 The problem here is that they clearly received my request, told me, eh, too bad, not gonna happen, and then went ahead and did something without any kind of response from me. That's wrong. That's an abuse of power. That's violating my rights as a creator, as someone who owns this content. Hello there, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Today we're going to be taking a left turn from what I generally address and talking about an abuse of power that I have recently experienced. I wanted to talk about what it's been like working with Ladd Bible twice. If you aren't familiar with them, this is who Ladd Bible is. They are a massive online social media organization, news organization. They have 38 million plus followers on Facebook alone, let alone all of their other social media sites. They are huge. They were actually the first major organization that ever reached out to me about my story way back in the day, which we will also discuss. And very recently, they reached out to me again and wanted to do a second video about me and about my story. And to do that, they have to request the rights to your content, the rights to your footage. So let's dive in and talk about what actually happened when I worked with Ladd Bible, how they didn't respect what I asked, how they acted before I had time to respond, and what the actual effects on my channel and for the record, mental health have been. Before we fully dive into this, I want to note the fact that I realize that this is not the largest issue happening in the world right now. I'm not sitting here thinking I'm the biggest victim and oh, poor me. However, as someone who is a content creator, as someone who works on this platform, I make a significant amount of the money that I use to support myself and my family by doing this. This is what I do for a large portion of my job. I want to raise a little bit of awareness if anyone is considering working with Ladd Bible, if you are considering handing over the rights or the usage rights of any of your content to Ladd Bible. To tell the story, I'm actually going to work backwards chronologically and tell you what most recently happened because this is my second experience working with them and communicating with them. About a week and a half ago, I believe Ladd Bible reached out to me and asked if they could use how I said goodbye to my foot video on their platform and to do that, they need to gain your permission to use your footage because they're using a significant portion of the footage because it could actually serve as like a substitute for your video. They can't just use it. They aren't providing commentary. They're really just repackaging it, using it for their purposes, making money off of it. They also provide exposure and we'll talk about that in a second. So there's that incentive to allow them to use what you have, but they asked like they were supposed to and I said go for it. I responded back to them and said the form is all ready to go. However, I would like you to give me credit for my video that you are using, that you are profiting off of in the description of the video that you are going to be posting, not in a pinned comment. The reason for that is very specific. The way that Facebook works, no one looks at pinned comments. Their videos on Facebook alone usually get anywhere from 500,000 to well over millions of views and if I'm going to give them my content to use, that they are actually making money off of, I would like to drive some traffic to what I have built to my story, to what I am doing here, to what I put a lot of time and energy into and if they pin a comment, no one really sees that. Yes, it exists there, but I can tell you from personal experience, from talking to people and also from the prior experience that I have with them that nothing really comes of that if you just pin a comment saying credit. That was my only request. I said go ahead and use it. I've given you permission. Just please do this one thing for me. I then received a response saying basically sorry, no can do that affects our reach, that affects our analytics and thus we're not going to accommodate your request. Responding that way in and of itself is a little bit disrespectful in my opinion. It's like they're explaining how Facebook works to someone who works in social media and that is absolutely fine. I don't think it was intended that way at all. However, the problem is what happened next because I didn't get that email for a number of hours and would you like to know what happened during the period of time that I didn't get that email and I didn't respond. They posted the video after I made a request that they do a very specific thing with my content that I own all of the rights to. They posted my video. They just went ahead and put it up. They pinned a comment that said credit colon my channel name. They did not tag my Facebook page, which would actually you know drive some traffic at least, which again I know from prior experience. That is all that they did. They didn't tell me they were going to be doing that. They didn't tell me when the video went up. I received absolutely no communication from them. I only knew after the fact that it had happened because friends told me that is a violation of trust. That is an abuse of power and that is not okay. Ladd Bible. What the heck guys, you are a large organization but that does not mean that you can stop on the rights of people and think that everyone's just going to be fine and dandy with it because they're getting exposure. Because here's the thing about the exposure that Ladd Bible provides. Like I said, this is my second video with them. I really appreciate that they have taken interest in my story. It's so sweet of them. It feels great, right? The first time that it happened was in January earlier this year, 2019. On January 10th, they posted the first video that they did of me. This is what happened in my analytics. I'd like you to take a look at the day before, the day after, and the day that they posted it. Absolutely nothing. There is no difference in traffic. There is no difference in my subscriber growth. There is actually no traffic being driven to me as the person who owns the content, as the person who is a creator. And at that point, that was fine because I agreed to the terms of everything but I realized, oh okay, the way that they have it structured, I'm not really getting anything from it. They are making