Top 10 video creators in October: UNILAD & The LAD Bible hold at #1 & #2

October was UNILAD's fourth consecutive month in the top spot, according to Tubular Labs video insights.

Not a lot changed in rankings for the top 10 video creators between September and October, according to Tubular Labs. UNILAD and The LAD Bible kept their No. 1 and No. 2 rankings, while Viral Thread and Tasty switched places, with Tasty dropping to No. 4 and Viral Thread moving into the top three spots.
UNILAD has held the top spot since July. The video creator’s view counts dropped slightly since last month, generating 3.1 billion views in October, compared to 3.4 billion views in September.
The LAD Bible’s view count was up for the month, but only by 22 million.
Nifty was the only video creator not to make this month’s list after ranking in September. In its place was Bright Side, ranking No. 8.

Top 10 Video Creators in October 2016

For brand creators, Red Bull kept its place at No. 1, with 276 million views, and won the No. 4 spot, with Red Bull TV making an appearance in the top 10.
Five brands that ranked in September failed to make October’s top 10 list: Apple, Coke, GoPro, Tiếng Anh Thật Dễ and Barbie. In their place were Red Bull TV, Shell, Walmart, LG USA Mobile and World Economic Forum.

Top 10 Brand Creators in October 2016

Tracking total video views across YouTube, Facebook, Vine and Instagram, Tubular says the top 100 video brands and creators earned a combined 55.3 billion views in October.
You can see Tubular’s rankings broken down by platform here: Tubular’s Most Watched Video Creators.

YouTube’s new End Screens designed to keep viewers tuned-in on mobile & desktop

With the launch of End Screens, YouTube says creators will no longer need to use Annotations to add clickable links within a video.

YouTube rolled out End Screens yesterday, a new “mobile-friendly” feature for creators, designed to help them better engage their audience.
The End Screens are thumbnail images that can be displayed during the last five to 20 seconds of a video, prompting viewers to watch another video, subscribe to a channel or visit a collaborator’s channel.
With the launch of End Screens, YouTube says creators will not have to use Annotations to add links within videos.

Currently, many creators use Annotations, a desktop-only tool that allows you to add clickable links to your videos, to manually create end screens. This will no longer be necessary, as the new End Screens are not only easier to create, but also allow you to reach more viewers on desktop and mobile.

YouTube says it tested the End Screens with a limited number of creators and used their feedback to fine-tune the new feature before giving access to everybody.
You can read more about the new End Screens on YouTube’s Creator Blog.

Google touts YouTube anti-piracy moves, critics remain critical

Google says its Content ID copyright management system is working and helping "creators" monetize their content.

Google is a long-standing target of critics who claim that the company “encourages piracy.” While this is not a uniformly held view, and Google vehemently disputes it, the accusation has been voiced by many in the music and motion picture industries.
Over time, Google has implemented various systems and methodologies to try to address piracy and copyright infringement on YouTube and in search results, in part to satisfy critics and in part to satisfy the law. (YouTube’s founders initially turned a blind eye toward copyright infringement.)
Earlier this week, the company released a report called “How Google Fights Piracy” (embedded below). It also discussed those efforts in a blog post.
In the report’s introduction, the company says:

The internet continues to be a boon for creators, their communities, and the content industry, and Google continues to be a key part of that success. Today, Google’s services provide more content for users, generate more revenue for rightsholders, and do more to battle copyright-infringing activity than ever before. Google takes the challenge of online piracy seriously—we continue to invest significant resources in the development of tools to report and manage copyrighted content, and we work with other industry leaders to set the standard for how tech companies fight piracy.

The current mechanism of copyright enforcement and content management on YouTube is called ContendID. Google says that it has invested “more than $60 million” in the proprietary system. Google adds that “well over 90 percent [of content creators choose] to monetize videos containing their copyrighted material.” Accordingly, Google asserts that “Content ID on YouTube has generated over $2 billion for creators.”
There are still vocal critics in the Music Industry, for example, who don’t believe this is sufficient. According to a piece in Billboard, “Music stakeholders counter that… returns from the platform are untenable, and that YouTube draws ears and eyes away from subscription services like Spotify, which pay a much higher return for access to the same music.”
In a related story, Google has ended its bitter legal dispute with Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, who had been aggressively investigating piracy on Google for several years. Google sued Hood, arguing that the attorney general’s investigation was actually a front for the financial interests of the Motion Picture Association of America. News organizations at the time discovered what amounted to collusion or a conspiracy to use the office of the Mississippi Attorney General to enforce SOPA-like control over internet content.
The case has now been settled, with both parties pledging cooperation in the future. Though the settlement marks the end of the Hood investigation, it certainly won’t mean the end of criticisms of Google’s copyright enforcement policies and practices.