This is a really well-made video Faultine, and thank you for making it. It's no secret that I've made a lot of mistakes here on RUclips, and big ones at that. I completely understand where other creators are coming from, it's not a great feeling when others plagiarise your content. I struggle with the fact that I've done this to other creators, and for not understanding copyright properly. So I've done everything to better myself and make sure it simply will not happen again. As you pointed out in the video I list and credit all sources now. I've also allied myself with people much better at research, writing, editing and animations than I am. It's the reason we're able to make a fair amount of videos and still keep the necessary quality in both scriptwriting and editing. I really want to do better and it hurts me to see that you feel I've wronged you as well. I can assure you I've never seen your channel before and also haven't modelled my video or thumbnail after yours. But since my credibility is hurt, I would love to have a chat with you about this so I can properly hear your persepctive. Lastly, I just want to say I'm open to discuss it with all creators who feel I've wronged them in some way. I want to do what I can to understand where they are coming from, and what mistakes I've made so I can try to solve them. Also, you said you reached out to me which I was confused by but I just checked my Twitter and can see you wrote there... (I don't check my Twitter dm's) -Oliver
Didn't you make this exact same comment on another video of the exact same topic about plagiarism? I don't believe you and that's why I've blocked your channel from my feed.
@@PSNDonutDude he probably did but other video calling him out was 3 months ago so it’s possible his newer videos have addressed those concerns. Or maybe not.
I remember when I was in middle school in the mid 2000s. Our history teacher gave us all an assignment on a particular historical event and we all had to present our work in front of the class. It turns out a lot of us (even myself) used the same Wikipedia page for "research", we all basically copied the same few webpages and so spent a whole hour almost presenting our work word for word in front of the class one after each other. We all got a stern talking to from our teachers about plagiarism after that classroom blunder. It always stuck with me.
Most teachers now specifically say, do not use Wikipedia as a source. If they're honest they'll point out that Wikipedia is a very good first stop, and you'll often find most or all of the worthwhile sources cited for it which makes it a good jumping-off point for finding sources.
Let add one more reputed channel to the list: @veritasium. His Lead poisoning video looks very similar to something I saw on a TV show, with cartoons. It was narrated by Niel deGrasse Tyson.
@@vincenttt8289 how good of a reference Wikipedia is varies by article. Always check the "Talk" link at the top of the article and see what editors have been saying about the article behind the scenes. If it's got a lot of contentious argument, you may want to start with a different free encyclopedia.
I was a watcher of OBF, and experienced the exact déjà vu you described during some of his videos - unconsciously, without even realising it. The subway video copy line-for-line blew my mind. Thank you for releasing this video and raising my awareness. Consider me subscribed.
That's OBF's comment on this video is such BS. He's pretending like this happened by accident when he blatantly copied and stole content. You don't "accidently" do it word for word.
Why you all care so much? If the info was false then OK get mad but if its educational then go for it, copy paste that shit until everyone sees it. Either way copyright laws are bs and everything should be public domain. Im going to go sub to OBF.
I like that you opened up the topic. This isn’t black and white. There are edge cases where the line between inspiration and copying get’s blurry. I believe some of this bad behavior also stems from a broader internet culture where people are used to freely recycling content without regard to copyright. For many RUclipsrs, myself included, it was definitely a learning process in the beginning. What I think triggers the general frustration among RUclipsrs about OBF is less the original mistakes, but more the fact that there is no willingness to self-criticism. Especially in the last few months I have seen many examples where RUclipsrs deal constructively with criticism and in the end even create something good. Think of Alan Fisher's criticism of the RealLifeLore video, which ultimately led to a new improved video. Or Present Past's criticism of a video by Johnny Harris, which was not perceived as an attack but as an opportunity to improve. In the same spirit, I also hope that this discourse on copying will continue to be productive and encourage us all to reflect and improve. Thanks for this video!
I think there is a general improvement with the quality within the community, especially with some creators will go out their way and publicly criticize you (in a positive manner of course). New copycat channels will keep popping up to ride on to the algorithm, but those will never get as far as those who actually take the time to do research, and we as viewers can generally tell
Yes, I appreciated Johnny Harris and RLL more after they accepted their criticism. I especially loved that RLL remade their video (a few edits) and re-released it. The topic is indeed very complex but what is certain is OBF has plagiarized by any definition. He produces great content but he needs to be more original and stop plagiarizing.
Lets be honest Neo, browsing through your youtube and cross checking to see whether there are other producers or even actual newscompanies, who made documentaries or educational videos on the same topics as you did - just to notice that you made them AFTER they did, with similar title (maybe not similar thumb nail). If you have a certain topic of interest, e.g. WW2, how can you deviate from facts? Sure you can get good at repackaging and communicating the whole story in a different manor with your own personal style - but when it all comes to it, its the same story with the same facts. Straight re-use of others material is obviously a big no-no ethically and legally - but some of the segments of this video would literally apply to every producer of explainer/educational content. But then again, what the hell do i know, i only represent the audience of said educational videos :)
As a Spanish and English speaking person I always see English videos being translated and posted as original content, sometimes getting even more views than the original. This probably happens with other languages but is harder for the original creators to track without someone telling them.
@@millevenon5853 It actually happens a lot, there are a lot of souless channels that cover/translate videos that were originally in English to other languages, sometimes those channels are not even related to the original creators. As a Portuguese native speaker, seeing those plagiarized videos is so common that it actually became a daily basis.
I do feel though that large creators should translate their work. I'm also bilingual and I have thought about reaching out to collaborate with creators, write their scripts or do voiceover.... but I can see how it would be easier and more profitable to copy it, translate it, and put it on your own channel.
As you mentioned, it sometimes really is a mere coincidence - sometimes just due to the nature of specific trending topics. In fact, we're publishing a video about America's water crisis tomorrow. We had it in the pipeline for a couple of weeks now, yet it still has some similarities your video. Nothing intentional - pls believe us! 😉 (PS. OBF's word-for-word copying or thumbnail similarity is indeed ludicrous - and we do understand your frustration, especially when your channel is still so young).
I saw OBF's "us enemies are not going to like" video in my feed after I watched your video, and my first thought was, "Why is RUclips recommending me the same video after I watched it" and then I looked closer, and I was so confused.
Yep, same happened to me. And that wasn't very long ago at all, so it just goes to show that OBF is full of bs when he tries to claim that he's reformed his behaviour in the pinned comment he posted on this video. Literal scum.
The fact that I haven't seen him copy any of my videos almost feels more insulting than anything Obviously there's only a finite amount of popular topics for several dozen geo-tubers to squabble over and picking topics can be a massive bottleneck, but as you briefly mentioned, that doesn't mean you can't provide your own voice and perspective to it. I, like a lot of people, make a point not to watch other videos on topics I'm working on, even if to keep me from accidentally copying them. Even if you can't think of an original topic, you can always cover it in an original way. It honestly makes me wonder if we should start putting information traps like maps and dictionaries used to do
That's all this is, internet dweebs generating drama for their dull lives and attempting to attack people more successful than them. The internet runs in circles lol
In addition to what Jason said, educational content is uniquely affected by this as a result of how much work one has to put into the research and writing. I imagine some of these copycat channels really want to make good, educational stuff but then got put off when they realise quite how much time and energy one has to put into reading and synthesising information.
One of the reasons I stopped uploading is because people straight up jack your ideas. Instead of being inspired by your idea, to go make something new, they seriously just copy it. And sometimes get tons of views from it. It’s beyond frustrating.
I think this is a great reminder that we need to keep improving. As a content creator I strive to create something distinct and unique to compliment the already existing conversion. Not always perfect, but it’s a good standard to reach for.
That is a tall task, a bottle is reached, unless you remain fresh , it is hard. Many creators Ticking clock Finite universe Specific subject Human limitations
levi I see you everywhere lol you create original content not only one one, but two whole channels, and thats more than respectable. Wednesday is the best upload day ❤️
@@kazooduck I didn't mean to make that comment on this comment, I was putting it on OBF's comment. IDK how that happened tbh, and I don't know of this creator.
A big issue I have with a lot of these video essayists is that very few ever present much in the way of truly original research. So often it just feels like summaries of Wikipedia pages, or information drawn from a single source but with some fancy graphics on top or just simple stock footage. It feels lazy and more than anything it feels like a waste of a chance to truly uncover something new about a subject. Shout out to Vox though. I think they truly go out of their way not only to discover new topics, but also interview experts, and really bring new facts to a topic. However for every Vox, there seems to be a 100 others just regurgitating the same content.
Given our national literacy rates, I think there’s still value in “regurgitating a Wikipedia article” for people. But I feel you as a regular watcher of long videos
Vox does research when it comes to goofy topics and curiosities. The moment they touch anything remotely serious or impactful (like geopolitics and sociopolitics), their research is very subpar and includes inaccuracies.
Great video Andy and team, it's definitely something that is becoming more and more noticeable on RUclips and probably across the board on social media. Like some other people have mentioned, there are almost different types of plagiarism too that are simply missed because they're not on the same platform, but these clear examples really hammer the point home.
Great video! There needs to be more talk about this. It is incredibly frustrating spending hundreds of hours researching and writing a script only to have another channel rephrasing it and creating the same video in half the amount of time. Or simply translating the whole script into another language...happens way too often but is invisible to most of the viewers.
OBF is not one person. it's a group of people with a guy in charge, who pays the animator, the voiceover guy and possibly even the script writer. there are MANY such cases and they are extremely successful
This reminds me of the scheme Folding Ideas covered in his "Contrepreneurs" video, where the scheme was to hire ghostwriters to write (bullshit) non-fiction books, pay a voice actor to narrate it, put it on Audible and hoping people will buy/stream it. It obviously doesn't work. But paying an animator and then copy/rewrite other people's scripts apparently does work. It just feels weird that this is happening on RUclips, too. The point of infotainment has always been that it's just one guy (or a small team) with a passion. Someone who might've studied something a couple years, been amazed at how interesting the subject is and then equally amazed at how un-pedagogical a lot of university studies really are, and thought "I could do that better". Not all of these people can, but often the ones that really do have met incredible success, often accruing more views than multi-billion media conglomerates on a given topic. It's a passionate, democratic and organic thing. It would be sad if this sort of "astro-turfing" became even more frequent. On one hand it's literally just capitalism - paying other people to do work, selling the product and keeping the returns (if it's successful). If you can decrease the cost of any step, even better. But what's cheaper than cheap? Free! Chinese products have been so cheap not just because of low wages in factories.. It's also because you usually can't cut the cost of engineering and designing products without loosing quality... But if you just straight up copy stuff, you can.