money off the video that they are putting up and I'm not getting anything out of it. It felt cool at that time to have a big organization take notice of me and make a video of it and like, oh, that's really cool. But that video went viral. It reached over a million people in less than 24 hours and I received nothing from that. And in that case, that's okay because that's what I agreed to. So in the future, I structured the agreements that I did with different organizations a little bit differently. I've made requests to other organizations that have used my videos and said, hey, I really appreciate that you've taken interest in me. Go ahead, use my footage. Use the content that I have created to do whatever you want with. Just make sure that you credit me in the description of the video, which is where people actually look. And guess what? They did it. This actually happened today. When I made the request to this other large organization that my video be credited in the description of their Facebook video, they had no problem with it. They respected what I asked. They did what I requested and we were good to go. Ladd Bible on the other hand did not do that, didn't do anything that I requested, did what they wanted. I'm assuming because they're big guys. They're in a position of power and why do they have to listen to little people regardless of why they did it? They did something without my consent with what I owned and taking a look at the analytics from the day that it went up, you can see that there is absolutely no impact on my channel again. And that is what it is. And these are the analytics from the day that it went up. Now please note also that they didn't even link my Facebook page. And within Facebook, Facebook wants you to stay on Facebook. So if you link a Facebook page, there's a higher chance that someone's going to see it and click it, all that good stuff. They didn't even do that until it had been up for 24 hours, I believe. And then they went back and they redid things and they gave me credit differently, but they still didn't do what I asked. And it's still up. And when that happens with such a powerful large organization, you don't entirely know how to respond. Like I didn't know how to respond. I didn't know what to say or how to deal with it. That's why I wanted to make this video to just bring some awareness to what happens and what goes on and more than that. Also, talk about the fact that I was aware of what I would receive from Ladd Bible from the previous video I had done with them. And by that I mean the comments. Oh, sweet heavens, the comments. Dealing with the comments section of the last Ladd Bible video that they did was a great test of insecurities for me. It was a good time to realize what I wasn't doing well with because people are not super nice on the internet. We all know that. What you see on screen are some of those comments. But I knew that by agreeing to do another video with them, that I would be opening myself up to the same thing again. And as much as I have developed thicker skin since then, as much as the stuff doesn't ruin my day, it still doesn't feel awesome. When a video like this goes out to a larger audience, people won't really see you as a person and they say things that are hurtful intentionally, unintentionally, whatever it may be. I knew what I was signing up for. And so when I said yes the second time to Ladd Bible, knowing that I would receive a lot of ugly comments, I wanted to at least receive something back for that. I wanted to at least have my channel credited properly. I wanted people to be able to find my story because people leave all these comments saying these things and hey, at least it could be simple for them to find my story if they're actually interested in it. If you're a creator or you're someone with a story or you know someone in one of those situations and a large organization reaches out to you, it feels like I said really cool. It feels amazing. It's very validating. But please know that you still have power and you still have voice in those situations. I have a suspicion that oftentimes businesses and companies like this maybe intentionally, maybe unintentionally step on people to get what they need like they did with me because it's what they want, because it's how they run things, because they're profiting off of it and what they offer you in return is hey, we're this big organization, you're going to get so much exposure. But the reality of the situation is you really don't because that Ladd Bible video was the first really big one that was ever done on me. A lot of people thought that's what made my channel. It didn't even have an impact on it. And sincerely, that's fine. I can't tell you the number of times that I've given people permission to use my footage as long as they credit me end of story. I'm happy for them to do whatever they want with it. But I have worked hard for it. It is my property. It is my creation. It is my business. It is my story. And it's not right that people think that they can do whatever they want with that or that they can hear my requests and then be like, eh, it doesn't matter. We're going to do what we want anyways. I just wanted to explain what had happened and let you know what can happen if you're working with Ladd Bible or similar large companies and also let you know you do have a voice. It's okay to speak up. It's okay to make requests. And that is something that I am still in the process of learning and really putting my foot down for what happened here wasn't right. Ladd Bible, do better. Credit me properly. Credit your creators properly. Credit the people whose footage is making you rich, is giving you a business the way that they are requesting. That's the right thing to do. Anything else is a violation of rights. Is an abuse of power and you really shouldn't be doing that. That is all that I have for you guys today. Thank you for listening. Like I said, I realize that this is not on the same level as wars or kids starving, but I think it is an issue when it comes to YouTube and Facebook and social media and rights and abuses of power that does need to be discussed. And I want people to be aware of what they're stepping into if they decide to sign over anything to companies like this or work with them. So thank you for listening. I'd love to hear your thoughts down below. I love you guys. I'm thinking of you and I will see you in the next video. Bye guys.