YouTube Kills Billions of Faked Video Views

[Deleted]

YouTube Kills Billions of Video Views Faked By Music Industry

The video service deleted more than 2 billion fake video views in the channels of Universal, Sony, and RCA, according to Daily Dot. The decision apparently was made when YouTube found out that the companies were using view building services hired from sites such as Fiverr to create video views that never existed.

Sony/BMG's was hit the hardest with views dropping from a total of more than 850 million to just 2.3 million. RCA declined by 159 million views to a total of 120 million. Universal lost more than 1 billion views and now stands below 6 billion.

Google confirmed that the companies violated its terms of services, which prohibits users from artificially inflating video views. Google noted that the view stripping was "an enforcement of [the company's] viewcount policy".

Services that promise the perception of greater user exposure have become commonplace on the web. There are plenty of sites such as YouLikeHits, which allow users to increase the number of Facebook likes and Twitter followers. The tradition goes back to the news aggregation service Digg, which created services that would sell "diggs" to vote Internet content to the front page.

www.tomsguide.com/us/youtube-sony-bmg-universal,news-16514.html#xtor=RSS-980

[Dammn Baby]

Nu payola!

[Deleted]

850 to 2.3 million? How is that possible?

[Deleted]

Good that they got caught.

[Rican@]

Ugh! Desperate times, desperate times honey!

[Deleted]

YouTube cancels billions of video views after finding they had been 'faked' - but were hackers working for the music industry?

The world's biggest recording companies have been stripped of two billion YouTube hits after the website cracked down on alleged 'fake viewers'.

Universal, home of Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber, lost a total of one billion views in the video site’s biggest ever crackdown on artificially inflated figures.

Sony was second hardest hit, with the label behind such stars as Alicia Keys, Rita Ora and Labrinth losing more than 850million views in a single day.

The dramatic cuts came as YouTube conducted a crackdown on fake views, but music industry sources have blamed it on housekeeping related to the migration of their videos across different channels.

The unprecedented move left Universal with just five videos on the site - none of which were music - and Sony with just three.

'This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our viewcount policy,' YouTube announced.

It marks a huge commercial blow to all the artists involved as YouTube is now the web's most important outlet for music videos
Over four billion hours of video are watched by over 800million unique visitors to the site each month.

The dramatic falls, highlighted by figures compiled by YouTube statistics analysts at SocialBlade, came after YouTube conducted an audit of its viewing figures aimed at combating 'black hat' view count-building techniques.

That is the term used when hackers artificially build up the numbers of views or likes on a YouTube video - enabling them to make clips appear far more popular than they really are and increase their exposure on the site.

The number of views attracted on YouTube are these days regarded as an unofficial worldwide popular music chart, so once it became clear that hits had been inflated, fingers immediately pointed at the record industry.

YouTube viewer figures are doubly valuable to channel owners since it is also the primary way in which the site works out how to share its advertising revenue with partners.

The Daily Dot reported how many of the channels affected - which also include ones belonging to Michael Jackson, Chris Brown and Beyonce, among others - had also had many videos deleted.

Universal, which previously had dozens of clips on its YouTube channel, has had its offering slashed to just five - none of which are music videos or last more than about a minute and a half.

Sony's page was also left practically bare following the cull, with just three videos left.

Among the channels affected was that of British X Factor success story Leona Lewis. The official YouTube channel of the protégé of music industry svengali Simon Cowell, lost nearly 24million page views as a result of the crackdown.

The mass takedowns came the same day that hundreds of the site's users flooded forums to complain they had suffered a series of video deletions for violations of YouTube's terms of service.

Many speculated they fallen victim to a technical error, but YouTube replied to confirm that the users had been sanctioned for violating TOS item 4, Section H, which bans artificially inflating view counts.

According to the Daily Dot, the apparent crackdown last week was widely discussed on the Black Hat World forum, where visitors exchange advice on unethical search engine optimisation tactics.

In one thread on the forum, where YouTube included a link to the site's policy on 'viewcount gaming, the first post spoke of a 'friend' who 'sells likes' who had been told by four different customers that their videos were deleted due to violations of YouTube's terms of service.

Record labels have blamed the cuts in their viewing figures on a change in the way that YouTube has changed its view count. Billboard reported how the Google-owned company recently decided to remove view counts for so-called 'dead videos', which were no longer live on the channel.

A senior label executive told the music industry trade magazine that since thousands of videos had in fact been migrated to Vevo, the views those clips accrued during their time on their dedicated label channels were taken away in YouTube's 'clean up'.

Universal acknowledged its drop in views, but told the Daily Dot its channel had been mostly dormant since it shifted its focus to Vevo, which it founded in 2009 together with Sony Music, Abu Dhabi Media Company, and E1 Entertainment.

Google declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline.

Commenters on the Sony YouTube channel gloated over the major record labels' apparent comeuppance.

User Lattentreffer posted on SonymusicSME: 'Pretty much f*** you, sonymusic.... Hahahaha.

'You got the axe on your black hat viewcount manipulating....!'