This is a nice video, but I do think the umbrella for critique should be larger if OBF is being used as an example. If you read a book by an academic and base a video on it, that should be seen as unoriginal of a process of creation as making a video based on another. I do that, Wendover Productions does that, Real Life Lore does that - a lot of RUclipsrs get away with the idea that they’re original, when all they really do is convert the medium of a bunch of already existing stories and articles. OBF gets dogpiled a lot, and obviously there is a difference between word for word quotation and taking footage, but I think his biggest mistake was to take information from already existing videos on the platform when RUclipsrs normally do the same exact same thing but then with information coming from a different medium, which makes it more difficult to identify. Maybe I'm too cynical. I don't think what OBF has done isn't bad, I just don't think that many RUclipsrs (myself very much included) are much better.
On occasion i've seen videos from e.g. Vox and thought "Hey they stole this idea from OBF" while in fact it was the other way around. I simply saw the OBF video earlier and that for me became 'the original'. That is obviously something that does not happen when a creator reads an academic paper and then bases a video on it, nobody will think the paper was plagiarizing the video. So in the end i think the ambiguity is the most problematic part, not so much the fact that someone uses external sources for their work, which should be par for the course as long as used sources are listed.
If you're doing a video off a book with no other sources to support their research I can see how that could be problematic. But, the video would still have original presentation because of that medium switch. As a creator you can choose to highlight various aspects of the book and bring them to life with video, animation, demonstrations, etc. Just how a screenwriter adapts a book to a film. With facts it's hard to have original subject matter because facts are facts, and I think that's a part of what Jason Slaughter was getting at. But, you can be original with presentation. And when you take someone's presentation, whether it be their script or footage (both are just as bad) you are plagiarizing. If you are inspired by a non-fiction book and want to write your own book about the same subject you should NOT use that book as your source material, unless you are writing a response to that book. You should look to the sources your inspiration used, and try to find the sources they used, etc. This is to prevent lazy research, and results in more original ideas and interpretations. But, if you switch mediums, say from a book to a song, even if the book and song are about the same thing you still need to write instrumentals and come up with lyrics because reading a book is usually not very musical. There is work and original thought that has to be done to adapt things from one medium to another. And that's not what obf does.
I'm confused. It is quite easy not to plagiarize someone, no matter the medium. Just use your own words and credit the original author. If students can avoid it, so can RUclipsrs.
The difference is in the malignancy of the rights holder. That makes music an utter minefield, for how savagely the copyright is enforced by the respective companies. Also: the system always works in favor of the people with the big monies, because of course it does. After all, they're exactly the people who set it up that way.
Also it's hard to argue the copyright when it's about factual things when it's not word for word, also an idea isn't subject to copyright only a whole work is. Using someone elses music is therefore much clearer to argue than "this guy maybe took too much inspiration from my video".
*Can actually confirm this:* I actually was tricked into clicking on one of OBF videos thinking it was Vox, that has never happened before even with very "inspired" creators, so for once I agree that there is a problem of plagiarism.
I am so happy to have been a part of making this video and helping to have brought it to life. As creators - especially creators who are creating educational content and/or come from journalistic backgrounds - what would it say of us if we didn't feel comfortable calling out plagiarism and holding each other accountable? Really love how this look came out!
You should look into Real Life Lore. He is one of the biggest education channels out there and is plagiarized a small channel called politics with paint. His video named 'China's Insane Plan to Dig a Canal Across the Balkans' is copied a lot from politics with paint video 'China’s $17 billion plan for a Canal across Europe'. Even word for word in many places.
One major problem that I've found when watching the more educational side of RUclips is the utter lack of providing sources used and a bibliography in their description. Some channels however do this on some of their vids eg King's and Generals and the newest entry in their Alexander series. One small Channel that has done this on all his videos is Deuratus (animated history) which should be the baseline.
Two other channels that I highly recommend are Real Time History and The Great War channels, which cite their sources and focus mostly on 19th-early 20th century history.
A lot of the big channels are bias and are seeking to push something on their sides political agenda. A shame that YT is all about fighting disinformation but not when these big channels provide vague or dubious sources and present them as fact
I'll admit. When I saw OBF's thumbnail with the Untouchable America, I thought he learned his lesson and finally made something original, so I watched it. I never knew this channel made it earlier. That's the thing with RUclips... it keeps recommending me OBF's copied videos, instead of the originals.
Fantastic video, well done. I had always felt something off watching OBF, something uncanny. I had thought it was just a lack of coherency in his criticism and capability to truly distill the arguments surrounding a topic into a single, succinct opinion, but perhaps these are all results of not making something truly original which you're passionate about. Having a scientific background does train you to notice quality criticism and a genuine love for finding what's true, and I can tell you guys are doing an amazing job. Well done, I'm definitely going to be watching your other videos and judging by the quality of this one, I can't imagine this not having massive growth potential in the future :)
Problematically, RUclips does not have an option for viewers to use to report on plagiarism. They've got all these report options for hate, violence, spams and scams but no option for plagiarism reporting.
so many times I watch an OBF video or the video he ripped off and I sit there thinking to myself "I feel like I have seen this whole video before" and can even start quoting it and will turn it off, only to later realize I had not seen that video yet, just the other video thats nearly the same
This has ALWAYS been a problem. I remember when MatPat's Pasta Sauce video was nearly word-for-word a copy of Jim Sterling's video and, in fact, he had a habit of "borrowing" stuff from all his friends at the Escapist when the website was still a thing. Nobody noticed because RUclips was a separate site.
This is a good video, but I am going to kind of agree with @Hoog 's comment though. There is absolutely no doubt OBF is a proven plagiariser, and copying word-for-word is definitely not okay. That being said though, no one should be able to "claim" topics. Like, Vox's video of the America designed video was 5 years old (I think). OBF doing a video on this topic isn't a problem, especially if theres new things to add. Him ripping off other creators though....not defendable. But I also think doing a video someone else has done isn't plagiarism (obviously not copying and adding stuff though). I remember seeing this original drama go down on Twitter with Neo vs OBF. All completely true, but you can see in the comments that they were talking about "Asking permission" to do topics, which is ridiculous. Like, RealLifeLore did a video on the Kuril Islands within a month after OBF, absolutely no one is dogpiling on him, and no one should be.. Because really, I can also say that your video that you believe OBF copied on America not being able to defend itself, you copied as well, from The Infographics Show's version on May 2020. There's no real proof you didn't. You see what I mean? The accusations are a slippery slope. @Hoog is right, his biggest mistake was taking from other RUclipsrs, but to be honest, we're not all completely original in our ideas. We all take inspiration and we're all incentivized by RUclips towards certain topics. "America untouchable" isn't plagiarism, no one should be able to claim videos. I have a backlog of videos I want to create that spans 3 months at least, I'm uploading them regardless if someone covers it before then. I think this is just walking the line. But, OBF definitely has plagiarized and should be held responsible, completely agree on that form of criticism. P.S: Love your voiceover way more than his personally lol
Ah, I thought that this was going into a different direction. Not content-wise, but style-wise. A lot of education channels have the same exact style. Some stock images/animations plus an explanation. They often even copy the way of talking from each other. But there are still a few channels that are unique. Tom Scott goes to the different places and lets us hear the voices of the people who work there and are passionate about it, and always manages to cast that into a story that makes it engaging to watch. Smarter Every Day does a similar thing, but adds hands-on experiments to it that really capture you. Steve Mould does the same, but in a different, unique way - I can't quite put my finger on it. Then there's Practical Engineering, a guy who knows about the stuff inside out, and shares his enthusiasm with us in hands-on experiments. The -phile channels, for example numberphile, just consist of people very enthusiastically talking about their passion, including professors of that field. And The Science Asylum, who manages to break down theoretical physics concepts in very engaging ways, by predicting every thought that we may think along the way of the script. And of course kurzgesagt, who work out their scripts together with scientists and never fail to adapt a hard topic to something that laymans can digest, and learn more if they like. Veritasium - well, after some controversies, I wanted to stop watching him. I haven't for quite some time. But then he released a high-quality video again, explaining a maths concept very well. I'm still torn between two points. I also consume the one or other slideshow-video, because for people like me, there's never enough sciency stuff out there. Since the beforementioned channels prefer quality over quantity, there's often a lot of time in between videos. But if there's a new video out, I know what I have to see first.
Hol’ up you guys only have 8k subs that’s ridiculous, the quality of the video, the dialogue and the constructive criticism was amazing, 100% subbed looking forward to more videos 💪🏼
This is the endless problem. It's just easier and cheaper to collect other people's content and slap a new name on it. It's low effort, with lots of reward. The platform doesn't stop it, it just runs more ads on the content, and all the content creators are told to pound sand. People must sue the perpetrators on a reliable basis, or this will remain the status quo.
Me, watching an original video: Wow, they really did their research! This is great Me watching OBF: *Déjà vu, I've just been in this place before* I'm glad he's being exposed. Him and Kento Bento have no right to spread CIA measures on how to get rid of us. We have every right to exist
I remember his videos popping up in my feed all the time some time ago, I would watch most of it and became pretty engaged in the channel. One day he posted a community post saying they have been working really hard on some video topic blah blah and it's coming out tomorrow. The video came out, I watched it and it was absolute dogshit. Very basic research, no personal take or anything new to add, I noticed it and a lot of comments did too. It seems like the person behind that channel is unable to actually create a engaging and informative video on his own, so the fact that most if his other videos were plagiarized makes a lot of sense.
This is probably why it seems the ones on US public transportation, and urban design seem so tiring it seems like you're seeing basically the same videos 10x
Just found your channel through this video which btw I am really happy about... me coming from Germany specifically being heavily invested in the German speaking (RUclips) market, I have not seen yet a similar thing happening. Even though there are a couple of channels who could be copied quite „easily“ like Simplicisimus, Kurzgesagt, MrWissen2go... But it is good to know about this, also to prevent it from happening here as well.
One issue I have with “educational channels” and what propagates these problems… You guys all read the same book, think it’s 100% truth and state it as fact in your videos. Many creators (literally) just make a picture book of some trending book… They provide no counter argument or other common theories discussing the topic. The actual research that goes into the videos is sparse and is surface level at best. Also the hubris of some creators to think they can cover “Why The Vietnam War Was a Mistake” to “The solution to the microchip supply chain problem” all within a two week window is silly. But hey if you make nice animations and source a trending book we all good. It’s a modern form of intellectual inbreeding we saw when few universities were around.
Yes! Thanks for saying this. That annoys me too! Also the amount of pop-history/pop-science books these channels cite as if they're fact is really annoying. The amount of times i've seen "why nations fail" referenced by these creators drives me up the wall.
