Five days ago YouTube comedy duo the Fine Brothers (made popular for their REACT series in which people react to various viral videos and other content) announced their newest project React World. In essence React World is a way for the Fine Bros to license their various series to other countries and regions by allowing people to use their format and logos as long as those people share ad revenue with the Fine Bros. In return they will be featured by the Fine Bros and can receive a portion of the ad revenue for their videos. Sounds like a good idea right? Yeah well with the Fine Bros YouTube channel rapidly losing subscribers and support it seems that the general public is opposed to this new business strategy.

Now the first issue that is being widely brought up is the Fine Bros assumption that this reaction format, a format that existed long before the Fine Bros channel, is in some way theirs for the simple reason that they’ve gained the most success from it. Which is kind of like Elvis claiming to own rock n roll music. To drive this point home even more the Fine Bros have been attempting to trademark the word “react”. This would mean they would have permission to take down or share ad revenue with any YouTube video with the word “react” in the title. Reaction videos as it turns out are a massive genre on YouTube, channels like h3h3 productions have gained a huge amount of success with this format and the Fine Bros owning this trademark could completely jeopardize the success of this channel and many others.

The Fine brothers were quick to post an update video clarifying a few things. They noted that they were not licensing the entire reaction videos genre but rather their specific series. They also claimed that the react trademark was simply to protect their second channel called “REACT” and that if they received ownership of this trademark they would not use it to take down random videos but only videos they felt directly copied one of their specific series. Claiming they were attempting to bring an end to the corporate direction, YouTube would take and give power back to the creators. The reaction to this update however was equally as negative. People pointed out that the claim they would not be taking random down videos would have to be based on blind trust. Nothing would technically stop them from taking these videos legally so creators would have to place trust in the ethics of two people they do not know much about and who have reacted negatively to reaction videos put on TV that hardly resembled their own content.

The other problem many were quick to point out was that licensing out a brand and sharing ad revenue is hardly “anti-corporate” in fact it would seem to be the exact opposite. I suspect the backlash would have been diminished perhaps if the Fine Bros hadn’t so obviously disguised their attempt to expand their own brand as being “for the creator” and a chance to “change the world and the global media industry forever” when their true intentions could be seen from a mile away. The Fine Bros reacted to the backlash the only way the really could. They unregistered their trademark and took down the videos announcing and explaining React World. They posted a written update announcing that they had canceled their plans for React World and apologized for their actions, acknowledging that owning the trademark may have given them too much power and that expecting the entire community to trust them was wrong.  

I don’t personally have anything against the Fine Brothers but I will say I personally think they horribly misjudged what the reaction to this new announcement would be. They failed to realize just how many people are opposed to YouTube’s current “guilty until proven innocent” copyright system and announcing a business strategy that could potentially abuse this system for personal gain was only going to anger people even more. I hope this incident will be taken as a warning for anyone who thinks they can abuse this system in the future. The public as it turns out, won’t stand for it.