47:54Think Media Podcast · Interview
What YouTube Actually Wants in 2026
YouTube's Creator Liaison explains at NAB Vegas what the algorithm actually rewards, what's changing in 2026, and what creators keep getting wrong.
May 22ndThe argument in one line.
YouTube AI enforcement in 2026 has made platform survival a legal and business discipline, and creators who treat their channel as a properly structured company are the only ones positioned to either protect it or sell it for eight figures.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A YouTube creator who relies entirely on AdSense and brand deals and has not yet built an email list or owned audience data.
- A creator who has used reaction content, stock footage, or AI-assisted animation without clearing rights or documenting human creative involvement.
- A creator making between five and fifty thousand dollars per month who is starting to think about what the channel could be worth in five to ten years.
- Anyone who has received a copyright strike or channel warning and wants to understand the actual appeal process.
- A creator building commentary or opinion content about public figures who wants to understand defamation exposure before it becomes a lawsuit.
SKIP IF…
- You are looking for a technical tutorial on YouTube growth tactics -- this is legal and business strategy, not audience-building how-to.
- You already work with a creator attorney and have clean IP, an LLC, and owned audience data sorted.
The full version, fast.
YouTube terminated 12.4 million channels in nine months of 2025, largely driven by AI enforcement that makes errors and provides no explanation. Creator attorney Tyler Chow maps the full threat: AI false positives, the practical end of fair use as a YouTube defense, IP trolls extorting reaction channels, and real defamation exposure for commentary creators. In the second half, the conversation pivots to opportunity: how private equity now values creator businesses on recurring revenue, clean IP chain of title, owned audience data, and reduced key-man risk -- and how the gap between a 35M and a 100M exit comes down to a two-year cleanup window most creators ignore.
Free for members
Chat with this breakdown — free.
Sign in and you get 23 free chat messages on us — ask for the hook, quote a framework, find the exact transcript moment, generate a markdown action plan. Bring your own key when you want unlimited.
Create a free account →Who's talking.
00:36hostSean Cannell
00:36guestTyler Chow
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 07:39
01 · Legal landscape 2026 -- AI enforcement wave
AI enforcement errors, 12.4M channel terminations, YouTube as private landlord, email list as survival insurance.
07:40 – 09:43
02 · YouTube Second Chances program
Narrow reinstatement eligibility, COVID-era policy reversals, Trump $2.245M settlement context.
09:43 – 29:47
03 · Fair use, copyright strikes, and lawsuits
Ethan Klein suing reaction creators, IP trolls, Coffeezilla/Logan Paul trial, Kevin O Leary $2.8M default judgment.
29:48 – 35:22
04 · AI demonetizing original content
Animation channels hit as AI slop, proving human creative involvement, YouTube black-box enforcement.
35:23 – 42:24
05 · How to sell your YouTube channel
5 PE evaluation criteria, CreatorArc 7-step framework, 100M exit case study.
42:25 – 50:52
06 · Learning from creator brands
MrBeast/Feastables model, Prime Hydration collapse, Mark Rober CrunchLabs subscriptions, neobanks.
50:53 – 1:07:15
07 · Creator economy opportunities 2026
Unilever 300K creator network, nano/micro influencer value, social media addiction lawsuits, educational content rising.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- YouTube terminated 12.4 million channels in the last nine months of 2025 -- most creators have no idea the scale of the purge happening around them.
- Fair use is not a defense on YouTube anymore -- YouTube stopped mediating IP disputes, so the channel damage happens before any court can rule in your favor.
- IP trolls buy clips from small creators and then extort large reaction channels with six-figure ransom demands backed by strike threats.
- The creator who won the landmark 2017 fair use case is now suing other reaction creators for $150,000 per violation.
- If your channel went down tomorrow and you could not reach your audience, you do not have a business -- email list ownership is the only real insurance.
- Private equity evaluates creator acquisitions on audience loyalty, recurring revenue, owned data, team depth, and key-man risk -- raw subscriber counts are nearly irrelevant.
- A channel valued at 30-35M eighteen months ago is now on track for a 100M exit after adding a tech app, recurring revenue, and clean IP documentation.
- MrBeast losing 80M on his media arm is not failure -- that spend is why Feastables sells at Target without his face on every transaction.
- Prime Hydration collapsed from 1.3B to 300M in revenue because product quality and trust eroded -- influence can launch a product but cannot sustain a bad one.
- Unilever works directly with 300,000 creators bypassing agencies, specifically targeting 10,000-50,000 subscriber channels for their closer audience relationships.
- A 6M verdict against Meta and Google for addictive algorithm design has opened the door to thousands of pending lawsuits -- the big tobacco moment for social platforms.
- 100,000 subscribers represents the top 0.1% of YouTubers and is sufficient to sustain a real creator business -- the million-subscriber benchmark is the wrong target.
- YouTube Second Chances is extremely narrow -- it covers COVID-era and election speech restrictions that no longer apply, not general wrongful terminations.
- If you appeal a copyright strike and the claimant does not file a lawsuit to defend it, the strike typically drops -- most claimants will not follow through to litigation.
- Reaction channels cannot be sold to private equity -- if exit value is a goal, reaction is the wrong format from day one.
Five things that decide if your channel is worth buying.
WHAT TO LEARN
Platform loyalty is not an asset -- owned audience data, recurring revenue, and clean IP are the only things that survive a termination or attract a buyer.
01Legal landscape 2026 -- AI enforcement wave
- AI enforcement on YouTube is making consequential errors, and the platform has no obligation to explain or reverse its decisions -- the absence of a process is the policy.
- An email list is not a growth tactic -- it is the only asset that survives a platform termination. If you cannot contact your audience without the platform, you are entirely at its mercy.
03Fair use, copyright strikes, and lawsuits
- Fair use stopped being a practical YouTube defense years ago. YouTube no longer mediates IP disputes, so the channel damage is done before any court ruling can help.
- IP trolls operate a specific playbook: acquire rights to small creators clips, then threaten large reaction channels with channel-killing strikes unless they pay five-figure settlements.
- Reaction channels are unacceptable to private equity buyers -- unclear IP ownership, no chain of title, and high litigation exposure make them unsellable as a business asset.
05How to sell your YouTube channel
- Private equity evaluates creator businesses on five criteria: audience loyalty not size, recurring revenue, owned data, team independence, and reduced reliance on one person face.
- A creator business generating revenue from a tech app, course, newsletter, and community can be worth three times what the YouTube channel alone would fetch -- the channel is the marketing arm, not the asset.
- Every piece of content a contractor creates for your channel should include work-for-hire language. Without it, the contractor may legally own what they made, creating a chain-of-title problem that can kill an acquisition.
07Creator economy opportunities 2026
- The 6M verdict against Meta for addictive algorithm design signals that the platform era of fast, dopamine-optimized content may be legally constrained within a few years.
- A 100,000-subscriber channel represents the top 0.1% of all YouTube channels and is a sufficient base to build a real business -- reaching that threshold and building recurring revenue beats chasing seven-figure subscriber counts.
Terms worth knowing.
- Key man risk
- The risk to a business value if one essential person leaves. In creator acquisitions, buyers discount deals where the entire channel depends on one face -- reducing this risk is central to any exit strategy.
- Chain of title
- The documented ownership trail for every piece of intellectual property in a business. Clean chain of title is required before any serious acquisition can close.
- IP troll
- An entity that acquires ownership of small creators content specifically to extort larger creators who used that footage, demanding settlement fees to avoid channel-killing strikes.
- Section 230
- A US law that historically shielded platforms from liability for user content by treating them as neutral distributors. Recent addiction lawsuits are challenging whether algorithmic amplification voids this protection.
- Work for hire
- A legal classification where work created by a contractor belongs to the hiring party. Without this language in contracts, independent contractors may retain ownership of content they made for a channel.
- E&O insurance
- Errors and Omissions insurance, covering a business against negligence claims. For creators, defamation coverage within an E&O policy protects against lawsuits from subjects of commentary content.
