How reliant are we on video hosting sites such as Vimeo or YouTube?

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I stopped using youtube all together. The reason? From day one i have been using background music from smartsound. Bought and payed a small fortune in the past 10 years for about 100 cd's.
Very clearly it is stated at smartsound you can publish your music on youtube or whatever since the rights are payed.
But soon when i post a video with smartsound music, i get a reply from youtube (but vimeo too!) that my video is blocked due to the music rights! And youtube beeing youtube, there is no email adress where you can write to or any other way of communicate with them, i wrote a mail to the people of smartsound. The reply was both scaring as mindblowing! "Some of our artists who sold us their music rights, have sold these rights to other companys too. When your name or email isnt on THEIR list, they block you on youtube".
Smartsound provide's a standard email with wich you can protest to youtube. And yes i did that. Ofcourse no reply whatsoever and my video's are still blocked. A solution? I dont know.

do the people at vimeo not realize that their userbase is crying out for things to change? it is so user unfriendly now, but it used to be amazing for short films and showcasing portfolio work. i dont use it at all anymore

Did you credit the music sources IN your videos?

Music: Music Track Name by So-and-So, Used with permission
                                                               ( ^ probably optional — but you better have it!)

You should credit all your source materials as well, even if you are the creator of the source. Stockfootage, music, special effects, everything - just like a regular movie or television program.

Then, you should (actually: must) apply a Copyright to your video:

©2023 by Peppes (<your legal identity, business, or trade name>)

These simple steps absolve YouTube and Google of any copyright issues (since they ARE hosting the video and they are "on the hook") as you accept the entire burden on yourself and you will most likely be left alone (although they may not let you monetize your video...) It's the "professional" thing to do. You cannot get away with putting credit information in the Description — that doesn't count — credits have to be "burned in".

"We watch our videos in the cloud." Famous last words. When the owner of the account dies and taking the account login / pass with him all the goods disappear when the cloud storage bill goes unpaid. (True story.)

Not only copyrighted music but music played by a rancid band PLAYING copyright music. Happened to my client that had me post their 'Bugs N Brew' shoot video. The algorithm picked up a Beatles tune the band played and kiboshed their entire event video by blanking the audio containing protected tunes, taking the awards presentation narration along with it. "People Choice award goes to ________silence______." So go ahead, cloud that sucker on Vimeo or YT or whatever but you loose your right to complain if they kick you to the curb.
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And then there's this tale of video purchase woe...