YouTube's July 15 Policy Shift: What It Means for Creators

YouTube has always pushed its creators to create original, engaging, and informative content, especially if they are a part of the YouTube Partner Program and are actively making money through the monetization of videos. However, the video giant will update its Partner Program monetization policy, starting as soon as 15 July, to discourage creators from posting unoriginal and inauthentic content.

YouTube Policy To Change From July 15:

In an official policy update, YouTube said that in order to monetize as part of the YouTube Partner Program, it has always required creators to upload original and authentic content. The company has now made it clear that starting 15 July, “YouTube is updating our guidelines to better identify mass-produced and repetitious content. This update better reflects what ‘inauthentic' content looks like today.”

Having said that, YouTube has not clearly defined what it means by “mass-produced,” “repetitious,” and “inauthentic,” but reportedly, YouTube could be referring to videos that are generally based on set templates, videos generated using AI tools, and others wherein some creators copy a lot of other creators' original work and put a low-effort spin on it.

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What It Could Mean Going Forward:

At large, this could discourage creators from actively relying on AI tools to create their videos, especially those who keep spamming the website with multiple videos. This is commonly seen in genres like gaming, wherein some creators can create faceless gaming channels and post a lot of gameplay with AI-generated voices and characters.

What happens to virtual YouTubers? Well, earlier this week, we posted how virtual YouTubers were making millions by creating channels with virtual avatars. These channels post gameplay videos but have a virtual avatar running on them instead of a face cam. However, these creators mostly do their own voiceovers, and some have reportedly made millions.

This is still up in the air for now because YouTube is yet to describe the exact details of this change, but more should become clear starting 15 July, when these changes go into effect. Again, YouTube has not mentioned AI-generated videos specifically; it just mentioned “repetitious” and “inauthentic” content. So, it remains to be seen how this pans out.