YouTube Terms of Service Changes: Right to Monetize, Royalties and Withholding Tax

YouTube will update the terms of its service. This is a similar change to the one made to U.S. residents in November 2020 and will come into effect on June 1 for users in the rest of the world. “These changes should not significantly change the way you access the YouTube service or the way you use it,” they say to the company.

The most important changes are:

Restrictions on facial recognition: the terms of use have already established that no identifiable information of a person can be collected without their permission. Although this regulation has always been applied, the novelty is that it will now be explicitly mentioned in the conditions of use.

Right to monetize YouTube: It should be noted that the platform has the right to monetize all content on the site, and advertising may be displayed on videos from channels that are not part of the YouTube partner program.

Until now, the platform has included advertising in the content created by users who were part of said program, which can be viewed if certain requirements are met, such as having more than 4000 hours of video playback in the last 12 month, over 1000 subscribers in the channel, an associated AdSense account and, of course, reside in a country where this partner program is available.

YouTube serves ads on the content of these types of channels and gives a percentage of the revenue generated to the creators of that content. As part of the new service contract, YouTube now clarifies that it can also display advertising in videos of users who are not part of the partner program and will receive money for this, although in this case , users generating this content do not receive royalties for no. be part of the aforementioned monetization program.

Royalty payments and withholding tax– For creators who can earn income from YouTube, these payments will be considered royalties for US tax purposes and Google will withhold tax on these payments as required by law.

“The new terms will take effect on June 1, 2021 for all users outside of the United States. By continuing to use YouTube after this date, you agree to the new terms. If you authorize a dependent minor to use YouTube Kids, remember that when you accept the new conditions, you also do so on behalf of the minor in question ”, this is highlighted in the statement issued by the company and that all users of the service began to receive in the last few days.

The company also released a series of details relating to this change and pointed out, on the one hand, that the purpose of this update is to clarify the restrictions on the collection of facial recognition data, as well as to to be “more transparent about the rights we have with regard to the publication of advertisements in various areas of the platform”.

They also noted that the way user information is handled has not been changed and that this update is not related to the European Union Copyright Directive or the GDPR.

Additionally, the company has stated that the included changes will not impact the monetization settings of the YouTube Partner Program. And he clarified: “Partners who reside outside of the United States should submit their complete tax information to AdSense as soon as possible to determine if a US withholding tax applies to their payments. Google will begin withholding taxes on the payments. from the July 2021 payment (which covers June income) in the event that withholding tax is applied ”.

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