- Mutual indemnity
- A contract clause where both parties agree to cover each other legal costs if a third party sues. In brand sponsorship deals, this protects both the creator and the brand from each other potential liabilities.
- CreatorArc
- Tyler Chow M&A advisory firm that walks creators through a seven-stage lifecycle from first upload to exit, including revenue diversification, IP cleanup, and corporate restructuring.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
06:04
“You are a tenant on YouTube land. YouTube is the landlord, and they can kick you or evict you at any point.”
1:01:01
“You are the new studio heads. You just do not know that yet.”
06:57
“Data is the new oil. Private equity funds are coming out of the woodworks wanting to buy channels and creator-led businesses.”
Where the conversation goes.
00:00 – 09:43densePlatform enforcement and AI strikes
09:43 – 29:47denseCopyright, fair use, and defamation
29:48 – 35:22steadyAI content detection and demonetization
35:23 – 50:52denseCreator business exits and M&A
50:53 – 58:20steadyCreator brand lessons
58:20 – 1:07:15steadyMarket opportunities and algorithm future
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
00:00Well, so here's the thing that people have to realize. Being on YouTube is a privilege.
00:05It's not the government. They don't need to do anything they don't want to. You are a tenant on YouTube's land, and they can kick you or evict you at any point.
00:14YouTube just deleted over 4,700,000,000 views worth of AI slop videos. It's becoming clear YouTube is declaring war on deepfakes.
00:22I've actually stopped taking on channel terminations because I can't get the channels back. 12,400,000
00:29channels were terminated. What's happening? Why are channels being deleted and demonetized?
00:32This will be a lesson for all creators. Alright. We're back on the Think Media podcast with the creator's attorney, Tyler Chow.
00:41Hi, Sean. It's good to be here in person. Good to be here in person for this episode.
00:45We have so much to talk about. There's a lot of legal news. There's a lot of relevant news for creators.
00:49Last time we talked, though, you said one wrong move, and your whole channel could disappear overnight. Since then, have things gotten worse or better? I think they've gotten worse because
01:00YouTube and, you know, my focus is always YouTube because I I think if you wanna build a media company, you need to build on YouTube. But it this applies to all the platforms. I think all the platforms are using AI to detect violations or AI content, and AI, as we know, is not perfect.
01:17They make mistakes. So I'm seeing a lot of creators come to me losing their channels because of violations that aren't right, you know, are not it's it's not correct.
01:28And what kind of violations at least what are they being told? Well, we've seen in the news where AI is detecting AI made content, but it's not really AI made content.
01:38So that's an issue. We've talked about on YouTube how community violations, violations of the terms of service are really on an uptick.
01:50I think YouTube is doing major cleaning house right now. They're trying to get rid of kind of slop content.
01:58They want their audience to have a good experience when they come on YouTube. So they want to make sure that the quality of content is high so that you stay on the platform. Platform.
02:07That's That's the always the goal. And would that be closely linked with they want advertisers to also keep paying them? Sure.
02:13They want advertisers to have clean content, safe content, safe creators to put their con you know, run their ads through.
02:22What do you say to creators that
02:25are maybe curious about you could be within community guidelines even if your content is still more adult or has more cursing in it or things like that, you could still be okay? I mean, look. There's content that does curse, and and they do find, and there's a certain audience for that that loves it.
02:40But I know more and more creators who are, you know, maturing as a business. I I I know we're gonna dig into that.
02:48But a lot of creators who are treating their YouTube channel as a business, and they want to be brand safe.
02:56They wanna make sure brands will work with them. So they're cursing less. Yeah.
02:59And they're becoming
03:00a little more buttoned up and more adults in the room. Are you seeing that? I know.
03:05It makes sense. I mean, if you want to be brand safe, you make a conscious decision to either are you gonna die in the sword of, you know, more adult content or the sort of being broader appeal.
03:17And I suppose there's always a place because you could still get advertising on adult content. It's maybe the HBO side of YouTube that leans that way.
03:27Whereas if your broadest appeal possible, you know, family friendly or just, yeah, brand safe, as you said, you'd have the most financial opportunity, I would imagine. And your CPMs might be higher too.
03:38Yeah. That's fascinating. So going a little bit deeper into things are worse right now, there does seem to be a ton of buzz over deleted channels, demonetized channels.
03:4812,400,000 channels were terminated in the last nine months of 2025 alone.
03:54Mhmm. What's happening? Why are channels being deleted and demonetized?
03:58Again, I think this is YouTube wanting to just take away the headaches because the content that's out there that's, let's say, not safe or they're scammy or they potentially might trick the audiences.
04:16And and I'm thinking about, you know, gambling or lot of sweepstakes and giveaways.
04:22A lot of channels are trying to buy, you know, views and and subscribers by by giving away things. And I think YouTube is really doing away with those because the more that happens, the more complaints they get.
04:35And the more complaints they get, it's like more man hour that YouTube has to put into policing these channels. So why not just get rid of them and allow healthy channel that really is is growing the platform to to thrive and to stay?
04:53Yeah. That that's really my thought.
04:56So there's a story of an automotive creator named Chase Carr who actually the body of YouTube ruled his termination as night not rightful.
05:06So his channel was terminated, but yet YouTube was still refusing to comply four months later. It seems to be that they're that YouTube is not subject to normal legal accountability the way that most entities are.
05:21Meaning, YouTube did not honor this ruling. Without looking at the details, what's your take on that? These are people trying to appeal
05:27their channel being wrongfully terminated. Well, so here's the thing that people have to realize. Being on YouTube is a privilege.
05:35YouTube is a privately owned company. It's not the government.
05:40They don't need to do anything they don't want to. YouTube gets to decide the rules. If they decide these types of channels are better for our platform, then we're gonna grow those.
05:49If they decide these types of channels pull our platform down, we're going to terminate them or or not let them come back. And I think this is the point I really want to drive across to every creator out there. You are a tenant on YouTube's land.
06:06Mhmm. YouTube is the landlord, and they can kick you or evict you at any point. This is why I always talk about you have to build on your own land.
06:13You have to have your email list. You have to know who your audience is away from the platforms. And that's really been a big focus for me in the last year since our last conversation even.
06:23So go a little bit deeper on that. What what are the practical steps that every creator listening should be doing? Building an email list, or is there other options?
06:31I think number one is the email list. If you take away anything from this conversation, it's do you know who's in your audience?
06:38If your YouTube channel were to go down tomorrow, would you know how to access your audience?
06:47Most creators say no. Mhmm. And that's a problem because YouTube and Meta and TikTok don't give you access to that data.
06:56And I would say data is the new oil. Private equity fund is coming out of the woodworks wanting to buy channels and creator led businesses.
07:05And the number one thing that they look at is your data and your audience numbers. Do you actually have the emails, phone numbers?
07:12Do you have an ability to reach those audience members to sell something to them? Mhmm. And so I would say, give a free p PDF.
07:20Give something of value to your audience, and and you need to grab those emails for your newsletter, for your community. And those are kind of other revenue streams that I really help creators build out beyond AdSense and brand deals.
07:33In just a moment, I wanna unpack that conversation a little bit more. But on this idea of some of the legal stuff that's been happening on YouTube,
07:39uh, I know that this is maybe more fringe examples, but I'm sure listeners have not heard about this thing from YouTube called Second Chances.
07:48Mhmm. It's a program for terminated creators that I think happened perhaps during the pandemic.
07:55One of the biggest ones was there's actually a settlement with Donald Trump. $2.24500000 dollars Mhmm.
08:04YouTube settled for Trump's $20.21 account suspension lawsuit.
08:11So he not only then would get that money, but obviously get reinstated. Mhmm. I mean, maybe it's a simple take on what's happening there.
08:20They had no emission of wrongdoing and no policy change, um, but it might seem that maybe what would be, uh, perhaps overreach during the pandemic is now being pulled back in.
08:31Give us some context for what do you think is happening. So, yes, the second chance program is exciting
08:37from the surface. So many creators, so they say, couldn't get a chance to get their channel back. And I but but it's very narrow on the definition of who are the creators who can get their channels back.
