I find this very interesting. Recently I was trying to upload a set of videos to my YouTube Channel (where I have 73 others) and found that YouTube has a 10 minute in length or 100 meg limit. My new videos were under the 100 meg limit but were over the 10 minute limit. SO I went looking and found the rule in the help section. Just a note all my others meet the requirements.
But having been around YouTube for a while, I have watched many videos. And some of those well over the 10 minute limit and the 100 Meg limit. But then I realized after going back on YouTube and looking, that all the video's that I could find that were over the 10 minute limit or the 100 meg limit were all anti-war or anti-US Government. What was this? Was YouTube setting one set of standards for one group and another set for everyone else?
So being the rule follower that I am I e-mailed YouTube's help contact and got this very helpful response:
Hi there,
Thanks for your email. We're no longer offering the option to upload videos longer than 10 minutes for any account.
I apologize for any frustration, but we are constantly trying our best to balance the interests of the community against other considerations (such as legal ones).
YouTube is a great way to expose your work to millions of people around the world, and posting smaller chunks of your work may even keep the attention of a wider audience.
I appreciate you taking the time to write back as we highly value feedback from our users. I have passed along your comments to our product team, and I hope you'll find a way to creatively use the ten minute limit to your advantage.
Hope this helps,
Aamir
The YouTube Team
So thinking that they may have changed the rules I went back and looked some more. Using the keyword "military" I found where a video was uploaded and displayed 1 day ago that is over the 10 minute rule, by someone using the name "jihadlovestoyota". Hmmmm SO when did they change this supposed rule, when I sent my e-mail? Did you notice the name of the "person" that responded to me? Did you notice the name of the person allowed to break the upload rules? SO maybe it was the keyword I used. I typed in "Iraq" and found that again 1 day ago someone named "donovonc" was allowed to upload a video over the 10 minute rule. The title of the video is "Democracy Now Headlines. Monday, June 18, 2007", the video being an anti-US video report.
What is going on here? Why am I being told that there is this rule, when it is plain to see that it does not apply to all evenly. If you are allowed to upload anti-US videos, why not Pro-US videos? I think YouTube has a little explaining to do. YouTube?
Here are some links to just a few videos I mentioned and others that are over the limits, see if you notice a common theme:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kvLkfO2GQk4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=efeh8vzpHE4
Or you can go on for yourself and find them very quickly. I wonder what is going on at YouTube.
My YouTube Channel is at http://youtube.com/profile?user=3rdID8487.