The Fine Brothers' Controversy!
 

In recent news, the Fine Brothers are in hot water after their inevitable failure with a new project called "REACT World."

I want to hear thoughts on this.

They tried to trademark the word "React", but due to the backlash, they had to withdraw there trademark application.

This happened before when Sony tried to trademark "Let's Play", and that was then shut down.

My thoughts are: Who honestly gives a sh*t about these guys?

Why the hell is society suddenly obsessed with watching people watch people?

I like watching my friends react to a movie when we watch it together, especially if I've seen it before they did. It's exciting to me. It's like an expressive satisfaction I get when they react to a epic or important part of the footage.

Much as I love the Fine Bros, they tried to profit from that excitement. Translation: they done goofed.

Let it be authentic and not a profit magnet.

That pretty much sums up how I feel about it.

Sure, so do I, but those are real life people you have an emotional connection to, whose opinions you value & will give you feedback in turn.

All these other internet f**ks, I don't get it. Most of it boils down to exploitation or narcissism.

I have some words for this but I'm spoilering them because after I typed them I realised they sounded kind of... weird. Excuse me, I think meds are affecting me really strongly today

I get that, & as a person in similar circumstances, I have interests that do the same for me. But I don't get the impression that's the appeal for the bulk of their fans, who are as far as I can tell, aren't like you & I in that respect. Maybe I'm wrong. *shrug*

Thankfully they pulled out after all the backlash. I'm seriously struggling to find the appeal of these videos. The kids are annoying, the teens are worse. The old people are old.

It's more than just YouTube drama, there are legal reprecussions involved...
 

The reason this has been making so much news is that the Fine Bros were able to trademark their shows like "Elders React", "Teens React", "Kids React", and going so far as trying to trademark the word "React". The problem is that they kept on posting videos and insisting that they were merely protecting their format of reaction videos, but their actions revealed more about them abusing their power by asking YouTube to take down any type of reaction format video. They even went so far as publicly criticizing the Ellen show, the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and Buzzfeed.

To make things worse, their videos for promoting "React World" a licensing method so that others can make reacting videos while they get a cut of the income, came across more as a thinly-veiled threat (legal threat) toward any one trying to make a reaction video on YouTube.

What makes this so alarming is that with this trademarking possibility, and the pattern of their abusive behavior, it sets up for the potential of a company being able to monopolize a particular type of genre content on YouTube. What's the downward spiral of all of this (why their subscriptions have lost over 400,000 in the past few days), is that despite trying to explain their reasoning (an update video) and rescinding their trademarks (on a very obscure website), the way how they are doing it all seems to be publicity damage control rather than public, transparent, genuine apologetic behavior. In addition, with revelations of their past accusation behavior and abusive power being brought to light, it's showing that this whole "React World" fiasco wasn't just a one-time honest mistake, but leading to more questionable behavior about their intentions being more devious.

It may superficially seem like obscure internet YouTube drama, but underneath, the potential legal issues involved is definitely alarming involving what's considered "fair use" content and the reach of big business law on the internet.

Here are some videos (with the legal implications) if anyone is interested in the whole saga:





This is a parody of the Fine Bros trademark situation, if things were to transpire:

The problem was the trademarks they filed for, "React" is way too unspecific and easy to abuse, which they did, they abused it big time. And "react" got picked up in the YouTube automatic flag list.

And when reacting videos is nothing Fine Bris invented nor redefined, which is something you need to prove if you're gonna trademark a common word, it needs to gave a second definition that you the trademarker must prove you caused.

"React World" and franchising out is fine, if you wanna join Fone Bros and give 50% of your ad revenue to them that's your thing.

I honestly wanna know what they were thinking when they thought it was a good idea to trademark "kids react to ???". You're essentially copyrighting a sentence. If you were to make a video that says "TMNT fans react to ???", way before these guys caught wind of it, say a year, 2 years from now, and they decide they want to trademark it, you're screwed because that phrase is now theirs, unless they give you permission to use it. It's a lose/lose situation.

I liked h3h3's description of the brothers: "they look like aliens pretending to be people".

I'd be surprised if 'React' was registrable - it comes under the suggestive words category, i.e. it's a word that is used by other 'traders'. As far as their format goes, they can TM their various logos, and their graphics, music etc. are automatically protected by copyright, but I wouldn't think they can protect the format itself in general terms.

I think a lot of people took offence to that initial video because the Bros. were basically calling other YouTubers bootleggers, and the perception (one that I share) is that what the Fine Bros. are doing, is not really all that original in the first place.

*Edit*
Also, when they do {inset demographic} reacts to other YouTube content, do they pay for, or licence that content? If not they are hypocrites dagnabbit!

Reaction channels suck anyway.

I'm looking forward to what GradeAUnderA does to Tyrone Magnus next week. I credit Grade (and Akasan) with ultimately forcing Jynx to stop with his own reaction videos.

Jinx will still make other sh*tty content. He has enough fans supporting him.

Here's GradeA's latest video on the subject.



Tyrone's butthurt response did him no favours, his sub account is dropping and he got loads of dislikes on it (ONE MILLION DISLIKES, WOOOOOOO)

Just watched that video, His issue is basically people reacting to other videos and showing them entirely from start to end, and not getting permission from the original owner if they can react to it, and youtube not doing anything about that.

He also complains about how hes not getting any money off those reaction videos, cause the person reacting to them showed the entire thing.

Youtube is serious business.