08:50I think during the pandemic, there were certain rules that YouTube put into place as to there are certain things you can't say about about COVID or about treatments or you name it. Right? The kind of taboo things, or you can't give false medical advice.
09:06And YouTube has decided since it no longer applies that they're going to give those creators a second chance to get their channels back. I believe the rule is they have to start at zero again and it's a very narrow definition of who gets their channels back.
09:24There are, I think, some who might have talked about the election or about the news in certain ways, and those restrictions are no longer applicable. So YouTube is saying those channels
09:36who maybe talked about the election can get their, um, a second chance to get their channels back. Got you. So I wanna talk a little bit about fair use, copyright strikes, and some of the lawsuits.
09:46This is always an evolving, um, kind of topic. One, fair use is a massive opportunity because there's react channels that are building huge businesses, movie review channels, or people commentating, making video essays using fair use in a lot of creative ways.
10:06But you told us last time that fair use is not a real protection on YouTube. That's right. And now the creator who literally won the landmark fair use case in 2017 is actually suing other reaction creators.
10:18Have you heard about No. So Ethan Klein, who who won that original reaction case, actually sued Casey Tron, Denmis, and Frogen in June 2025.
10:32Mhmm. A $150,000 per violation.
10:36Casey Tron already settled. I'm just kind of curious. Does this change how reaction creators should structure their content?
10:43And you don't know the details of this exact case, but it's kinda interesting the nuances of who's using what or who's reacting to what could be defamation, these different things like that?
10:53Well, so
10:54I think, you know, I've said this before on our conversations, but it repeats repeating to creators who might need to hear it a second time.
11:05So anytime you use someone else's content in your content, that original IP holder let let's say somebody takes one of your videos Yeah.
11:14And puts it as b roll in their videos. You could technically go put a copyright strike on their video because they didn't get your permission.
11:23They didn't license it. They didn't pay you. Right.
11:25And YouTube can make that rule. And they have made a rule because there are so many violations of IP, you know, improper use of IP now that they're allowing the parties to just hash it out themselves.
11:39In the past, I I believe a few years ago, for a long time, YouTube would step in and try to kind of mediate between the parties and figure out, like, was there a fear fair use? You know, is this a proper usage? YouTube is not doing that anymore because just from a pure volume standpoint, they can't step in and police that anymore.
11:58So in court, let's say, you know, and and this is where Ethan's, um, lawsuits are interesting. If he's going to court and saying, you're using my content without permission, that defendant could say to the judge, well, your you know, your honor, I use this content because it's it was transformed.
12:18You know, it was a parody. It was for educational purposes. You know, for a fair use test is four prong test.
12:24Perhaps the judge could say, oh, okay. That was a fair use. But on YouTube, that is not a defense anymore.
12:32And I think a lot of creators get caught up thinking, well, I can use this clip, you know, because I'm doing a critique on it or it's it's it's kind of a news coverage, and it's fair use. And it's just not the case anymore.
12:45I can't remember if we talked about this last time about IP trolls really attacking the bigger reaction channels.
12:54And Expand on that. IP trolls? IP trolls are basically
13:00looking at big YouTubers who are doing reaction channels, and then going to the smaller creators and then either buying or licensing their content and then going back to that big creators and saying, I own 25 of the b roll clips in your compilation.
13:17And if you don't pay me the 6 figure ransom fee, basically, I'm gonna take your channel down. And I've had to deal with several of these IP trolls, and we basically, um, have to pay the ransoms.
13:28Have to settle. And so I'm telling a lot of big YouTubers to no longer do reaction videos
13:34or to clear those videos before they use them. And that's very interesting. I think listeners might lean on that.
13:41If they're hesitating to react to different types of things, it would seem that some things might be okay, like some industries, like if you're reacting to, um, uh, the recent White House press press briefing?
14:00News news tends to be a little bit, uh, from what I've seen. It's not a 100%.
14:05Right? News, um, when people pull a clip from it and they use it sort of in a very neutral way Yeah.
14:12It's fine. This is something that creators can think about when they're trying to use someone's footage. If you're going to be neutral or positive about the usage, it's probably gonna be okay.
14:23But if you're going to, like, go after someone and it's derogatory, it could potentially be defamatory, that there's more of a likelihood that person's gonna come after you. K.
14:32If someone takes one of your video, Sean, and, like, it says why you're a bad person, you're probably gonna go after them. But if they're like, oh my god. Look at Sean's channel.
14:39He's teaching educators. You know, he's educating creators. You're probably not gonna go after them because there's also a cost of policing.
14:49I used to work at Disney, and we would not actively go after infringers. Not be because we didn't want to, but just because there was I Disney owns so much IP to go after every infringer.
15:03Now if somebody brought a case of, wow, they're really, you know, like, talking really bad things about Disney, you should go after them. That's what usually when is we would go after an infringer is for that violation is if it was making us look bad or hurting our business.
15:21And we were informed.
15:24We were given notice of that violation. That's usually when companies would go after people. So
15:30for the creator that wants to, um, I mean, we're talking about news, but we're living in a world where if you wanted to storytell around politics, around health, about around anything, you also might recount the story Mhmm.
15:44And edit in a photo of the person Sure. B roll clips. You know, there's whole faceless channels, meaning, you know, there's no brand behind it, but it covers all things Tesla and Elon Musk, and they get big views.
16:00Because they'll they'll cover everything SpaceX is doing, and they'll cover all these new batteries in this new place. And they pulled together clips and video clips and livestreams.
16:08It seems like they're getting away with it, and that would be under fair use.
16:14It again, it's not necessarily fair use. It's more that the IP holder here, Tesla, has probably made a business decision saying this is good for our business because it's basically free marketing.
16:27Yeah. Again Talking about it. Yeah.
16:28If it's not negative, it's not derogatory, it's not hurting their business, a lot of the businesses will allow it to happen. I mean, there there's a huge trend now. You I'm sure you've seen it.
16:38You know, Steven Barlett's Diary of CEO is huge now. Yeah. And there's so many people clipping Yes.
16:44Their clips and using it. And people have asked me, well, come you Diary of CEO, Steven Barlett hasn't gone after them?
16:53Now we don't know what happens behind the scenes. A lot of times people might reach out and say stop using it. So it might be happening and they don't make it public.
17:00Or they just think it's good marketing for them. Yeah. Because if they have a show a sixty second clip, it sends them to the long form because that happens to me sometimes.
17:08I'll I'll think, well, that's a cool conversation, and then I'll go watch the full episode. So all of these channels are basically
17:16clipping for Stephen Barlett. He doesn't have to do it himself. Yeah.
17:20Mhmm. So you you mentioned if you're if you're speaking positive, then you you're probably good there.
17:27But It's not bulletproof. Right? But Yeah.
17:28Most likely. But if it is more potentially defamatory, you know, there's the Logan Paul versus Coffey, Zillow Yes.
17:37Which is going to trial on May 4. Oh, fascinating. I didn't I didn't know it got a trial date.
17:42What happens to creator commentary culture depending on who wins?
17:47This will be a lesson for all creators. If you talk about somebody in a negative light, in a potentially defamatory Yeah.
17:59You might always get hit with a lawsuit. And because that's the beauty and nightmare of living in The US.
18:06Right? You can soon be sued by anybody. Yeah.
18:08But that you know, Coffeezilla story, and I and I love talking about it because his insurance agent really failed him, didn't give him the defamation coverage.
18:20And had he had it, that insurance would have covered his litigation costs. So that's number one.
18:26For creators out there, get your insurance. If you're doing product reviews or talking about people, you should have defamation insurance coverage.
18:36But you always run into this risk. I'm really excited to see what's going to happen because a lot of behind the scenes information will come out during discovery and during trial.
18:48But depending on the verdict or what happens to this trial, it might inform creators whether or not they can do these kind of journalistic content or not and and and kind of maybe give guidelines as to how they should approach it.