I think this comment should be a lot higher. The question all RUclipsrs have to ask themselves is, "is there actually a single person that is qualified to be listened to by hundreds of thousands of people every two or three weeks? Is it possible for that person to have something truly interesting and of expertise to say?" More often than not, the answer is no. I think the smartest people in the world wouldn't even admit that they do. But educational channels do this all the time, and they do it on really wide ranging geopolitics topics, which is just mega cringe. What we should do, is blatantly accept our position as entertainers - not educators. Ideally there's a situation that can eventually develop where there are even more channels that pop off that exclusively fact check and rip apart channels like my own and show people how superficial and limited our understanding is to a wide public. We're not educators, we're infotainers.
Bro, like 90% of geopolitical/international econ videos are based on Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson lol. The book isn't bad but big "theories" about the world should be taken with a grain of salt.
@@hoogyoutube Having watched your videos, it comes as no surprise to hear you say this. This is the type of critical mindset I've been missing a lot in this RUclips sphere lately. Thank you for injecting some nuance into all of this, and keep doing what you're doing
I find this thread fascinating. You are all essentially agreeing that no one channel can provide all the answers in one video. The question I ask is why you would expect that in the first place? Not even 1 encyclopedia can provide all the answers of any one topic so why should you expect same from a RUclips channel not professing to be a documentary? Is that not contrary to the very notion you claim to be against? Do you not have different channels with different perspectives you can use? You know there are other channels with videos that are hours long that go into far greater depth so why rag on a channel whose set up is to be a specific length to generate specific content? If it's not for you, continue your research elsewhere. This is specifically about plagiarism 😒
I'd say Pewdiepie, Dunkey, Filthy Frank, Angry Video Game Nerd, etc. have all somewhat touched/dealt with the topic before. In a sense, it is alot like the time the Fine Bro's tried to copyright React videos. I think what we've seen is that there is room for flavor (different perspectives, personalities, etc. while tackling the same/similar subjects) but most of us seem to have a problem when it's practically verbatim, or I think better put as you described, that you get this weird feeling of deja vu. It's not new info, has the same/similar editing/pacing/style of humor, and that's quite off-putting and paints the copycat as quite the charlatan.
Glad that Not Just Bikes also sort of pointed out the importance of not just having your creations protected from plagiarism for awhile, but also the importance of freedom to create. Since on the one hand I like that RUclips is giving you tools to combat blatant plagiarism but on the other hand I was just getting this sinking feeling because the distinction between being inspired by and plagiarism is a very important one but as you pointed out it isn’t always directly obvious to a machine what is or isn’t plagiarised, which I mentally tack on with ‘not always obvious what is plagiarised vs inspired by, particularly when done by a machine.’ So… the grey area between the two and the legality around it is highly important to keep an eye on in my mind. Weeding out plagiarism is important yes but being able to be inspired by something is also important. Somehow RUclips needs to find a balance without going too far either way.
This isn’t unique to education youtube. I would put it that isn’t just a one man team, it could be a content farm and the guy just readying scripts. There’s many similar channels that are stealing content.
As a casual fan of Not Just Bikes, it was so jarring the first time Jason was on screen. I didn’t know how to react hearing the usual disembodied voice but also seeing the face that produces it
I have just begun discovering your videos and I am very very grateful that you along with many others are helping move the trend of adding citations because it really helps ensure confidence in what can be trusted and not. It's a change that has needed to come for a while and I am glad you are going through all the effort even if it's not always "in-film citing" for lack of a better phrase.
Obliatory Not a Laywer, and from Germany. Three thoughts on that: 1. It was techniclly illegal to even make a meme using someone elses work a basis / background until very recently (2021). As I understand this today, a law was amended to allow "caricature, parody and pastiches". 1.b.)Also, platforms such as YT are now responsable to (somehow) get all the copyrights for any content you upload. 2. Remaking videos like this feels very similar to me, as making a cover version of a song. Making a coversong is still (techniclly, as far as i undestand) illegal, if one does not have the express permission of the original author (maybe 1.b. applies, idk). 3. I have also noticed that topics, that I have seen on english YT Channels, are being picked up by german YourTubers a few weeks later, but look and feel very different.
This video also highlights a future point where all logical ways to express a fact is used, making all recent works plagiarism of older works. Under the legal system, plagiarism is identified in two factors. Similarity and access to the older work (from the newest author in question). back in the day, for knowledge there was only books in the public library allowing for different people to come up with the same idea, both getting credit since they didn't meet each other. Since the internet became a thing, all info is accessible to everyone meaning you don't even need to come across it to have access to it. Along with a much larger databased on the same topic
At last!!! Someone noticed this weird phenomenon... I've been an avid consumer of educational videos for a long time but finding a wide variety or looking a topic from a specific perspective becomes more difficult... maybe it's just human nature...No one would care unless someone is a victim...all we can do is not to support this OBF's...so creators like him be given acknowledgement and credit for all his time and effort put to every content he made... Sending my gratitude to all hardworking educational content creators from Philippines.
Great video I hate people that steal ideas, demotivate the original content makers and we will have nothing left. Parasites are the worst, I guess it too easy to trick people on who did what sadly.
I admire your ability to keep emotions aside and make the video entirely professional. Personally I would just be more hateful. This is truly an example for how many situations in life should be tackled.
Your Safety From Plagiarism Matters 🙂. But seriously, thanks for bringing so much attention to this. So much effort goes into content that is genuinely unique, it's incredibly disappointing, especially with the amount of technology at their disposal, that RUclips isn't doing more to catch or prevent such blatant plagiarism. Sure, there's "linear thinking", but a lot of it is so egregious that you'd think it would have its own place in the Content ID system or similar, to be matched and brought to a creator's attention automatically.
I'd say it's a consequence of "educational" RUclips being really 99.9% just fun facts videos made by people who's expertise is presenting facts, not actually something in any academic field, no one is expected to actually know what they're talking about, nor having anything interesting to add to the topic, or have credible sources, so the most dishonest of people will just copy others work shamelessly
Plagiarism is more dire in the Chinese community. Because RUclips is not available there, there are several video streaming sites (bilibili, youku, tudou, to name a few) and it's common to see people stealing content from one to another. Probably why I just stick to RUclips even if it's Chinese content 🤷🏻♂️
@@bltzcstrnx That is a different matter, he is implying people lazily plagiate content/idea and get away with it by simply cross posting on different platform
@@bussardramjet5190 I understand, but that's bound to happen sadly. Even this is happening between studios in Hollywood. There's a video about it on RUclips.
1) That's why libraries with primary sources are extremely valuable. I wonder if librarians curriculum now include research on RUclips videos. 2) Plagiarism is part of the quality issues on YT. I like Ann Reardon's debunking videos.
I see obf commented. I hope he is genuine. I have watched his videos for years and unfortunately he makes it very easy to see different kind of educational videos in one place. I follow all of these other channels too but it becomes hard to follow. I hope he improves in the future and continues to make varied content.
I had something like this happen to me recently. I had a fan theory I made for House of the Dragon get very popular, and it went everywhere in our fandom very quickly. Much like the problem with OBF, there's a lot more aggregators of content then there are people who come up with new ideas, and the aggregators are way more popular because they act like filters for their audience. There's no dud videos, because they're only taking the already very popular ideas. And there were a lot of copies of my video made, most at least gave me credit and shout outs before just recreating it out of professional courtesy. But a lot more that just remade it without attribution at all, hoping that I wouldn't notice or not caring if I did. And that sucks, I didn't make my video to make a bunch of aggregators money and I really have very few tools to dissuade them from doing it as a smaller creator. If I wanted to have much larger channels make my video, I could've sold them script or the idea which I didn't. On the other side though, the ones I didn't mind are those that took the idea and then built on it. Put their own twist on it, expanded on it, or just used it as a starting point for something else. That stuff I love, because it's a community and it's really fun to see others take an idea and do their own thing. So there's a fine balance there, but for channels like OBF and those in my own niche, it really sucks that we're given next to no tools by youtube to protect ourselves on our own platform outside of public shaming campaigns whereas anyone with a pulse can just go wild on fraudluent copyright claims to no downside.
It would be nice to see how you organize your writing for your script. Having your script in that graph-like fashion with the correct sources to the right of it is pretty ingenious!
I think a big point that gets missed, and this video I don't think really touches on it enough, is that just taking the overall structures, using same arguments, having the same thesis, is still plagiarism. Of course, it goes without saying the line can get blurry.. The example of "is this plagiarism" is iffy certainly... It's the same initial argument, but geography is a very obvious argument to make....
In China we called this “washing scripts.” Usually, it is about having the exact same contents with few words changed, but the speaker and the video editing style are different. This not only happens to educational videos. It’s even more common and severe for cross-platforms plagiarism. For example like someone plagiarized a video content on RUclips and made a video on Tik Tok. Also some influencer agencies would give the same script for different people but they would speak and talk differently because their accounts usually have different fan compositions.
hey i just wanted to ask this to someone from china, is there a china's version of youtube?! I ask this because I don't see to many high subbed Chinese channels here and had chinese people been on youtube without any barrier at all we would have had that to some extent at least.
@@friendlyvimana Hi! Yes in some ways. There is a Chinese version of RUclips, called Bilibili, which is a platform similar to RUclips and Niconico from Japan. If a RUclips video is popular/meaningful and not politically sensitive, some people would translate them (with the original content creator/RUclipsr's permission) and upload it on bilibili. People do have barriers of getting onto RUclips. They would need a VPN to get onto RUclips. However, people are restricted using VPN there (if the political situation is less tensed, there would be less control of VPN, and vice versa). I live in both China & the States for a long time so I watch videos from both sides.
8:46 "cagar es un placer, de cagar nadie se escapa" means "shitting is a pleasure, nobody escapes from shitting", which as random as that is, is quite fitting for this vid because all OBF does is shits on other RUclipsrs by stealing their work. On top of making the simplest mistakes that he could've easily double checked beforehand. In a vid about Japan's terrible geography, he was talking about Japan's infrastructure...while showing very obvious double-decker trams from Hong Kong. As if he wishes Hong Kong was still occupied by the Japanese.
A channel called Economics Explained (2 million subs) ripped off a 6500-word article from Bloomberg. It was word for word Verbatim for 6500 words. The author would have spent 6 months researching that article. The dude spends two days animating a video with photography stills. 1.3 million views.
