YouTube™ for Dummies®

Chapter 14. Ten Things Not to Include in Your Videos

In This Chapter

• Copyrighted music

• Nudity

• Personal ID

• Your thumb

• Copyrighted video

• Your spleen

• Your worst enemy

• A crime scene

• Death-defying acts

• Roadkill

When it comes to YouTube's terms of use and Community Guidelines, here's our advice: Enjoy them! Yes, that does sound strange, because when you think of rules, you think of constraints — and constraints are a bummer.

That's a valid perspective, but another way to approach YouTube's rules is to find them intriguing. Think of them this way: They're YouTube's official word on what's right and what's wrong, and it's interesting to read just where YouTube draws the line on hot-button topics like copyright infringement, nudity, and pornography (not to mention shock, hate, and gross-outs).

YouTube is now a major player in the Internet world. As the child of a powerful parent company — Google — the eyes of literally the entire world are on YouTube. Just imagine all the meetings, all the lawyers, and all the editing and heated debates that you just know went down when YouTube had to put its rules and regulations in writing. That's what we mean by intriguing.

So here they are: The ten big no-nos. Many of them are things that YouTube says can't go in your video; others are things that we suggest you don't include not because they're against the rules, but just because they're against common sense.

After you've read through these, go up and check out YouTube's full Community Guidelines and terms of use ...