19:04And I think Coffeezilla's defense will be a defense to defamation is the truth.
19:10Yes. So if he can prove what he said was true, then he will most likely not, you know, not be found liable for damages.
19:17And so
19:18and and does this is that tie into the term where allegedly might not be enough saying the word allegedly?
19:26Because a lot of what Coffeezilla will do is at a point, will be like, allegedly, this is the news so far. This is what's happening. I think going out there and saying, like, Logan Paul is actually a scammer versus allegedly, he potentially scammed people.
19:43Is is that protection for him depending on
19:47To a point, yes. Saying this is my opinion. This is what's been alleged.
19:52I think always, um, I think lessens how how visceral and how negative it could be.
20:01But at the end of the day, if Logan Paul can prove that what he said was false, right, what Coffey Zella said was false, and it hurt his business. Right?
20:11Because it's two prong. It's not just big thing. It has to you have to prove damages.
20:15Yeah. It can't just be, oh, this person hurt my feelings.
20:19The courts have to have something that they can give back to someone who's been damaged. Yes. They have to be able to say, okay.
20:25Logan Paul, your business took a 3,000,000 hit this year, and we can and, you know, they'll they'll probably need forensic accounts to come in and say, you know, to show.
20:35If not for Coffeezilla's reports, you know, his business would have done this.
20:40It can't just be, your honor, he hurt my feelings and said bad things about me. No. It actually has to hurt his business.
20:46You know, it makes me wonder how boldly creators can or should talk about real people. This isn't everybody's niche, but there's actually, um, Kevin O'Leary just won $2,800,000, uh, against a crypto influencer who called him a murderer Oh.
21:02On X. So I'm guessing that was false too. So it's quite the bold claim.
21:06But on February 2026, Ben Armstrong, Bip Boy Crypto Mhmm. Default judgment for not even responding.
21:13Uh, mental health was rejected as excuse, and two point point eight million was awarded. So the defamation exposure, most creators are probably under misunderstanding it.
21:25Because YouTube gives us this opportunity to maybe commentate on a scandal, commentate on people, of course, all had their opinion on the cold play Sure.
21:35Affair thing. Mhmm. I in in the faith space, uh, that's kind of, you know, partly my world.
21:41I have a background in church. There's been a lot of different, like, moral failings in these big churches across America. And there's a whole bunch of YouTube creators that get a lot of views covering this.
21:51Mhmm. This makes me wonder, you know, Kevin O'Leary won probably because he was able to he's probably not a murderer, I'm guessing.
22:00Yes. Yeah. So I think the truth was not a defense there.
22:04Yeah. So I'm just curious how boldly creators should be thinking about if they're gonna be talking about real people and starting these small YouTube channels.
22:12Or maybe you start small, but your video goes viral. All of a sudden, you know, you're on blast talking about somebody else. Listen.
22:18This brings to mind, you know, the Blake Lively and the Justin Baldoni lawsuit that's been happening there. Explain the details of that. Um, so the these two, you know, actors were
22:32on a movie together, and Blake Lively claimed that, um, the director, Justin Baldoni, um, sexually harassed her, you know, on set. And so it became this huge thing where discovery was done and, you know, their publicists and their managers and and Taylor Swift was brought into it because Taylor's a friend of Blake's.
22:52And all their text messages came out. So it's like, just realize that during litigation, everything comes out.
22:59Anything you put in writing might be shown to the world. And what happened there was a lot of people started covering it, journalists.
23:12There's one woman particularly, her channel completely, I think blew up to a million because she was covering it every single day.
23:19Yeah. And she took a position as to who was the bad person.
23:25I think, like and and don't quote me because I can't remember if if she, like, was more on Justin's side or more on Blake's side. But the point here is she took a side. And let let's say she she was against Blake.
23:38Right? So Blake could potentially come after her and say, your coverage of this entire time in the dispute really hurt my image and my business.
23:47And there are headlines now that say nobody wants to hire her anymore. And you know she's Ryan Reynolds' wife, so it's just like, this could hurt her career as an actress. And could she prove that because of this woman's coverage of her every single day that put this false narrative out there that it hurt her business?
24:05Yeah. I think every creator has to approach these kind of journalistic channels, their content, with some caution.
24:19Yes. Because they might get sued because they're talking negatively about somebody.
24:25Totally. This would apply to creators who do products, product reviews, tech reviews. We certainly have seen those headlines where a creator says, oh, this is crap.
24:35You know? Sorry. My language.
24:37This is a terrible product, and and then that product tanks. Right? And and so we have a lot of power as creators.
24:44We have potentially sometimes millions of people listening to us. We have to be careful, I I think, the power that we hold sometimes.
24:52Can brands be implicated?
24:54So there's a there's a there's a creator named Candice Owens. Okay. And she has been talking at length about Charlie Kirk's death Mhmm.
25:07But also all with all kinds of theories, and many would say conspiracy theories. Mhmm.
25:13I'm talking at length, like daily hour to two hour podcast. And for a while, I was getting one to two to 3,000,000 views. Wow.
25:21Number one, it brings up the idea that is there a time when Turning Point USA files a lawsuit. Number two, though, as she's going through these episodes, you know, mid episode, she she might be like, today's episode is brought to you by and when you insert the brand, is the brand completely safe in the midst of choosing to sponsor content that could be if it is commentary,
25:45if it's getting into that environment? That's a great question. So I guide a lot of creators about having mutual indemnity when they do their brand sponsorships.
25:53Usually, it's to protect them against the brand. Yeah. But in this situation, because it's mutual, it would protect the brand.
26:01So if the brand got sued because of what the creator said Yes. Then the creator would have to pay the brand's legal fees if they get pulled into it.
26:13Okay. So this is why brands are very careful about the types of creators that they work with. I'm I don't know what type of brand is sponsoring her content.
26:22I mean, it's just for for someone who represents I represent brands and agencies and creators. I would be very hesitant.
26:30I would tell the brand, be very careful here about working with a creator whose content is very risky.
26:38It's you know, it might open you up to liability for a lawsuit. And so in that in that sense, if the brand still decides to go forward, I would make sure that their indemnity is very strong.
26:49I would may even confirm that the creator has defamation in E and O insurance and add the brand as an additional insured onto that policy, which can go both ways, by the way. I'm doing a big campaign for one of my clients right now with Google, and we're we're making Google add my client onto their additional insured.
27:09Wow. Mhmm. That's a that's that's powerful.
27:11That's why people should work with you. Yeah. Well, you do get that extra layer of protection, I think, when you work with an attorney.
27:18Which I got many more questions for you, but I want to you mentioned a few things that we've covered in past episodes that I wanna remind listeners. There's a couple good ones in the archive to listen to after this, and, of course, all your info in case people wanna reach out. Before we move on to the next topic, you actually mentioned Nintendo by name in our last conversation.
27:37I think we were talking about different, say, gaming companies. Most are fine with you streaming their content.
27:43Some crack down more. Mhmm. You know?
27:45But actually, Nintendo sued a streamer for $7,500,000 for streaming prerelease games. Mhmm.
27:52So they must have known they were prerelease and maybe was willing to do that. I don't that's that's a scary amount.
27:59I can't imagine the streamer can hang with those numbers, but the streamer was Everyday Guru. Mhmm. And this was filed in 2024 in Colorado with 7,500,000 sought.
28:10I'm curious your take on, like, gaming creators or emulation or the myth that Let's Plays are safe. Again, it really depends on the game developer.
28:23Some are a lot more relaxed and some because it helps them. Right? You you think about Roblox, you think about Minecraft.
28:30Like, it helps their brand to allow creators to react and, you know, and and and and stream on with their content.
28:42Nintendo has notoriously been really more strict than other game developers. I haven't heard about this case, but just the the the fact that you said it was a prerelease Right.
28:53So this really hurt their bottom line because this this goes back to the same analogy as pirated films. When when films are not yet released and they get, you know, put onto the, you know, these black market websites and people stream them ahead of time and then they release all the the kind of spoilers, it hurts.