Hey Faultline, I understand your concern and agree with most of what you have said but similar packaging does not mean plagiarism, I have never done that & making these videos is by no means easy if done in good faith. I have been reading books since I was a kid (which is where most of the 'Original' RUclipsrs get the content from) learning animations for two years now. Between research, writing, Voiceover, graphic design, animations, sound design & thumbnails, it takes me 30 to 40 days to make a 5-minute video. RUclipsrs I love & have been watching for the better part of a decade now.. still trend jack all the time, it's just the nature of the platform. However, I do think there a very few creators that are truly Original like Polymatter, Lemmino, or Hoog and I am just a dude with a laptop trying to learn how to tell stories. There is no Team or a content farm, It's just me. PS: Sorry if I sound like a Microsoft A.I, I can assure you I am very much a person with feelings.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena
This is a great video and I really like that you've fueled this conversation to the point where OBF themselves have replied. Great work! I'd like to add, though, that at 8:45 you had an accidentally hilarious moment because of the language barrier lmao. The tiktok that says "cagar es un placer. De cagar nadie se escapa" means "taking a dump is a pleasure. Nobody escapes from taking a dump" 😂💩 It's even funnier considering how much the tiktok contrasts with the serious conversation in the video lol But yeah! Great video!
I remember being weirdly irked by OBF and unsubscribing and clicking "don't recommend videos from this channel" without knowing why it made me feel weird. Now I know lol
8:47 Spanish captions in the tiktok video say "Cagar es un placer, de cagar nadie se escapa", which literally translates to "shitting is a pleasure, nobody escapes from shitting" lol it's funny that this random video made it into the final cut of a serious topic. Great video by the way, it's very sober and well-informed and I'm specially glad that people are still talking about plagiarism and still citing OBF, every time I see any of his videos in my feed something feels wrong immediately, I'm subscribing to this channel right away.
Look up a video named "Everything is a remix remastered". I think that you'll enjoy it, it's about this exact topic. Because honestly *everything* is a copy of some kind. Including all of our technology.
i believe oliver probably had a vision to do educational, explainer-style videos and threw himself into it because he was driven by the idea of content creation. that type of individuality is what makes youtube magical, in my opinion. but the dude exploded exponentially and couldn't keep up. a lot of youtubers refine their craft for years before seeing the demand follow. in my opinion that's what went wrong for OBF and i hope he will professionalise his work further in the future
I think you are overly generous. Apeing someone else's style is indeed cheap flattery but copying it word for word is beyond the pale Then proffering the same weak excuses every time you are called out is actually fraudulent. He is clearly taking advantage of another's work with no credit. A student in my class was thrown out of university in our final year for plagiarism. Oliver is a bad faith actor. Of course RUclips won't do the same because MONEY but there should be some sanctions.
I knew there was something fishy about obf but I never really bothered to question it. Thanks for enlightening people will now follow you from now on instead of obf.
I thought there was something weird about OBF. I'd watch something from Real Engineering, Vox, or Wendover and then a few days later see it on OBF. Of course I'd only notice this when I realized I'd already heard the info from somewhere else and check the channel name and my RUclips history.
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 Didn't hear about that. Mainly watch them for random news stories, and for a left leaning perspective for contentious subjects in order to get a look from both sides. And yeah, there are better sources, but every once in a while vox gives a good argument.
@@mrniceface Look up the whole debacle with Carlos Maza. As usual, follow the money, as this is the most rational explanation why their celebrity was so fuming after some alleged slight. Well, before that I was watching them, though they were clearly a mixed bag with most of reasonable quality mixed up with disastrous propaganda. "look from both sides" There are no "both sides". There are multitude of potential sides and woke big business is maybe not the craziest on its own, though it's so prevalent, then you are most likely to waste your time on watching it as regardless whether you want it or not, you are going to know their talking points.
hahaha this is why I watched 2-3 of the videos then started to notice it was just a "clone" channel to others doing the same subject and never subscribed. How the channel hasn't been removed at this point (and LOL at the response they gave saying "I made mistakes") is just a showing of how plagiarism is becoming accepted by both people and platforms.
I've been up in the air about this channel for awhile. The level of tact used was amazing 👏 you took the viewer from what could have been a flogging to a thumbs 👍 up & even shot him some compliments. You earned this sub .. cheers
Great video. I think the best thing about these types of videos is that I am seeing many other creators that I did not realize OBF copied. I don’t get how you guys have such a large team and are able to support yourselves just from RUclips since it’s a new channel and the production quality is amazing. Wish you guys the best of luck and you got yourselves another subscriber.
The worst part is they really thought they could get away with plagiarism of your videos because your channel is so much smaller than theirs. They really thought no one would pay attention enough to notice
I found OBF not too long ago and immediately subscribed because I really liked their content. Now I feel bad because I feel like I've wronged the original creators of all the videos they plagiarised. Thank you for highlighting this. Hopefully they keep to their word on being better. This is sad.
We have the issue that some people take our content and reupload it under their own name on their channel/Facebook/Tiktok. One even changed the voiceover and music to the same script, but someone else's voice. We usually ask them to take it down.
Yeah no, I've just read OBF's apology that is pinned here in the comments and it's not ok. Sure the guy is well spoken, but you know why is he taking this attitude now? Because at this point it doesn't matter anymore. He is not actually sorry, he just knows that he is at a point where he has enough resources to hire other people to now do the work for him. Imagine that I steal shops all around town for 3 years straight, and with that money I finally open my own shop, when people call me out I just say "Sorry it won't happen again", of course it won't happen again because with the stolen resources now you have opened a legitimate shop and don't care anymore about stealing other shops. An apology would have carried weight when it was still an small channel, now it's just damage control since you have already 'taken' all that you need.
That is really sad. Its just unfair for people that he copy. Other do the hardwork and he reap benefit with little to no effort Should we demand obf to remove all his videos that are straight copy?
@@gurbanguliberdimuhamedov4228 I don't know but at least he should be called out by many people and have his reputation take a big hit. As you said it's not fair to legitimate content creators.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.. it's amazing to see how many people straight up copy this into another language and pass it off as their own. But those are hard to find because you have to search for them manually (hard if you don't speak the language) and don't get spoonfed to you by the algorithm
Feels a bit like copyright laws are too strict and loose at the same time… Some stuff that you showed us from OBF would qualify as plagiarism to me. But having keeping a copyright for 70+ years (depending on the type of media and country) is way too long in my opinion. If I could remake the law I would be more strict on what qualifies as plagiarism but limit any ownership to something like 15-20 years at most.
I don't know of any laws that deal with or define plagiarism at all. Afaik it's only strictly defined in academia. The law deals with copyright, but that's not the same thing at all. I see copyright as about infringing the rights (legally granted monopoly on copying) of the original creator, but plagiarism is about being dishonest with the audience.
I’ve noticed that content creators who I’d consider reputable will always mention similar videos and shout out the creators who made them. For example, Mina Le, Karolina Zebrowska, Bernadette Banner, Moderngurlz, Rachel Makesy, Micarah Tewers, etc. all make fashion and costume design related videos, and they’re all quick to make sure they mention if someone else has covered the same topic, established or otherwise. I’ve noticed this among lots of commentary channels as well, because they cover the same scandals and current events. I hope this catches on in the culture, as it’s a good way to show other creators that the video maker is acting in good faith, and as a viewer, it’s a good way to get more content about a topic I’m interested in.
commentary channels are always shouting each other out, especially the video essayists. its a (mostly) lovely space. however, even if they didnt, they arent as fact heavy as educational channels and most of them always have something new to add, as their opinions vary.
This is a really well-made video Faultine, and thank you for making it.
It's no secret that I've made a lot of mistakes here on RUclips, and big ones at that. I completely understand where other creators are coming from, it's not a great feeling when others plagiarise your content. I struggle with the fact that I've done this to other creators, and for not understanding copyright properly. So I've done everything to better myself and make sure it simply will not happen again.
As you pointed out in the video I list and credit all sources now. I've also allied myself with people much better at research, writing, editing and animations than I am. It's the reason we're able to make a fair amount of videos and still keep the necessary quality in both scriptwriting and editing.
I really want to do better and it hurts me to see that you feel I've wronged you as well. I can assure you I've never seen your channel before and also haven't modelled my video or thumbnail after yours. But since my credibility is hurt, I would love to have a chat with you about this so I can properly hear your persepctive.
Lastly, I just want to say I'm open to discuss it with all creators who feel I've wronged them in some way. I want to do what I can to understand where they are coming from, and what mistakes I've made so I can try to solve them.
Also, you said you reached out to me which I was confused by but I just checked my Twitter and can see you wrote there... (I don't check my Twitter dm's)
-Oliver
I appreciate you responding. Even if it isn't sincere (not saying it isnt), this a good step to take and opens up dialogue.
Didn't you make this exact same comment on another video of the exact same topic about plagiarism? I don't believe you and that's why I've blocked your channel from my feed.
@@PSNDonutDude Well, why would he write something else?
@@PSNDonutDude he probably did but other video calling him out was 3 months ago so it’s possible his newer videos have addressed those concerns. Or maybe not.
@@Frius94 That's hate
I remember when I was in middle school in the mid 2000s. Our history teacher gave us all an assignment on a particular historical event and we all had to present our work in front of the class. It turns out a lot of us (even myself) used the same Wikipedia page for "research", we all basically copied the same few webpages and so spent a whole hour almost presenting our work word for word in front of the class one after each other. We all got a stern talking to from our teachers about plagiarism after that classroom blunder. It always stuck with me.
Most teachers now specifically say, do not use Wikipedia as a source. If they're honest they'll point out that Wikipedia is a very good first stop, and you'll often find most or all of the worthwhile sources cited for it which makes it a good jumping-off point for finding sources.
@@nlpnt Wikipedia is a good reference list, but they'd be better off not quoting directly from Wikipedia.
I don’t know what that teacher expected to happen if they gave you all the same exact event to research. There’s only so much info on one topic.
Let add one more reputed channel to the list: @veritasium. His Lead poisoning video looks very similar to something I saw on a TV show, with cartoons. It was narrated by Niel deGrasse Tyson.
@@vincenttt8289 how good of a reference Wikipedia is varies by article. Always check the "Talk" link at the top of the article and see what editors have been saying about the article behind the scenes. If it's got a lot of contentious argument, you may want to start with a different free encyclopedia.
I was a watcher of OBF, and experienced the exact déjà vu you described during some of his videos - unconsciously, without even realising it. The subway video copy line-for-line blew my mind. Thank you for releasing this video and raising my awareness. Consider me subscribed.
How about unsubscribe from OBF?
