YouTube Channel Parking

Back in the old days of YouTube, when the site was still considered an online Wild West, Renetto came up with an idea of cybersquatting YouTube usernames. In the video that he posted (it has since been taken down by him along with his all other videos and then reuploaded) he encouraged users to seek as many unclaimed YouTube usernames as they can, all for a chance that some of them might be worth something at a certain point in the future - if sold, of course, to the right buyer. After all, youtube.com/yournamehere is a prominent link.

Numerous potential issues arose around then, including some people accusing renetto of encouraging illegal activity and of not thinking the thing through (due to legal concerns). Those questions are all still valid now, four years later.

What happened then was a sudden eruption of usernames that were either names of famous corporations, people, products, well known brands or imitations of other users' names.

Naturally, this was too good of an opportunity not to jump on the bandwagon myself. So on that day in September 2006 I first created a number of renowned record label usernames and then kept adding new interesting usernames in the following weeks and months. It's important to note that I decided not to do it via botting but create each account manually.

Dozens and dozens of usernames were created and parked for a potential sale in the future. And then I waited. What follows below is how things turned out (thus far).

A thing to note is also that I created and used some accounts for the purpose of political activism in 2007 when YouTube's banning and deleting of users together with video takedowns was abound. It was a real DMCA induced chaos.

The Outcome - thus far

Some of the usernames were evidently popular and my ownership (if it could be called that way, it's still a legal concern) of them was a subject of frustration to those who didn't get them first. A result of that was that those usernames underwent occasional hack and password retrieval attempts.

1st Result: Euronews taken without any questions asked

One of the channels I owned was the Euronews channel. Seeing how it is a prominent European news media company I expected to hear from them soon enough. However, they did not attempt to contact me and neither did YouTube.

The channel was simply taken away from me in early 2007 with no questions asked, no advance warnings and in a completely uncompromising manner. In other words, it was stolen.

YouTube had no firm basis to hand the channel over to Euronews: the YouTube partnership program didn't exist, Euronews does not hold a trademark of the term and the claim to a Euronews channel was completely unfounded.

In this case, nobody was held accountable for YouTube's one-sided actions.

The only thing that remains as a memory of my ownership of it is the channel's creation date: September 18th, 2006.

The same goes for the AlArabiya channel that I owned. YouTube simply stripped me of ownership without notice and handed the channel over to the Al Arabiya news network. However, there still are some glitches remaining from the ownership transfer when I try to log in with the old username data.

2nd Result: Record label's request via YouTube form overturned

In the second case I turned down an official request to give away a known record label username. The request was sent to my email in an official form through YouTube's new (and perhaps automated) username acquisition system.

The content of the automated message was asking me to be kind and hand over the ownership of the account to the record label. I had the option of "yes" and "no", deciding for the latter since the offer was nowhere near my expectations.

But at least they fixed their own faulty system and prevented account stealing from happening again.

3rd Result: Private user pleas for handing over accounts

On several occasions I've been contacted by users through YouTube's internal mail or channel's comment section (the comment wall), asking me if I wanted to donate my account to them. The answer was always negative.

On one of the hottest accounts for a popular Windows service (and a few other channels) users were periodically getting upset about the username being squatted, leaving derogatory comments, including anti-semitic ones.

So far, no profit has been made on this end either.

4th Result: Record label actually offers something of material value

Finally, after four years of waiting I've been contacted by record label who means business. That is, if you decide to call an attempt at bribing me with a T-shirt and a mug conducting business. These two items are what they initially offered me in exchange for deleting my account so they could set up their own in its place.

Of course, this is an extremely humble offering on the part of a record label that's connected with many of the top names in the music industry - but it is a start.

The only risk associated with this last record label is that it could as well be a phishing attack but that could be easily verified.

What happens with this case remains to be seen.

Sad reality of YouTube username squatting

For now, YouTube username squatting has brought me exactly zero in revenue. Most of those who are interested in obtaining a username are inquiring into the possibility under the assumption that it will be completely free of charge.

The only alternative I have is to make at least some of those usernames profitable on my own, hoping that the username itself will be an authority enough to attract viewers. I don't consider this to be very likely without providing quality content at the same time.

What remains, of course, is more waiting.