29:13Like, would anybody pay to go to the theater so they can just watch it at home? So I think there have been a lot of historical precedent where companies will go after infringers because they need to basically send a message out to the public that you can't do this.
29:27You can't pirate. You can't prerelease our content because we're looking to make millions of dollars from it. And you have potentially hurt us by maybe it's it's it's 25%.
29:40Maybe it's 50% of our revenue. So that's why I'm not surprised at that big number that they they went after this creator for. Talking about copyright claims versus strikes and how what AI is changing.
29:53We mentioned it a little bit earlier, but YouTube's
29:56AI is demonetizing even original animation channels, mistaking them for AI slop.
30:03So the question is how do you prove if your content is real? In February 2026, Dino Meat Mania Mhmm.
30:10Over a million subs and other animation channels were hit by an AI policy as one of the channels in our community got inauthentic content.
30:20They had a bible stories channel. They were making $30,000 a month in YouTube ad revenue. Wow.
30:26Um, you know, AI writing the scripts, AI voice, AI animation, but they're, you know, making these episodes and the whole channel got demonetized. I don't know if you're any of your clients.
30:37The question, how do you prove your content is real if you're appealing this and it feels like there's just these broad strokes by YouTube? Yeah.
30:46How do you navigate that? So this is where
30:51really being a more buttoned up business comes into play. You have to start keeping track of your content.
31:02And this is the copyright rule. If original content is created by humans, that's the most broad copyright law.
31:15If you use AI to create your animations, let's say, you should be able to show, like, this is the first version that AI made for me.
31:25But then a human animator or editor went in and actually made changes to make it not AI, not fully AI.
31:35I don't actually know. Again, this is a little bit vague because YouTube doesn't actually share their methodologies of how they determine something purely AI or not AI.
31:49And I know that this type of record keeping and bookkeeping is something that trips up a lot of creators because we just have to get our content out there. Sometimes people make five videos a day.
32:00The the idea of clearing b roll, clearing reaction channel videos, like, it's just a lot. And it kills the creative spirit. Does.
32:07It kills speed, and it kills the speed. But and we'll talk about this later. You know, when you wanna sell your business, when you wanna license your content, you have to prove that you own it all.
32:17So for the AI, it's the cleanest answer would be to to make your own content and not use AI.
32:25That's the biggest defense if if YouTube were to say, this is AI content. But if you're using AI to do your animations, I mean, that's it's so tricky because you could say, well, the prompts were done by me, a human.
32:40The AI couldn't have made this content without the human input. And so that's where you might even have to show.
32:49You put in the prompts. You do screenshots. You show the content.
32:53You have to prove a record of what is the human elements of this content. And we'll see it more play out, guess, as more creators get hit with this.
33:05But it's sort of a black box. YouTube doesn't show like this is how we decide certain things. Right.
33:10I've worked on so many copyright strikes or channel terminations. And sometimes, we just get a channel back, and we never get an explanation why or we never get it back. And they also don't explain why.
33:21So it's really hard for me to guide. And I will share with you, Sean, I've actually stopped taking on channel terminations because I can't get the channels back sometimes, and I don't want to take on a case where I can't
33:34You're saying it for that result. You're like, maybe I'll get it back. Maybe I won't, but that's and I don't have enough information.
33:40And I don't like taking money from creators where,
33:42yeah, maybe 50% of the time I'll get your channel back. But like, I don't wanna take the chance that you're the other 50 that I can't get it back.
33:49So now I just don't take them on anymore. Interesting.
33:51If you're an entrepreneur or a creator that wants to scale their online business, that's why we created the Think Media Mastermind.
33:58I have so much more clarity as to my ideal target audience now, which means my content is about to be so much better and more targeted towards the exact person I'm trying to reach. Super intimate,
34:09high level strategy.
34:10I had the skills that I already knew sharpened. I feel like I went to my next level. For entrepreneurs
34:18and creators that wanna scale with YouTube. This was the first time that I was able to get in a room with a lot of other serious YouTubers and talk with other people who love creating content and love YouTube.
34:31Usually, I don't get to do that, so this is really special. You can check it out at thinkmediamastermind.com. Yeah.
34:38I think it's that's scary for creators. They might have a fear of starting, but what you're saying, of course, if you're creating original content, it's not something you have to worry about.
34:47Correct. Um, but if you do wanna step into using AI, it it sounds like what I'm hearing is you need to professionalize your business.
34:56Yes. Like and if you're you should be thinking this many moves ahead. What maybe what will happen the day if I'm questioned?
35:03Yes. And if you're ready for the day you're questioned, oh, yeah. This is our process.
35:06Because there's plenty of animation channels which YouTube loves. Mhmm. AI is just a tool potentially to create that animation that's now at a barrier of entry that's available almost to anybody Exactly.
35:18At this point. Mhmm. Um, okay.
35:20So, um, let's talk about these exits.
35:26You know, I want people to lock in because if you're just starting, you might not be thinking about exiting your YouTube channel. But this really is a mindset that could help every Think Media podcast listener be thinking about, man, what's possible over the next five, ten, fifteen years?
35:40What could I build? Because I believe you're representing a $100,000,000 exit right now.
35:45Is that true? Yes. That is wild.
35:47So when you look at at Creator's business today, what's the one thing
35:50that maybe kills a deal before it starts? I don't know if it's one thing. Yeah.
35:55But I'll share with you these are the five elements that I always try to tell creators they should think about and probably earlier on than they they think.
36:04Okay. So so through my business, my creator arc business, which is my M and A advisory arm, I take creators basically through and arc is basically a life cycle for creator.
36:16So there are seven steps. Step one is your very first upload all the way to exit. And within those, I ask creators to think about growing their revenue streams beyond AdSense and brand deals.
36:29So a private equity fund or studio or streamer are starting to look at YouTube channels as viable media companies and assets that they want to acquire. They look at certain things such as your audience size, that does matter, but also your connection to your audience.
36:47How loyal is your audience to you? They look at your revenue. And not just pure revenue, but also recurring revenue.
36:55What is something that gets paid when you're sleeping that is away from your face? They look at data. You know, what do you own your your email list?
37:05Do you own your audience? They look at your team. You know, like, who who do you have working for you?
37:12Like, could you, Sean, take two weeks off and everything still keeps running? Yep.
37:16And what I didn't mention is the creator themselves.
37:21Because what these buyers have to mitigate is the key man risk. Mhmm.
37:27Because when they're buying a channel, and we look at examples like Matt Pat, Atheoris and Veritasium as sort of the two big exits. And actually last night at dinner, I sat down and spoke a long time with Stephanie Patrick, and I got so much insight into their exit.
37:44She's potentially going to come on my podcast Creator to CEO to talk about their exit because I think a lot of creators are starting to get really interested in what does that look like for me. Yeah. How do I get off this hamster wheel?
37:56Right. So that question of how do we take the risk off of of this creator's face so that not everything is reliant on them?
38:06Because in this calculation that buyers are looking at, your YouTube channel should be a small fraction of that. The client that I'm working on with the $100,000,000 exit, if his channel were to go down tomorrow, yes, it would hurt, but it's only a small fraction of his his revenue.
38:24Interesting. His community, his courses, his newsletter, his tech app.
38:31So the tech app, this app is something that can be sold and rolled up for 30 or $50,000,000. So I wanna take you back a little bit about this journey with this client.
38:42So two about eighteen months ago, we took him out to market because he said to me, he said, Tyler, I wanna sell my channel. Can we see how much it would be worth? Yes.
38:50What's the valuation? So we took him out, spoke to four private equity funds, and they all gave us a range of about 30 to 35,000,000, which is a very healthy, great number.
39:04Yeah. But I actually said to him, I said, you know what? I think we should wait.
39:09I think you could hit a 100,000,000 in probably three three to five years was what I said. But in the meantime, we should do these things. So this is what I do through CreatorArc.
39:19I actually sit down with creators, and I go down the next two years with them, three years with them, or five years, you know, to ready. To get ready for that. Yes.