@@superpixelated7354 that’s what they meant
That's OBF's comment on this video is such BS. He's pretending like this happened by accident when he blatantly copied and stole content. You don't "accidently" do it word for word.
omg this is so true
Why you all care so much? If the info was false then OK get mad but if its educational then go for it, copy paste that shit until everyone sees it.
Either way copyright laws are bs and everything should be public domain.
Im going to go sub to OBF.
I like that you opened up the topic. This isn’t black and white. There are edge cases where the line between inspiration and copying get’s blurry. I believe some of this bad behavior also stems from a broader internet culture where people are used to freely recycling content without regard to copyright. For many RUclipsrs, myself included, it was definitely a learning process in the beginning. What I think triggers the general frustration among RUclipsrs about OBF is less the original mistakes, but more the fact that there is no willingness to self-criticism.
Especially in the last few months I have seen many examples where RUclipsrs deal constructively with criticism and in the end even create something good. Think of Alan Fisher's criticism of the RealLifeLore video, which ultimately led to a new improved video. Or Present Past's criticism of a video by Johnny Harris, which was not perceived as an attack but as an opportunity to improve. In the same spirit, I also hope that this discourse on copying will continue to be productive and encourage us all to reflect and improve. Thanks for this video!
🥵New video pls daddy neo 🥵
🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿
@@ChadPANDA... mood
I think there is a general improvement with the quality within the community, especially with some creators will go out their way and publicly criticize you (in a positive manner of course). New copycat channels will keep popping up to ride on to the algorithm, but those will never get as far as those who actually take the time to do research, and we as viewers can generally tell
Yes, I appreciated Johnny Harris and RLL more after they accepted their criticism. I especially loved that RLL remade their video (a few edits) and re-released it. The topic is indeed very complex but what is certain is OBF has plagiarized by any definition. He produces great content but he needs to be more original and stop plagiarizing.
Lets be honest Neo, browsing through your youtube and cross checking to see whether there are other producers or even actual newscompanies, who made documentaries or educational videos on the same topics as you did - just to notice that you made them AFTER they did, with similar title (maybe not similar thumb nail). If you have a certain topic of interest, e.g. WW2, how can you deviate from facts?
Sure you can get good at repackaging and communicating the whole story in a different manor with your own personal style - but when it all comes to it, its the same story with the same facts.
Straight re-use of others material is obviously a big no-no ethically and legally - but some of the segments of this video would literally apply to every producer of explainer/educational content.
But then again, what the hell do i know, i only represent the audience of said educational videos :)
Fantastic video, it's really a problem that RUclips really needs to address.
PS: I'm an idiot that just found your email to me, my bad 😅😅
It's all good! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
I was looking for the Alan Fisher comment on this video. Love your one on this topic too!
I literally went to Alan's OBF callout vid to link it here.
As a Spanish and English speaking person I always see English videos being translated and posted as original content, sometimes getting even more views than the original. This probably happens with other languages but is harder for the original creators to track without someone telling them.
Which videos? English creators are generally far superior to other languages in quality
@@millevenon5853 It actually happens a lot, there are a lot of souless channels that cover/translate videos that were originally in English to other languages, sometimes those channels are not even related to the original creators. As a Portuguese native speaker, seeing those plagiarized videos is so common that it actually became a daily basis.
@@millevenon5853 It happens in Brazil all the time
@@millevenon5853 apparently there was one top chanel called Mr tops which did this, uploaded translated videos as if they where of his making
I do feel though that large creators should translate their work. I'm also bilingual and I have thought about reaching out to collaborate with creators, write their scripts or do voiceover.... but I can see how it would be easier and more profitable to copy it, translate it, and put it on your own channel.
As you mentioned, it sometimes really is a mere coincidence - sometimes just due to the nature of specific trending topics. In fact, we're publishing a video about America's water crisis tomorrow. We had it in the pipeline for a couple of weeks now, yet it still has some similarities your video. Nothing intentional - pls believe us! 😉 (PS. OBF's word-for-word copying or thumbnail similarity is indeed ludicrous - and we do understand your frustration, especially when your channel is still so young).
So excited to see your take on the US water crisis in the video today.
I saw OBF's "us enemies are not going to like" video in my feed after I watched your video, and my first thought was, "Why is RUclips recommending me the same video after I watched it" and then I looked closer, and I was so confused.
_OBF's enemies are not going to like this video_
This. Same!
Yep, same happened to me. And that wasn't very long ago at all, so it just goes to show that OBF is full of bs when he tries to claim that he's reformed his behaviour in the pinned comment he posted on this video. Literal scum.
The fact that I haven't seen him copy any of my videos almost feels more insulting than anything
Obviously there's only a finite amount of popular topics for several dozen geo-tubers to squabble over and picking topics can be a massive bottleneck, but as you briefly mentioned, that doesn't mean you can't provide your own voice and perspective to it. I, like a lot of people, make a point not to watch other videos on topics I'm working on, even if to keep me from accidentally copying them. Even if you can't think of an original topic, you can always cover it in an original way.
It honestly makes me wonder if we should start putting information traps like maps and dictionaries used to do
You never know, maybe we'll have an OBF face reveal and he will be wearing a nemes (pharaoh headdress) just like you do. :)
Finite universe x Specific topic x Career youtuber = Diminishing returns
New , originality might actually not exist, new to who?
Gotta admit, OBF savage as fuck for that. If you ain’t got copied that means you too boring to profit off of.
Lol nice take first line is 😂
Plagiarism doesn't mean an infringement on the monopoly on a topic.
I came for the maps. I'm staying for the drama.
♥️ love from India 🇮🇳
your video editing tutorial really amazing bro 😇😇
That's all this is, internet dweebs generating drama for their dull lives and attempting to attack people more successful than them. The internet runs in circles lol
@@KevinJohnson-cv2no Just because people around you never thought your work is worth plagiarizing doesn't mean plagiarism isn't a thing.
Excellent piece Andy. Glad to be part of it!
In addition to what Jason said, educational content is uniquely affected by this as a result of how much work one has to put into the research and writing. I imagine some of these copycat channels really want to make good, educational stuff but then got put off when they realise quite how much time and energy one has to put into reading and synthesising information.
You’ve sorta just said this about 10 seconds after I finished writing the comment, haha.
This is a masterclass in giving constructive criticism and confronting a problem
Thanks so glad you thought so
I agree I never felt like you were attacking obf just trying to help them see the error of their ways
@@SRQmoviemaker That's called a "slap on the wrist."
@@realtalk6195 I slapped on my wrist reading your comment
This is definitely a real problem. I experienced it with RealLifeLore on my Istanbul Canal video. RUclips needs to figure out some sort of solution.
One of the reasons I stopped uploading is because people straight up jack your ideas. Instead of being inspired by your idea, to go make something new, they seriously just copy it. And sometimes get tons of views from it.
It’s beyond frustrating.
I remember you added new lyrics to the rap of watsky :P
I think this is a great reminder that we need to keep improving. As a content creator I strive to create something distinct and unique to compliment the already existing conversion. Not always perfect, but it’s a good standard to reach for.
That is a tall task, a bottle is reached, unless you remain fresh , it is hard.
Many creators
Ticking clock
Finite universe
Specific subject
Human limitations
levi I see you everywhere lol
you create original content not only one one, but two whole channels, and thats more than respectable. Wednesday is the best upload day ❤️
@@KingArthurWs the video was months ago, they probably haven't looked back go fact check it. you can leave constructive criticism you know...
@@kazooduck I didn't mean to make that comment on this comment, I was putting it on OBF's comment. IDK how that happened tbh, and I don't know of this creator.
@@KingArthurWs oh lol, levi runs future proof, thought u were talking about that
A big issue I have with a lot of these video essayists is that very few ever present much in the way of truly original research. So often it just feels like summaries of Wikipedia pages, or information drawn from a single source but with some fancy graphics on top or just simple stock footage. It feels lazy and more than anything it feels like a waste of a chance to truly uncover something new about a subject.
Shout out to Vox though. I think they truly go out of their way not only to discover new topics, but also interview experts, and really bring new facts to a topic. However for every Vox, there seems to be a 100 others just regurgitating the same content.
Given our national literacy rates, I think there’s still value in “regurgitating a Wikipedia article” for people. But I feel you as a regular watcher of long videos
Vox does research when it comes to goofy topics and curiosities. The moment they touch anything remotely serious or impactful (like geopolitics and sociopolitics), their research is very subpar and includes inaccuracies.
@@realtalk6195 I notice that as well
@@realtalk6195 cause they have a conflict of interest or bias. I had to unsub from Vox when they got too partisan
Fuck vox but yeah otherwise I agree
Great video Andy and team, it's definitely something that is becoming more and more noticeable on RUclips and probably across the board on social media. Like some other people have mentioned, there are almost different types of plagiarism too that are simply missed because they're not on the same platform, but these clear examples really hammer the point home.
I half expect a new OBF video talking about the plagiarism problem on RUclips.
Great video! There needs to be more talk about this. It is incredibly frustrating spending hundreds of hours researching and writing a script only to have another channel rephrasing it and creating the same video in half the amount of time. Or simply translating the whole script into another language...happens way too often but is invisible to most of the viewers.
is there anything you can do against people rephrasing your scripts into other languages?
OBF is not one person. it's a group of people with a guy in charge, who pays the animator, the voiceover guy and possibly even the script writer. there are MANY such cases and they are extremely successful
This seems to be the case. Is there any face to the voice? Super shady. I think creators need to claim copyright on OBF’s videos.
This reminds me of the scheme Folding Ideas covered in his "Contrepreneurs" video, where the scheme was to hire ghostwriters to write (bullshit) non-fiction books, pay a voice actor to narrate it, put it on Audible and hoping people will buy/stream it. It obviously doesn't work. But paying an animator and then copy/rewrite other people's scripts apparently does work.
It just feels weird that this is happening on RUclips, too. The point of infotainment has always been that it's just one guy (or a small team) with a passion. Someone who might've studied something a couple years, been amazed at how interesting the subject is and then equally amazed at how un-pedagogical a lot of university studies really are, and thought "I could do that better". Not all of these people can, but often the ones that really do have met incredible success, often accruing more views than multi-billion media conglomerates on a given topic. It's a passionate, democratic and organic thing.
It would be sad if this sort of "astro-turfing" became even more frequent. On one hand it's literally just capitalism - paying other people to do work, selling the product and keeping the returns (if it's successful). If you can decrease the cost of any step, even better. But what's cheaper than cheap? Free! Chinese products have been so cheap not just because of low wages in factories.. It's also because you usually can't cut the cost of engineering and designing products without loosing quality... But if you just straight up copy stuff, you can.
