. And you look at a 100,000. Actually, 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. You know? That's enough.
We don't have to kill ourselves trying to get to a million subscribers. I 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. But 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? And we'll link to all your stuff. Yeah. So two things, and I'm I'm going to walk the walk. Right? Yeah. Please sign up to my newsletter because I say this to people all the time. You know? Please get emails from from your audience. Actually, I do put out a great newsletter. It'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,
why
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. So 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
for 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,
meet 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.
And I want to help creators
get ready for their exit. And I just don't have enough time in the day. I'm doing ten to twelve calls a day. It's still not enough time because
the
excitement
and the
demand for exits is so high now. Everybody wants to talk to me about Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. And 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. Okay. 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?
I we touched on it. Fair use that you can use
footage without permission and that it will be okay. I think there are still creators who think that. Yes. Mhmm.
What
content
category
would you tell creators to avoid in 2026?
Oh, to avoid reaction?
Yeah. For 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. Do 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
do you know the two things humans care about the most? Have I asked you this before? Yeah. What?
Health and wealth. Right? How do I take care of my my body so I live longer? How do I make more money? How do I save money? So those are the two best niches. Yeah. I think for format,
podcast is the best. Mhmm. People love hearing, you know, conversations
between
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. In an hour and and learn from them. That's interesting. Yeah. I've heard I've heard that with one other category that health, wealth, and relationships
Oh. Are the three big headline.
Meaning, like,
find a date,
recover from divorce, strengthen your marriage,
make money, save money, and then health could be anything from get the abs to skincare.
But, uh,
that's interesting.
Um, if a creator gets a strike at midnight tonight, what's the first three things they should do? Not panic.
Because sometimes
it'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. You 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. You 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
and 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.
What 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?
And 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. You know, for five clips or something like that. Just make it right. Tell them, I'm sorry. I 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? Got it. And then if you also can appeal. Yes. You 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
to keep that claim up,
to keep the strike up? So, basically, if you just appeal,
maybe chances are they're not gonna file a lawsuit.
But if they truly believe
they own that, I might. And then Buckle your seatbelt. They might they might dig in. And I've seen situations where the other party files a complaint. Yep. Mhmm.
You went from Disney to creator's attorney. What did Hollywood teach you that creators don't know yet?
Oh, I love this.
Um, you are the new studio heads. You just don't know that yet. And I think there's so much power. You're the like, creators are the American dream. So I'm representing these new clients called Creator Camp. Do you know them? So they they put out a film called Two Sleepy People.
They 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. Like, 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. And they said, well, we'll give you two theaters. If you can sell
30,000 per theater, we'll give you more theaters. So they hit those numbers. They got a limited release.
Those did really well and then they got a wide release. And 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. Wow. 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. And 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? And 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. Future 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. I actually forgot to ask. Please. Um, I'm
starting a new podcast called Creator to CEO, and I actually have a a request to your audience. If anybody is in here
wanting
me 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
live,
you know,
on my podcast Yeah. To share
and teach other creators how to grow out their business so that they're ready for an exit,
I'm taking applications,
and I would be, uh, really honored if anybody from your audience would come on. Amazing. So we could put a link to those applications? So those three things, my newsletter, my mastermind,
and the creator to CEO podcast.
Amazing. We'll do it. So Think Media podcast.
Check out links in the show notes below. If you got value today, wide range of conversation. Hit like if you're on YouTube. Rate and review if you're over on audio. My name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel, and we cannot wait to connect with you in a future episode.