39:2835 mil to a 100 mil plus. So we we look at diversifying the revenue stream.
39:32We look at making sure their corporate structure is properly structured. There's a parent company. There are subsidiaries holding, like, the YouTube channel, the, um, the community, the products so that if if one company got sued, the other assets would be safe.
39:48Um, we make sure their IP portfolio is clean, clean chain of title, that you own every single b roll, every piece of music you have in your videos, every independent contractor you have, every employee you have has work for hire language, that everything they're doing is owned by you.
40:05You have all your trademarks for all of your brands. These are all the things that the private equity funds will look at. And this often takes a good year or two for me to clean that up if you're not doing it from day one.
40:18Now I have some clients interestingly, and they they happen to be more professional educational channels who are coming from me, who are coming to me from day one even before they start their channel and saying, I need you to do my LLC.
40:33I need you to structure me properly. We're gonna do the trademarks. Give me independent contractor agreements.
40:39Tell me how to get the proper b roll, the music. From day one, they're thinking about it in the right way. Because more and more professionals are becoming YouTubers.
40:50They're doing this on the side maybe to quit their full time job. And so they're getting ready. And so many of them understand that the endpoint is an exit.
41:00Yes.
41:01That's a whole different level of thinking. It's interesting in our community. Like, this year, 2026, it seems like this may be more of a normal conversation.
41:11It might have been as it might have been five, seven years ago, there was an 8 figure exit of one of our students.
41:19And and now multiple, maybe not quite 10, but more than five of our students have exited their YouTube channel. Interesting.
41:26And who are the buyers? Uh, one was a kid's brand. They took over a female's channel and hired her back and then started adding other creators to the channel for kids products.
41:38One overtook like a you'd call it like a ecommerce service business Mhmm.
41:45For like countertop stuff. And there was already a big ecom thing.
41:49They figured they could professionalize it and scale it. Nice. And the YouTube channel was the engine of these businesses.
41:54Just the marketing arm. Yeah. It was the marketing arm, but there was other things there.
41:58So that is a wild way of thinking about this creator economy thing's huge. You never know what it's gonna turn into. And even just so you have a couple layers.
42:07My takeaway is, one, just listening to this podcast, you gave us a whole different way of thinking of how we set up our business. Two, maybe you wanna set it up from day one, trademarks.
42:16Mhmm. And three, you always can pivot, but it might take some time to clean up your business if, like, I never knew all the success would, you know, come my way or whatever.
42:26I'm curious of a couple your your thoughts on MrBeast. Feastables is now outperforming MrBeast's actual YouTube channel.
42:35But I wonder if it's an interesting model because the numbers that I was able to pull was 250,000,000 in revenue for Feastables versus his media business losing 80,000,000. Mhmm.
42:47And on the headlines, people are like, mister Beast is losing money, you know, which I peep people lose the context.
42:54Like, oh, I knew it. He's failing. It's like, I think you read the headline wrong.
42:58Losing 80,000,000 on the media arm is really not a loss if the media is why your chocolate bar and other businesses you're launching is blowing up. What are your thoughts on there on that?
43:09Well,
43:11I think he's can certainly not be losing so much money. I think he almost wears it like a a badge of honor. Like, I can I put all this money back into my content and that's why I'm losing?
43:22Yeah. I think there's a little bit of a, you know, a media attention angle there.
43:32Okay. But the Feastables is really what I wanna focus on. And this is why I talk to creators day in and day out about how do you grow your business so it's not reliant on your face or your upload schedule.
43:47Yeah. And this exact example shows this is what I'm talking about. He has built a product that doesn't require his face anymore.
43:56Right? I mean, yes. Like, him talking about his chocolate, but people know enough now when they go into a Target or into a seven eleven.
44:04They're just they're gonna grab that Feastables. Right? Because they like the chocolate.
44:08Because it's it's on par with Hershey's now. But if his channel were to go down tomorrow, his chocolate would still sell.
44:18And that's the point. And that's why it was so great that he didn't call it Mr. Beast chocolate.
44:23He called it Feastables, another separate name, another brand away from his YouTube channel. So that's the gold standard.
44:33I mean, more of a gold standard because consumer goods, the margins are not good is Mark Rober's CrunchLab subscription boxes. I love that type of product.
44:41I mean, my actually, my gold standard is the technical app because you build it once and you can sell it a million times and there isn't manufacturing and distribution the way a physical product has.
44:52But thinking about recurring revenue, a subscription box that you can get your audience to not buy one time for $30, but $30 times 12 or many, many years.
45:03That's what private equity fund looks at as to what is your month over month, year after year revenue,
45:12recurring revenue. MrBeast also acquired a Gen Z fintech app, and the senate banking community sent him a letter about it.
45:20Is this a warning sign for creators who wanna launch financial products?
45:24I don't think so. I'm working on two neobanks right now for my clients. Yeah.
45:29So I think he's thinking in a in the right way.
45:33I mean, Step was an educational app. It's not a real bank app. I I heard through the Gravevines, I think.
45:41The speculation is he tried to get a bank charter. It's very, very hard to get get a bank charter. So this was sort of the in between before I think he he tries to get a bank charter.
45:51Here's something that people don't realize that banks have to spend a lot of money. Banks have to spend, I think it's like a thousand dollars per client. It's called customer acquisition cost.
46:03For most YouTubers and creators, that cost could be zero. So if MrBeast and and we can talk I actually just filmed a video about this that will come out next week about MrBeast's three intent to use trademarks that he just filed.
46:19He just filed Beast Financials. He filed Watchtime Studios and then an incubator.
46:26So these are all potential businesses that he's going to start soon, and it it kind of indicates where his mind is going. You know, he's thinking about incubating smaller channels.
46:36He's thinking about creating banks. He's thinking about being a white label production company. And thinking three steps ahead is what creators really need to start doing.
46:46You can't just be heads down making content every day. Yes. Okay.
46:49When you're starting out, get your first video, 50 videos out, like every week just though you have to put the reps in. Yeah. But once you're starting to make some money on AdSense and brand deals, let's say you're making $10,000 a month.
47:04That's that's a salary. That's a nice salary that can replace a corporate job.
47:10That then you really should start thinking about what is this as a business? Do separate I have business account?
47:17Do I have an LLC? Do I have the proper agreements in place? Because most of the time when people are coming to me because they got an offer ready for an exit, it's almost too late.
47:31Not too late, but it's just it's it's a lot more work for me to have to clean up after the fact than if I put them in from day one. I know we're talking about a high level, but creators of all sizes, of course, could dream about what we might create.
47:43But do you feel like some of these creator brands could be overhyped? Meaning, for example, Prime Hydration went from 1,300,000,000 to 300,000,000 in two years.
47:53I don't know if there's some things you would do differently. What are some lessons from that? I believe Refresco sued them for $68,000,000.
48:02Agorovania for 13,000,000. There's a class action on caffeine and chemicals.
48:07So you've got, like, the headline of, yes, creators launch brand, huge creator, KSI, Logan Paul. Prime goes to a billion dollars, but also
48:18shrinks a billion dollars. Lessons from that? I think it really comes down to trust.
48:24Because at the end of the day, I think the reason why Prime Hydration failed was because they use bad products.
48:35They potentially wanted to make the quicker dollar and not do the right thing. And I think we've seen this through a lot of creator led products where the quality is bad or let's say clothing, the quality is bad or they make supplements and people get hurt or people get sick.
48:58And the way our world is now with how quick social medias and Reddit, talking, giving feedback in real time is you can't try to shortcut things or make a cheap product and think you're going to get away with it.
49:17It's just not possible anymore. So I think, I mean Logan Paul has has really, I think lost the trust of his audience several times, you know, with his and all all these different things that he's done.
49:28So he he he was maybe under a microscope already, but I think that's what ended up happening. Even with mister Beast and Feastables, I mean, he has changed the ingredients of his of his chocolate.