RUclips needs a Great Reset fr
@@grieferoncamera4600 i'm for any kind of chaos rn
Im sure you’re right but how do you know for sure?
I recall a history channel with a good sized following who turned out to be copying and pasting biographies directly from Wikipedia.
Who?
I recall a mediocre alternate history channel with a good sized following who turned out to be a supporter of eugenics.
@@unit-0123 yeah I wonder who that could be, I remember they did a good video on German Texas but most of their videos are pretty mid
@@childeryeeter4202 He went by the name People Profiles.
I love this kabal of micro RUclipsrs promoting each other's work and criticizing the frauds. Great video!
This is a nice video, but I do think the umbrella for critique should be larger if OBF is being used as an example. If you read a book by an academic and base a video on it, that should be seen as unoriginal of a process of creation as making a video based on another. I do that, Wendover Productions does that, Real Life Lore does that - a lot of RUclipsrs get away with the idea that they’re original, when all they really do is convert the medium of a bunch of already existing stories and articles. OBF gets dogpiled a lot, and obviously there is a difference between word for word quotation and taking footage, but I think his biggest mistake was to take information from already existing videos on the platform when RUclipsrs normally do the same exact same thing but then with information coming from a different medium, which makes it more difficult to identify. Maybe I'm too cynical. I don't think what OBF has done isn't bad, I just don't think that many RUclipsrs (myself very much included) are much better.
On occasion i've seen videos from e.g. Vox and thought "Hey they stole this idea from OBF" while in fact it was the other way around. I simply saw the OBF video earlier and that for me became 'the original'. That is obviously something that does not happen when a creator reads an academic paper and then bases a video on it, nobody will think the paper was plagiarizing the video. So in the end i think the ambiguity is the most problematic part, not so much the fact that someone uses external sources for their work, which should be par for the course as long as used sources are listed.
If you're doing a video off a book with no other sources to support their research I can see how that could be problematic. But, the video would still have original presentation because of that medium switch. As a creator you can choose to highlight various aspects of the book and bring them to life with video, animation, demonstrations, etc. Just how a screenwriter adapts a book to a film.
With facts it's hard to have original subject matter because facts are facts, and I think that's a part of what Jason Slaughter was getting at. But, you can be original with presentation. And when you take someone's presentation, whether it be their script or footage (both are just as bad) you are plagiarizing.
If you are inspired by a non-fiction book and want to write your own book about the same subject you should NOT use that book as your source material, unless you are writing a response to that book. You should look to the sources your inspiration used, and try to find the sources they used, etc. This is to prevent lazy research, and results in more original ideas and interpretations.
But, if you switch mediums, say from a book to a song, even if the book and song are about the same thing you still need to write instrumentals and come up with lyrics because reading a book is usually not very musical.
There is work and original thought that has to be done to adapt things from one medium to another. And that's not what obf does.
I'm confused. It is quite easy not to plagiarize someone, no matter the medium. Just use your own words and credit the original author. If students can avoid it, so can RUclipsrs.
Using and citing sources is quite a different thing from copying a video’s script word-for-word.
New video pls pls pls
The fact I’ve had copyright strikes because a radio was on in the background and stuff like this is allowed is completely absurd
The difference is in the malignancy of the rights holder. That makes music an utter minefield, for how savagely the copyright is enforced by the respective companies.
Also: the system always works in favor of the people with the big monies, because of course it does. After all, they're exactly the people who set it up that way.
Also it's hard to argue the copyright when it's about factual things when it's not word for word, also an idea isn't subject to copyright only a whole work is. Using someone elses music is therefore much clearer to argue than "this guy maybe took too much inspiration from my video".
*Can actually confirm this:* I actually was tricked into clicking on one of OBF videos thinking it was Vox, that has never happened before even with very "inspired" creators, so for once I agree that there is a problem of plagiarism.
I'm just sitting back, waiting for OBF's plagiarized version of this video to come out next month.
I am so happy to have been a part of making this video and helping to have brought it to life. As creators - especially creators who are creating educational content and/or come from journalistic backgrounds - what would it say of us if we didn't feel comfortable calling out plagiarism and holding each other accountable? Really love how this look came out!
It would say that you care more about spreading information and educating the public than losing views on a video.
You should look into Real Life Lore. He is one of the biggest education channels out there and is plagiarized a small channel called politics with paint. His video named 'China's Insane Plan to Dig a Canal Across the Balkans' is copied a lot from politics with paint video 'China’s $17 billion plan for a Canal across Europe'. Even word for word in many places.
One major problem that I've found when watching the more educational side of RUclips is the utter lack of providing sources used and a bibliography in their description. Some channels however do this on some of their vids eg King's and Generals and the newest entry in their Alexander series. One small Channel that has done this on all his videos is Deuratus (animated history) which should be the baseline.
Two other channels that I highly recommend are Real Time History and The Great War channels, which cite their sources and focus mostly on 19th-early 20th century history.
My presentations in mid school had more sources given 😂
A lot of the big channels are bias and are seeking to push something on their sides political agenda. A shame that YT is all about fighting disinformation but not when these big channels provide vague or dubious sources and present them as fact
I'll admit. When I saw OBF's thumbnail with the Untouchable America, I thought he learned his lesson and finally made something original, so I watched it. I never knew this channel made it earlier.
That's the thing with RUclips... it keeps recommending me OBF's copied videos, instead of the originals.
Fantastic video, well done. I had always felt something off watching OBF, something uncanny. I had thought it was just a lack of coherency in his criticism and capability to truly distill the arguments surrounding a topic into a single, succinct opinion, but perhaps these are all results of not making something truly original which you're passionate about.
Having a scientific background does train you to notice quality criticism and a genuine love for finding what's true, and I can tell you guys are doing an amazing job. Well done, I'm definitely going to be watching your other videos and judging by the quality of this one, I can't imagine this not having massive growth potential in the future :)
Problematically, RUclips does not have an option for viewers to use to report on plagiarism. They've got all these report options for hate, violence, spams and scams but no option for plagiarism reporting.
so many times I watch an OBF video or the video he ripped off and I sit there thinking to myself "I feel like I have seen this whole video before" and can even start quoting it and will turn it off, only to later realize I had not seen that video yet, just the other video thats nearly the same
This has ALWAYS been a problem. I remember when MatPat's Pasta Sauce video was nearly word-for-word a copy of Jim Sterling's video and, in fact, he had a habit of "borrowing" stuff from all his friends at the Escapist when the website was still a thing. Nobody noticed because RUclips was a separate site.
you've handled this with so much grace. wow.
i just subbed bc of that.
We're stoked to have you here as a subscriber :)
This is a good video, but I am going to kind of agree with @Hoog 's comment though. There is absolutely no doubt OBF is a proven plagiariser, and copying word-for-word is definitely not okay. That being said though, no one should be able to "claim" topics.
Like, Vox's video of the America designed video was 5 years old (I think). OBF doing a video on this topic isn't a problem, especially if theres new things to add. Him ripping off other creators though....not defendable. But I also think doing a video someone else has done isn't plagiarism (obviously not copying and adding stuff though). I remember seeing this original drama go down on Twitter with Neo vs OBF. All completely true, but you can see in the comments that they were talking about "Asking permission" to do topics, which is ridiculous. Like, RealLifeLore did a video on the Kuril Islands within a month after OBF, absolutely no one is dogpiling on him, and no one should be..
Because really, I can also say that your video that you believe OBF copied on America not being able to defend itself, you copied as well, from The Infographics Show's version on May 2020. There's no real proof you didn't. You see what I mean? The accusations are a slippery slope.
@Hoog is right, his biggest mistake was taking from other RUclipsrs, but to be honest, we're not all completely original in our ideas. We all take inspiration and we're all incentivized by RUclips towards certain topics. "America untouchable" isn't plagiarism, no one should be able to claim videos. I have a backlog of videos I want to create that spans 3 months at least, I'm uploading them regardless if someone covers it before then. I think this is just walking the line. But, OBF definitely has plagiarized and should be held responsible, completely agree on that form of criticism.
P.S: Love your voiceover way more than his personally lol
This type of videos where copyright and plagiarism issues on the RUclips platform are being confronted are incredibly important for the community
Ah, I thought that this was going into a different direction. Not content-wise, but style-wise. A lot of education channels have the same exact style. Some stock images/animations plus an explanation. They often even copy the way of talking from each other.
But there are still a few channels that are unique. Tom Scott goes to the different places and lets us hear the voices of the people who work there and are passionate about it, and always manages to cast that into a story that makes it engaging to watch. Smarter Every Day does a similar thing, but adds hands-on experiments to it that really capture you. Steve Mould does the same, but in a different, unique way - I can't quite put my finger on it. Then there's Practical Engineering, a guy who knows about the stuff inside out, and shares his enthusiasm with us in hands-on experiments. The -phile channels, for example numberphile, just consist of people very enthusiastically talking about their passion, including professors of that field. And The Science Asylum, who manages to break down theoretical physics concepts in very engaging ways, by predicting every thought that we may think along the way of the script. And of course kurzgesagt, who work out their scripts together with scientists and never fail to adapt a hard topic to something that laymans can digest, and learn more if they like. Veritasium - well, after some controversies, I wanted to stop watching him. I haven't for quite some time. But then he released a high-quality video again, explaining a maths concept very well. I'm still torn between two points.
I also consume the one or other slideshow-video, because for people like me, there's never enough sciency stuff out there. Since the beforementioned channels prefer quality over quantity, there's often a lot of time in between videos. But if there's a new video out, I know what I have to see first.
Hol’ up you guys only have 8k subs that’s ridiculous, the quality of the video, the dialogue and the constructive criticism was amazing, 100% subbed looking forward to more videos 💪🏼
This is the endless problem. It's just easier and cheaper to collect other people's content and slap a new name on it. It's low effort, with lots of reward. The platform doesn't stop it, it just runs more ads on the content, and all the content creators are told to pound sand. People must sue the perpetrators on a reliable basis, or this will remain the status quo.
Me, watching an original video: Wow, they really did their research! This is great
Me watching OBF: *Déjà vu, I've just been in this place before*
I'm glad he's being exposed. Him and Kento Bento have no right to spread CIA measures on how to get rid of us. We have every right to exist
I remember his videos popping up in my feed all the time some time ago, I would watch most of it and became pretty engaged in the channel. One day he posted a community post saying they have been working really hard on some video topic blah blah and it's coming out tomorrow. The video came out, I watched it and it was absolute dogshit. Very basic research, no personal take or anything new to add, I noticed it and a lot of comments did too. It seems like the person behind that channel is unable to actually create a engaging and informative video on his own, so the fact that most if his other videos were plagiarized makes a lot of sense.