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2254181/YouTube-wipes-billions-video-views-finding-faked-music-industry.html

[Deleted]

Not surprised everyone is looking for a nut and its a competitive industry so they always looking for sneaky ways to make that $$$$$

[Rodze]

Billboard explained this last week:

www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/digital-and-mobile/what-really-happened-to-sony-and-universal%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%99s-1008059892.story

In the latest "de-spam," YouTube subtracted 1.5 million views from Sony and Universal's channels. That may sound like a lot, but it's just a fraction of the 1.3 billion it subtracted throughout its entire video library.

That leaves us with 1.9985 billion views still unaccounted for.

The answer comes in the second way that YouTube changed its view count. The company recently decided to remove view counts for videos that are no longer live on the channel, or so-called "dead videos." For Universal and Sony, that meant thousands of music videos that over the past three years slowly have migrated to the VEVO channel, which is jointly owned by the two companies. A senior label executive confirmed the migration.

In a strategic move, Universal, Sony and EMI in 2009 jointly put their music videos in the VEVO basket with the belief that by aggregating the videos, they could command better advertising rates as well as grow viewership.

That meant high-profile videos that once lived separately on the Universal and Sony YouTube channels have been relocated to Vevo. As a result, the views that those videos received during their time on the dedicated label channels were taken away in YouTube's latest "clean up" effort.

In other words, those views happened; they weren't "faked" or even double counted when they went on to Vevo. But because the videos are no longer on the channel, YouTube considers them "dead videos." They still live on in YouTube, just under a different channel

[Lushus Daim❤]

Catch the culprits!

The music industry is so rigged and programed, it's ridiculous.

[Rumors]

I always found it funny to watch posters on here say....so and so's video increased by 1 million views in it's second day. Videos with millions and millions of views yet the artist can't sell an album should clue you in that something was happening.

[Au$tin]

Jan 7, 2013 17:14:02 GMT -5 Rumors said:

I always found it funny to watch posters on here say....so and so's video increased by 1 million views in it's second day. Videos with millions and millions of views yet the artist can't sell an album should clue you in that something was happening.

A person can watch a video several times and not buy an album. That's really not too far fetched of an idea.

[🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾]

Jan 9, 2013 19:29:31 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

Jan 7, 2013 17:14:02 GMT -5 Rumors said:

I always found it funny to watch posters on here say....so and so's video increased by 1 million views in it's second day. Videos with millions and millions of views yet the artist can't sell an album should clue you in that something was happening.

A person can watch a video several times and not buy an album. That's really not too far fetched of an idea.

There was an article a few months back posted in this section about how some young people were opting to listen to music by going to YouTube instead of buying or illegally downloading or even using Spotify because it's "too much work". It's not too far fetched that they might choose to do it that way since they can get almost any song they want without downloading it or spending much time waiting for it to load/play.

[Acid Eyes]

In other news, Gangnam Style is still at 1.2 billion views.

[CookyMonzta]

Dec 28, 2012 14:46:16 GMT -5 @jazzysoul47 said:

YouTube Kills Billions of Video Views Faked By Music Industry

The video service deleted more than 2 billion fake video views in the channels of Universal, Sony, and RCA, according to Daily Dot. The decision apparently was made when YouTube found out that the companies were using view building services hired from sites such as Fiverr to create video views that never existed.

Sony/BMG's was hit the hardest with views dropping from a total of more than 850 million to just 2.3 million. RCA declined by 159 million views to a total of 120 million. Universal lost more than 1 billion views and now stands below 6 billion.

Google confirmed that the companies violated its terms of services, which prohibits users from artificially inflating video views. Google noted that the view stripping was "an enforcement of [the company's] viewcount policy".

Services that promise the perception of greater user exposure have become commonplace on the web. There are plenty of sites such as YouLikeHits, which allow users to increase the number of Facebook likes and Twitter followers. The tradition goes back to the news aggregation service Digg, which created services that would sell "diggs" to vote Internet content to the front page.

www.tomsguide.com/us/youtube-sony-bmg-universal,news-16514.html#xtor=RSS-980

Sorry I'm late here, but I saw it at another Web site when the story hit.

This obviously (and yet again) exemplifies the increasing level of desperation that the major labels have gone in order to stay relevant in an industry that has changed in such a way that they have become less and less relevant, to such a degree that, should the public at large embrace the Web exclusively, they can be made obsolete.

theoatmeal.com/comics/music_industry

Personally, I think the punishment should have been stiffer. YouTube should have revoked the privilege of posting any new video for 6 months. If it is found that they were completely depraved in their efforts to cook the view count with whatever machines they used to hit these pages, they should be banned for a year or more.

If their actions cause YouTube, or any of its members/subscribers to incur litigation against the site or its members, the record company should have their privileges permanently stripped from them. YouTube (with or without the backing of Google) is big enough and powerful enough to teach the fat cats that even they are not above the rules and regulations that the average Joe Schmo and Plain Jane must follow; and if it is found that one of their ghost programs is hitting the pages of their selected artists (no matter how good or bad they are) to artificially increase the view count, the record company should be punished across the board; every new artist, every new song, every new video.

[K.]

I have no doubt that many of these labels were cheating with their viewcounts. It kind of sounds like Youtube might also have been threatening Universal and Sony, though. There have been many articles over the past year of Vevo splitting with Youtube, possibly going to Facebook.