49:39Remember when he first started out, he said, I wanted to make a great high quality chocolate with organic ingredients. Yeah. That's no longer the case because he needs to compete with Hershey's and he needs to be For margins,
49:50the whole deal. And so
49:52it's it's all things that a company would think about from day one.
49:59Because I think when creators are doing making products on their own and not involving the experts or the third party experts who maybe if they hadn't brought in a beverage company from day one to partner with them, they could have guided them and said, these are the ingredients we should really think about.
50:17And so I think there's maybe an immaturity, you know, like I think an immature point of view in thinking, well, we could just do whatever we want and it will be fine or so we can make a quick dollar.
50:30I think at the end of the day, it always comes back and and the truth comes out. That timeless wisdom
50:37is timely in that, you know, just because you have influence and a good marketing arm, you know, influence on YouTube or wherever, that quality product and reputation over time is still what's gonna last.
50:51I think so. Yes. Well, as we land the plane, what what do you think creators should be doing right now, or what opportunities should they be jumping onto?
51:06Uh, Unilever is putting 50% of their ad budget into influencer marketing. You know about this story.
51:11Can you break this down? It might speak to more broadly what's happening
51:16in the creator economy right now. Mhmm. So I I recently wrote about this.
51:20I'm a Forbes contributor, and I wrote this story about how Unilever, just last week, their CEO announced that they have a network of 300,000 creators that they work with directly.
51:32So they've cut out the agencies, and they're going to these creators as basically their distribution arm and saying, you know, we are launching this new product. We want you to highlight this product.
51:43And they have they're going to very small creators, let's say 10,000 to 50,000. I think that's their sweet spot of like how many they like in their audience because they know those creators have a very close relationship with that audience.
51:57You take a huge creator with 100,000,000 subscribers, though they don't necessarily have that type of relationship with their audience.
52:05So they're going to smaller creators and asking them to basically become their brand ambassadors and and and to be their commercials, you know, to be to be selling their products.
52:18Last year, I think this was in 2024, the year before, the CEO of Unilever said, we are going to allocate 50% of our spend dollars towards digital creators.
52:31Wow. And I think when that happened, the market really sat up and took attention.
52:37You know, they they really paid attention because Unilever is one of the biggest companies in the world, and they own so many different brands like Ben and Jerry's and Dove and and all these different brands. And if they're saying, we're not gonna work with traditional agencies anymore necessarily or we're gonna go straight to creators.
52:56I think this signals to the marketplace that creators are real businesses. They're distribution arms or media companies that we should pay attention to.
53:06And that's why in my Forbes article, I said, this is an indication that private equity funds and big companies are start are going to start acquiring creator led businesses because it's it's a fully fledged distribution arm that they could just acquire very cheaply compared to what they would have to do if they were to spend it in into, uh, agencies or if they were trying to build this themselves from scratch.
53:36Yes. So the takeaway is realizing where basically influencer marketing
53:40Mhmm. For nano and micro influencers is going. Yes.
53:4410,000 subscribers and mac macro companies like Unilever wants to work with you Yes.
53:53If you've got a niche audience. So what do you see coming? What are you excited about in terms of the creator economy?
54:00You work with a lot of large and established creators thinking about exiting, but what do you think specifically for new creators, 2026?
54:09You think competition is too fierce to get in the game, or where do you see things going next? No. I don't think so.
54:14I think it's it's the perfect time. If you've been thinking about starting a YouTube channel, this is the time. Because here's the thing.
54:22YouTube and and social media, it rewards consistency. Just because you start a channel doesn't mean anything. You have to put in the reps.
54:30You have to do 50, a 100, a thousand videos to really get good at it and to build an audience. I think if you this is the best time, I think, for experts to come into the space.
54:41Yeah. I think slower content, you know, is going to start getting the attention that it it desperately needs.
54:51I mean Like the opposite of high retention editing Yes. For these content? Like like fast content.
54:55And, you know, the recent verdict against Meta and Google, the $6,000,000 verdict about the addictive nature of social media, I think.
55:07Had to pay $6,000,000?
55:09Yes. Which is kinda like nothing, but it's more than But
55:12it was a brilliant strategy on the plaintiff's part because they're trying to make sure that this case doesn't get appealed. Yeah.
55:20And so when you have huge numbers I mean, it would have been so much sexier to say, oh, you know, they got a $100,000,000 verdict, but that's more likely to be, uh, overturned on appeal. So that's one person they settled with? Yes.
55:32But it opens up the door for other people like that. Thousands of lawsuits are waiting in the dockets right now.
55:38To essentially say social media is addictive. Well, so for a long time, the platforms have hidden behind the safe harbor called section two thirty, which states, oh, well, we here are not responsible for what creators put on on the platforms. You know, we're just the platforms.
55:52We're just a distribution arm, basically. But because of this trial, there were some internal memos that were leaked. And I mean, not leaked.
56:00I mean, they were they were they were produced where Meta stated, oh, we have to start really pushing our content to preteens because that's when we can get them.
56:10That's when their brains are most, you know, susceptible and and vulnerable to addiction. And so we need to get them then. Which is crazy because 13
56:19is usually, like, when you can get on a platform, which would mean they're gonna be pushing content to also kids that are underage. Yes. And those are memos that came out.
56:29Does that's not a good look. No. And
56:32this is the analogy I made in in my other Forbes article is like this is almost a big tobacco reckoning that happened for big tobacco companies is they also said, oh, well, we didn't know about the addictive nature. And then one case happened, and they saw the internal memos, and then it opened the floodgates to thousands of lawsuits.
56:49Where would that stop? Will it ever?
56:52I don't know. Right? Because this one case got through.
56:55Right. I think a lot of judges who might have been deciding if they were going to, you know, dismiss the cases in their dockets, they might let it go through now because our our court systems are so respect you know, we respect precedent.
57:07We respect judges. We respect the the the rulings of other judges. So now these cases probably will go forward.
57:14And if we get a 100 of these, I think that's where the platforms will have to stop or change their algorithm so that it can't be so addictive. And that's why I was saying, I think the slower content, the educational professional channels, a lot of my clients will will start maybe getting
57:32put into the feed more than those kind of fast addictive content. Got it. The kind of the kind of content that is as people perpetually scrolling YouTube shorts and children Yes.
57:43Consuming these crazy YouTube shorts. That's fascinating. So so what could happen is similar to cigarettes having a surgeon general's warning.
57:51There might be what we will see probably the evolution of the platforms for the harmful nature of the addictive nature of the algorithm. I think this one verdict has opened that door.
58:01Wow. Mhmm. That's pretty is there any other implications of that ultimately that you see coming down the road?
58:08I think this might make creators
58:11be a little more careful about the type of content they want to make. Maybe a lot of creators in your audience are thinking, oh, I have to go make that fast content. I have to go make that addictive content.
58:19That's how I can show up on the algorithm. And maybe you and I can say, maybe you don't need to. Maybe you just make good content that's helpful, that is educational
58:29Yes. That
58:30provides value to your audience. And you will find your niche audience. And maybe you only need 10,000, right?
58:36As the Unilever example showed. You don't need million subscribers. I mean, I'm I'm I'm I'm trying to hit a a thousand a 100,000 subscribers this year on YouTube.
58:46Yes. I'm like at 59,000. So if you guys could go subscribe, that would be amazing.
58:50But I think a 100,000 is completely respected.
58:55Yes. And you look at a 100,000. Actually, you know, a 100,000 is like point 1% of YouTubers.
59:01That shows your audience into brands. This is someone who has a dedicated audience who will come back and listen, who will buy from this person. You know?
59:10That's enough. We don't have to kill ourselves trying to get to a million subscribers. I think there's that fallacy that you have to get really, really, you know, big numbers to be to make a living as a creator.
59:23I have four lightning round questions to to end with. But before we get there, you've got some cool stuff coming on. We'll link it in the show notes.
59:29Where could people follow you? And we'll link to all your stuff. Yeah.
59:32So two things, and I'm I'm going to walk the walk. Right? Yeah.
59:37Please sign up to my newsletter because I say this to people all the time. You know? Please get emails from from your audience.