This is probably why it seems the ones on US public transportation, and urban design seem so tiring it seems like you're seeing basically the same videos 10x
Just found your channel through this video which btw I am really happy about... me coming from Germany specifically being heavily invested in the German speaking (RUclips) market, I have not seen yet a similar thing happening. Even though there are a couple of channels who could be copied quite „easily“ like Simplicisimus, Kurzgesagt, MrWissen2go...
But it is good to know about this, also to prevent it from happening here as well.
There is the german channel "Made my Day" although they mostly steal from english channels. Simplicisimus actually made a video exposing them!
One issue I have with “educational channels” and what propagates these problems… You guys all read the same book, think it’s 100% truth and state it as fact in your videos. Many creators (literally) just make a picture book of some trending book… They provide no counter argument or other common theories discussing the topic. The actual research that goes into the videos is sparse and is surface level at best. Also the hubris of some creators to think they can cover “Why The Vietnam War Was a Mistake” to “The solution to the microchip supply chain problem” all within a two week window is silly. But hey if you make nice animations and source a trending book we all good. It’s a modern form of intellectual inbreeding we saw when few universities were around.
Yes! Thanks for saying this. That annoys me too! Also the amount of pop-history/pop-science books these channels cite as if they're fact is really annoying. The amount of times i've seen "why nations fail" referenced by these creators drives me up the wall.
I think this comment should be a lot higher. The question all RUclipsrs have to ask themselves is, "is there actually a single person that is qualified to be listened to by hundreds of thousands of people every two or three weeks? Is it possible for that person to have something truly interesting and of expertise to say?" More often than not, the answer is no. I think the smartest people in the world wouldn't even admit that they do. But educational channels do this all the time, and they do it on really wide ranging geopolitics topics, which is just mega cringe. What we should do, is blatantly accept our position as entertainers - not educators. Ideally there's a situation that can eventually develop where there are even more channels that pop off that exclusively fact check and rip apart channels like my own and show people how superficial and limited our understanding is to a wide public. We're not educators, we're infotainers.
Bro, like 90% of geopolitical/international econ videos are based on Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson lol. The book isn't bad but big "theories" about the world should be taken with a grain of salt.
@@hoogyoutube Having watched your videos, it comes as no surprise to hear you say this. This is the type of critical mindset I've been missing a lot in this RUclips sphere lately. Thank you for injecting some nuance into all of this, and keep doing what you're doing
I find this thread fascinating.
You are all essentially agreeing that no one channel can provide all the answers in one video.
The question I ask is why you would expect that in the first place?
Not even 1 encyclopedia can provide all the answers of any one topic so why should you expect same from a RUclips channel not professing to be a documentary?
Is that not contrary to the very notion you claim to be against?
Do you not have different channels with different perspectives you can use?
You know there are other channels with videos that are hours long that go into far greater depth so why rag on a channel whose set up is to be a specific length to generate specific content?
If it's not for you, continue your research elsewhere.
This is specifically about plagiarism 😒
8:47
"Pooping is a pleasure"
"Nobody escapes from pooping"
That was random
I'd say Pewdiepie, Dunkey, Filthy Frank, Angry Video Game Nerd, etc. have all somewhat touched/dealt with the topic before. In a sense, it is alot like the time the Fine Bro's tried to copyright React videos. I think what we've seen is that there is room for flavor (different perspectives, personalities, etc. while tackling the same/similar subjects) but most of us seem to have a problem when it's practically verbatim, or I think better put as you described, that you get this weird feeling of deja vu. It's not new info, has the same/similar editing/pacing/style of humor, and that's quite off-putting and paints the copycat as quite the charlatan.
Glad that Not Just Bikes also sort of pointed out the importance of not just having your creations protected from plagiarism for awhile, but also the importance of freedom to create. Since on the one hand I like that RUclips is giving you tools to combat blatant plagiarism but on the other hand I was just getting this sinking feeling because the distinction between being inspired by and plagiarism is a very important one but as you pointed out it isn’t always directly obvious to a machine what is or isn’t plagiarised, which I mentally tack on with ‘not always obvious what is plagiarised vs inspired by, particularly when done by a machine.’
So… the grey area between the two and the legality around it is highly important to keep an eye on in my mind. Weeding out plagiarism is important yes but being able to be inspired by something is also important. Somehow RUclips needs to find a balance without going too far either way.
This isn’t unique to education youtube. I would put it that isn’t just a one man team, it could be a content farm and the guy just readying scripts. There’s many similar channels that are stealing content.
As a casual fan of Not Just Bikes, it was so jarring the first time Jason was on screen. I didn’t know how to react hearing the usual disembodied voice but also seeing the face that produces it
BioArk: Australia’s Invasive Species Problem
OBF: How Invasive Species Are Taking Over Australia
3 weeks ago, same thumbnail
I have just begun discovering your videos and I am very very grateful that you along with many others are helping move the trend of adding citations because it really helps ensure confidence in what can be trusted and not. It's a change that has needed to come for a while and I am glad you are going through all the effort even if it's not always "in-film citing" for lack of a better phrase.
You just shed light on why RUclips kept recommending OBF to me when I kept thinking "Nah I've seen this video already." hella de j'a vu.
Obliatory Not a Laywer, and from Germany.
Three thoughts on that:
1. It was techniclly illegal to even make a meme using someone elses work a basis / background until very recently (2021). As I understand this today, a law was amended to allow "caricature, parody and pastiches". 1.b.)Also, platforms such as YT are now responsable to (somehow) get all the copyrights for any content you upload.
2. Remaking videos like this feels very similar to me, as making a cover version of a song. Making a coversong is still (techniclly, as far as i undestand) illegal, if one does not have the express permission of the original author (maybe 1.b. applies, idk).
3. I have also noticed that topics, that I have seen on english YT Channels, are being picked up by german YourTubers a few weeks later, but look and feel very different.
Cover songs are copyright free
I watch OBF more than any other channels even if they have similar topics because the narrator is so pleasing to the ear.
This video also highlights a future point where all logical ways to express a fact is used, making all recent works plagiarism of older works. Under the legal system, plagiarism is identified in two factors. Similarity and access to the older work (from the newest author in question). back in the day, for knowledge there was only books in the public library allowing for different people to come up with the same idea, both getting credit since they didn't meet each other. Since the internet became a thing, all info is accessible to everyone meaning you don't even need to come across it to have access to it. Along with a much larger databased on the same topic
At last!!! Someone noticed this weird phenomenon... I've been an avid consumer of educational videos for a long time but finding a wide variety or looking a topic from a specific perspective becomes more difficult... maybe it's just human nature...No one would care unless someone is a victim...all we can do is not to support this OBF's...so creators like
him be given acknowledgement and credit for all his time and effort put to every content he made...
Sending my gratitude to all hardworking educational content creators from Philippines.
hah yeah that daja vu and wait hadn't i already seen that thumbnail and title feeling was a headscratcher, good dive on it
Great video
I hate people that steal ideas, demotivate the original content makers and we will have nothing left. Parasites are the worst, I guess it too easy to trick people on who did what sadly.
I admire your ability to keep emotions aside and make the video entirely professional. Personally I would just be more hateful. This is truly an example for how many situations in life should be tackled.
Seems like you have anger issues, honestly it's just entertainment on the Internet. Nothing to get too mad about.
Your Safety From Plagiarism Matters 🙂. But seriously, thanks for bringing so much attention to this. So much effort goes into content that is genuinely unique, it's incredibly disappointing, especially with the amount of technology at their disposal, that RUclips isn't doing more to catch or prevent such blatant plagiarism.
Sure, there's "linear thinking", but a lot of it is so egregious that you'd think it would have its own place in the Content ID system or similar, to be matched and brought to a creator's attention automatically.
I'd say it's a consequence of "educational" RUclips being really 99.9% just fun facts videos made by people who's expertise is presenting facts, not actually something in any academic field, no one is expected to actually know what they're talking about, nor having anything interesting to add to the topic, or have credible sources, so the most dishonest of people will just copy others work shamelessly
Interesting video, thanks for sharing! Unfortunately RUclips is still the 'wild west' in many regards.
Plagiarism is more dire in the Chinese community. Because RUclips is not available there, there are several video streaming sites (bilibili, youku, tudou, to name a few) and it's common to see people stealing content from one to another.
Probably why I just stick to RUclips even if it's Chinese content 🤷🏻♂️
Anything worth copying over there?
Are you implying monopoly is better?
@@bltzcstrnx That is a different matter, he is implying people lazily plagiate content/idea and get away with it by simply cross posting on different platform
@@bussardramjet5190 I understand, but that's bound to happen sadly. Even this is happening between studios in Hollywood. There's a video about it on RUclips.
If they leave the original creator's name in place then it might be copyright infringement but it's not plagiarism.
1) That's why libraries with primary sources are extremely valuable. I wonder if librarians curriculum now include research on RUclips videos.
2) Plagiarism is part of the quality issues on YT. I like Ann Reardon's debunking videos.
If you're subbed to OBF and not Faultline, you ought consider giving that sub to Faultline.
I see obf commented. I hope he is genuine. I have watched his videos for years and unfortunately he makes it very easy to see different kind of educational videos in one place. I follow all of these other channels too but it becomes hard to follow. I hope he improves in the future and continues to make varied content.
I had something like this happen to me recently. I had a fan theory I made for House of the Dragon get very popular, and it went everywhere in our fandom very quickly. Much like the problem with OBF, there's a lot more aggregators of content then there are people who come up with new ideas, and the aggregators are way more popular because they act like filters for their audience. There's no dud videos, because they're only taking the already very popular ideas. And there were a lot of copies of my video made, most at least gave me credit and shout outs before just recreating it out of professional courtesy. But a lot more that just remade it without attribution at all, hoping that I wouldn't notice or not caring if I did. And that sucks, I didn't make my video to make a bunch of aggregators money and I really have very few tools to dissuade them from doing it as a smaller creator. If I wanted to have much larger channels make my video, I could've sold them script or the idea which I didn't. On the other side though, the ones I didn't mind are those that took the idea and then built on it. Put their own twist on it, expanded on it, or just used it as a starting point for something else. That stuff I love, because it's a community and it's really fun to see others take an idea and do their own thing. So there's a fine balance there, but for channels like OBF and those in my own niche, it really sucks that we're given next to no tools by youtube to protect ourselves on our own platform outside of public shaming campaigns whereas anyone with a pulse can just go wild on fraudluent copyright claims to no downside.
It would be nice to see how you organize your writing for your script. Having your script in that graph-like fashion with the correct sources to the right of it is pretty ingenious!
I think a big point that gets missed, and this video I don't think really touches on it enough, is that just taking the overall structures, using same arguments, having the same thesis, is still plagiarism.
Of course, it goes without saying the line can get blurry.. The example of "is this plagiarism" is iffy certainly... It's the same initial argument, but geography is a very obvious argument to make....
In China we called this “washing scripts.” Usually, it is about having the exact same contents with few words changed, but the speaker and the video editing style are different. This not only happens to educational videos. It’s even more common and severe for cross-platforms plagiarism. For example like someone plagiarized a video content on RUclips and made a video on Tik Tok. Also some influencer agencies would give the same script for different people but they would speak and talk differently because their accounts usually have different fan compositions.
hey i just wanted to ask this to someone from china, is there a china's version of youtube?!
I ask this because I don't see to many high subbed Chinese channels here and had chinese people been on youtube without any barrier at all we would have had that to some extent at least.
@@friendlyvimana Hi! Yes in some ways. There is a Chinese version of RUclips, called Bilibili, which is a platform similar to RUclips and Niconico from Japan. If a RUclips video is popular/meaningful and not politically sensitive, some people would translate them (with the original content creator/RUclipsr's permission) and upload it on bilibili. People do have barriers of getting onto RUclips. They would need a VPN to get onto RUclips. However, people are restricted using VPN there (if the political situation is less tensed, there would be less control of VPN, and vice versa). I live in both China & the States for a long time so I watch videos from both sides.
8:46 "cagar es un placer, de cagar nadie se escapa" means "shitting is a pleasure, nobody escapes from shitting", which as random as that is, is quite fitting for this vid because all OBF does is shits on other RUclipsrs by stealing their work. On top of making the simplest mistakes that he could've easily double checked beforehand. In a vid about Japan's terrible geography, he was talking about Japan's infrastructure...while showing very obvious double-decker trams from Hong Kong. As if he wishes Hong Kong was still occupied by the Japanese.
Yes.. thank you for talking about this topic..
A channel called Economics Explained (2 million subs) ripped off a 6500-word article from Bloomberg. It was word for word Verbatim for 6500 words. The author would have spent 6 months researching that article. The dude spends two days animating a video with photography stills. 1.3 million views.
"Hey can I copy your homework?"
"Yeah, just change it up a bit so it doesn't look obvious you copied."
Hey Faultline,
I understand your concern and agree with most of what you have said but similar packaging does not mean plagiarism, I have never done that & making these videos is by no means easy if done in good faith.
I have been reading books since I was a kid (which is where most of the 'Original' RUclipsrs get the content from) learning animations for two years now. Between research, writing, Voiceover, graphic design, animations, sound design & thumbnails, it takes me 30 to 40 days to make a 5-minute video.
RUclipsrs I love & have been watching for the better part of a decade now.. still trend jack all the time, it's just the nature of the platform. However, I do think there a very few creators that are truly Original like Polymatter, Lemmino, or Hoog and I am just a dude with a laptop trying to learn how to tell stories.
There is no Team or a content farm, It's just me. PS: Sorry if I sound like a Microsoft A.I, I can assure you I am very much a person with feelings.
Hey there, for the most part you're a *copycat* until proven otherwise.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena
This is a great video and I really like that you've fueled this conversation to the point where OBF themselves have replied. Great work!
I'd like to add, though, that at 8:45 you had an accidentally hilarious moment because of the language barrier lmao. The tiktok that says "cagar es un placer. De cagar nadie se escapa" means "taking a dump is a pleasure. Nobody escapes from taking a dump" 😂💩
It's even funnier considering how much the tiktok contrasts with the serious conversation in the video lol
But yeah! Great video!
I remember being weirdly irked by OBF and unsubscribing and clicking "don't recommend videos from this channel" without knowing why it made me feel weird. Now I know lol
I can't help but notice Fault Line uses the white text on orange background icon like Not Just Bikes 🤨 🤣
8:47 Spanish captions in the tiktok video say "Cagar es un placer, de cagar nadie se escapa", which literally translates to "shitting is a pleasure, nobody escapes from shitting" lol it's funny that this random video made it into the final cut of a serious topic. Great video by the way, it's very sober and well-informed and I'm specially glad that people are still talking about plagiarism and still citing OBF, every time I see any of his videos in my feed something feels wrong immediately, I'm subscribing to this channel right away.
Lol omg thank you for this translation.
Look up a video named "Everything is a remix remastered".
I think that you'll enjoy it, it's about this exact topic.
Because honestly *everything* is a copy of some kind.
Including all of our technology.
i believe oliver probably had a vision to do educational, explainer-style videos and threw himself into it because he was driven by the idea of content creation. that type of individuality is what makes youtube magical, in my opinion.
but the dude exploded exponentially and couldn't keep up. a lot of youtubers refine their craft for years before seeing the demand follow. in my opinion that's what went wrong for OBF and i hope he will professionalise his work further in the future
I think you are overly generous.
Apeing someone else's style is indeed cheap flattery but copying it word for word is beyond the pale
Then proffering the same weak excuses every time you are called out is actually fraudulent.
He is clearly taking advantage of another's work with no credit.
A student in my class was thrown out of university in our final year for plagiarism. Oliver is a bad faith actor.
Of course RUclips won't do the same because MONEY but there should be some sanctions.
I knew there was something fishy about obf but I never really bothered to question it. Thanks for enlightening people will now follow you from now on instead of obf.
I thought there was something weird about OBF. I'd watch something from Real Engineering, Vox, or Wendover and then a few days later see it on OBF. Of course I'd only notice this when I realized I'd already heard the info from somewhere else and check the channel name and my RUclips history.
Vox? After they tried to destroy smaller channels for their ego and to get rid of competition?
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 Didn't hear about that. Mainly watch them for random news stories, and for a left leaning perspective for contentious subjects in order to get a look from both sides. And yeah, there are better sources, but every once in a while vox gives a good argument.
@@mrniceface Look up the whole debacle with Carlos Maza. As usual, follow the money, as this is the most rational explanation why their celebrity was so fuming after some alleged slight.
Well, before that I was watching them, though they were clearly a mixed bag with most of reasonable quality mixed up with disastrous propaganda.
"look from both sides" There are no "both sides". There are multitude of potential sides and woke big business is maybe not the craziest on its own, though it's so prevalent, then you are most likely to waste your time on watching it as regardless whether you want it or not, you are going to know their talking points.
Lol, I thought that something is slightly off there. Now I know why . Good video
hahaha this is why I watched 2-3 of the videos then started to notice it was just a "clone" channel to others doing the same subject and never subscribed. How the channel hasn't been removed at this point (and LOL at the response they gave saying "I made mistakes") is just a showing of how plagiarism is becoming accepted by both people and platforms.
I've been up in the air about this channel for awhile. The level of tact used was amazing 👏 you took the viewer from what could have been a flogging to a thumbs 👍 up & even shot him some compliments. You earned this sub .. cheers
Great video. I think the best thing about these types of videos is that I am seeing many other creators that I did not realize OBF copied. I don’t get how you guys have such a large team and are able to support yourselves just from RUclips since it’s a new channel and the production quality is amazing. Wish you guys the best of luck and you got yourselves another subscriber.
The worst part is they really thought they could get away with plagiarism of your videos because your channel is so much smaller than theirs. They really thought no one would pay attention enough to notice
I found OBF not too long ago and immediately subscribed because I really liked their content.
Now I feel bad because I feel like I've wronged the original creators of all the videos they plagiarised.
Thank you for highlighting this.
Hopefully they keep to their word on being better. This is sad.
We have the issue that some people take our content and reupload it under their own name on their channel/Facebook/Tiktok. One even changed the voiceover and music to the same script, but someone else's voice. We usually ask them to take it down.
Yeah no, I've just read OBF's apology that is pinned here in the comments and it's not ok. Sure the guy is well spoken, but you know why is he taking this attitude now? Because at this point it doesn't matter anymore. He is not actually sorry, he just knows that he is at a point where he has enough resources to hire other people to now do the work for him. Imagine that I steal shops all around town for 3 years straight, and with that money I finally open my own shop, when people call me out I just say "Sorry it won't happen again", of course it won't happen again because with the stolen resources now you have opened a legitimate shop and don't care anymore about stealing other shops. An apology would have carried weight when it was still an small channel, now it's just damage control since you have already 'taken' all that you need.
That is really sad. Its just unfair for people that he copy. Other do the hardwork and he reap benefit with little to no effort
Should we demand obf to remove all his videos that are straight copy?
@@gurbanguliberdimuhamedov4228 I don't know but at least he should be called out by many people and have his reputation take a big hit. As you said it's not fair to legitimate content creators.
This is all so nice and the way these things should go. Like how can you hear this and not try to listen your point
I got recommended OBFs stuff and was convinced I'd seen most of what they posted before. I'm glad I'm not just imagining it.
😏 OBF next video :
Why All Educational Videos Are the Same
This is just the tip of the iceberg.. it's amazing to see how many people straight up copy this into another language and pass it off as their own. But those are hard to find because you have to search for them manually (hard if you don't speak the language) and don't get spoonfed to you by the algorithm
Feels a bit like copyright laws are too strict and loose at the same time…
Some stuff that you showed us from OBF would qualify as plagiarism to me. But having keeping a copyright for 70+ years (depending on the type of media and country) is way too long in my opinion.
If I could remake the law I would be more strict on what qualifies as plagiarism but limit any ownership to something like 15-20 years at most.
I don't know of any laws that deal with or define plagiarism at all. Afaik it's only strictly defined in academia. The law deals with copyright, but that's not the same thing at all. I see copyright as about infringing the rights (legally granted monopoly on copying) of the original creator, but plagiarism is about being dishonest with the audience.
I can't wait for OBF's take on this subject.
I’ve noticed that content creators who I’d consider reputable will always mention similar videos and shout out the creators who made them. For example, Mina Le, Karolina Zebrowska, Bernadette Banner, Moderngurlz, Rachel Makesy, Micarah Tewers, etc. all make fashion and costume design related videos, and they’re all quick to make sure they mention if someone else has covered the same topic, established or otherwise. I’ve noticed this among lots of commentary channels as well, because they cover the same scandals and current events. I hope this catches on in the culture, as it’s a good way to show other creators that the video maker is acting in good faith, and as a viewer, it’s a good way to get more content about a topic I’m interested in.
commentary channels are always shouting each other out, especially the video essayists. its a (mostly) lovely space. however, even if they didnt, they arent as fact heavy as educational channels and most of them always have something new to add, as their opinions vary.