59:44Actually, I do put out a great newsletter. It's called love letters to creators. And, basically, everything we talked about here today, I I try to write in my newsletters to teach you guys what I'm working on, why some creators are primed for an exit, whereas other creators need to do, you know, these three or five things to to get caught up.
1:00:05So and then the other thing I'm working on, Sean, that I'm really excited about is I'm actually going to put on a master class. It's a call it's a mastermind for creators who are wanting an exit.
1:00:17Because I can't scale myself fast enough, but I'm I'm look I'm doing probably two of these a year. I'm gonna limit it to 10 to 20 creators who wanna come in and sit with me for eight weeks, meet with me twice a week, and we're going to work on by the end of the eight weeks, they'll have an exit plan.
1:00:35That's cool. And so I'm limiting this to these small cohorts. And I want to help creators get ready for their exit.
1:00:45And I just don't have enough time in the day. I'm doing ten to twelve calls a day. It's still not enough time because the excitement and the
1:00:53demand for exits is so high now. Everybody wants to talk to me about Yeah. Yeah.
1:00:58That's cool. And what a unique value prop. And you have the expertise, of course, to do that.
1:01:03And that's, uh, we'll link to that in the show notes. Okay. A couple of lightning round questions as we land the plane.
1:01:08What's one legal myth every creator still believes that could cost them their channel?
1:01:15I we touched on it. Fair use that you can use footage without permission and that it will be okay.
1:01:21I think there are still creators who think that. Yes. Mhmm.
1:01:25What content category would you tell creators to avoid in 2026?
1:01:31Oh, to avoid reaction? Yeah. For sure.
1:01:34I mean, I think reactions is just a landmine waiting to happen. And by the way, if you want to exit, you cannot exit with a reaction channel. Do you realize that?
1:01:42Like, private equity will not touch. What private equity loves and if we could talk about what what are the best niches or the types of channels to have is do you know the two things humans care about the most?
1:01:53Have I asked you this before? Yeah. What?
1:01:56Health and wealth. Right? How do I take care of my my body so I live longer?
1:02:00How do I make more money? How do I save money? So those are the two best niches.
1:02:03Yeah. I think for format, podcast is the best.
1:02:07Mhmm. People love hearing, you know, conversations between experts or between people who've who've walked walked that path already.
1:02:16I think that's why Diary of a CEO is so popular because you get to hear from world class experts Yes. In an hour and and learn from them. That's interesting.
1:02:24Yeah. I've heard I've heard that with one other category that health, wealth, and relationships
1:02:29Oh. Are the three big headline. Meaning, like, find a date, recover from divorce, strengthen your marriage, make money, save money, and then health could be anything from get the abs to skincare.
1:02:44But, uh, that's interesting. Um, if a creator gets a strike at midnight tonight, what's the first three things they should do?
1:02:51Not panic.
1:02:52Because sometimes it's not a real you know, like, it's it's it could be a strike, but it's not real. You can appeal.
1:03:00You can actually go in there and appeal. You can reach out to that person who put the strike and say, hey. There are solutions.
1:03:07You know, sometimes you if you let's say, were mistaken. You use someone's content thinking it was fair use. You can say to the person, I'm so sorry.
1:03:14Could I pay you to use this footage and make this right? How do I make this right to you?
1:03:21I say this to a lot of people and also to my clients and my junior attorneys. What we do is 90% human behavior and maybe 10% the law. I always ask the other side, what can I do to make this right?
1:03:32What can I do to make this deal? And they'll always tell you. I've I've dealt with a lot of copyright strike situations where the person just wanted credit.
1:03:40Sometimes we just have to give them credit, or we pay them a small amount, nominal fee, 500 Yeah. You know, for five clips or something like that. Just make it right.
1:03:48Tell them, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I thought I could use this under fair use, but clearly, I was wrong.
1:03:54So what can I do to make this right to you? Got it. And then if you also can appeal.
1:03:58Yes. You can appeal. And sometimes when you appeal, did you guys know that the next step is that person actually has to go file a lawsuit to keep that claim up,
1:04:10to keep the strike up? So, basically, if you just appeal, maybe chances are they're not gonna file a lawsuit.
1:04:16But if they truly believe they own that, I might. And then Buckle your seatbelt.
1:04:22They might they might dig in. And I've seen situations where the other party files a complaint. Yep.
1:04:28Mhmm.
1:04:29You went from Disney to creator's attorney. What did Hollywood teach you that creators don't know yet?
1:04:36Oh, I love this. Um, you are the new studio heads. You just don't know that yet.
1:04:42And I think there's so much power. You're the like, creators are the American dream. So I'm representing these new clients called Creator Camp.
1:04:49Do you know them? So they they put out a film called Two Sleepy People. They made it for a 100,000, and they wanted to get it into the theaters.
1:04:56And they didn't know how to. So they went to the theaters. Like, they went to AMC and Regal and said, can we put our movie in your theaters?
1:05:04And they said, maybe, which is kind of a cool shift. And they said, well, we'll give you two theaters.
1:05:10If you can sell 30,000 per theater, we'll give you more theaters. So they hit those numbers.
1:05:17They got a limited release. Those did really well and then they got a wide release. And now I'm representing them and we're selling the rest of the world, which we've sold.
1:05:25And now we're probably going to Cannes Film Festival in a few weeks to premiere that film. Wow. And this is what I mean by, if you're a creator and you have the courage or a story you want to tell and you put it out into the world, millions of people can see it.
1:05:40And you don't have to wait for a studio head to deem your story worthy of being told. How incredibly powerful that. How incredibly powerful is that?
1:05:49And I am lit up every day because I get to wake up and help creators protect them and grow out their businesses. And so many of these will become the next studios.
1:05:59That's a great place to land the plane and a very inspiring vision of the future. Future looks bright for the creator economy, for YouTube, and I just wanna acknowledge you for coming back on the podcast. Thank you.
1:06:10Um, Sean, one last thing. I actually forgot to ask. Please.
1:06:13Um, I'm
1:06:14starting a new podcast called Creator to CEO, and I actually have a a request to your audience. If anybody is in here wanting me to do an audit so I charge $5,000 for these audits, but I will do it for free.
1:06:28If you have anyone in your audience who's making at least a $100,000 a year from their creator business and you want me to do a audit live, you know, on my podcast Yeah.
1:06:39To share and teach other creators how to grow out their business so that they're ready for an exit, I'm taking applications, and I would be, uh, really honored if anybody from your audience would come on.
1:06:50Amazing. So we could put a link to those applications? So those three things, my newsletter, my mastermind, and the creator to CEO podcast.
1:06:58Amazing. We'll do it. So Think Media podcast.
1:07:00Check out links in the show notes below. If you got value today, wide range of conversation. Hit like if you're on YouTube.
1:07:06Rate and review if you're over on audio. My name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel, and we cannot wait to connect with you in a future episode.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Tyler Chow opens with a landlord metaphor that lands harder than any statistic: you are a tenant on YouTube land, and they can evict you with no explanation and no obligation to reverse course. By the time she adds that 12.4 million channels were terminated in the last nine months of 2025 alone, the threat is no longer abstract.
How they asked for the click.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
AFFILIATECommission earned if you click.
OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.
- ➡ ↗
- 🔴 YouTube Legal Survival Guide: Copyright, Strikes & Fair Use Video Playlist ↗
- Apple ↗
- Spotify ↗
- Amazon ➡ ↗
- B&H ➡ ↗
- Amazon ➡ ↗
- B&H ➡️ h ↗
- Amazon ➡ ↗
- B&H ➡ ↗
- ⚡️FREE CLASS: Watch our FREE YouTube class here ↗
- ⚡️BOOK: Check out the #1 best-selling book YouTube Secrets here ↗
- For support inquires, or business inquiries, please go to ↗
- Music provided by Epidemic Sounds. Start your free trial here ➡ ↗
- seancannell.com ↗
- linkedin.com ↗
- twitter.com ↗
- instagram.com ↗
- facebook.com ↗
