Good morning.  Calling all LA creators and creatives. We’re hosting our August Coffee with Creators next Friday, 8/28, at The Lighthouse in Venice, CA.

Come prepared to have coffee (duh) and a meaningful conversation with a new friend. Oh, and maybe a special guest.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Today’s lineup:

Starting next week, YouTube is changing what counts as a view on long-form videos and, in the process, is changing what a YouTube view actually represents.

Previously, viewers had to click on long-form video for it to count as a view. Under the new policy, a public view will count as soon as someone starts watching (even if a video autoplays).

The change brings long-form videos in line with YouTube Shorts and how Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook count views.

Why this matters: This new policy will likely inflate view counts across YouTube, but each individual view could become a weaker signal of audience interest. For creators and brands, watch time and retention will now be more valuable metrics than pure views.

Here’s what creators are saying →

Worth noting: While the change comes on the heels of YouTube raising the thresholds for acceptance into its monetization program, the platform says this new policy will not affect monetization. Monetizable views will be determined by “engaged Shorts views” and “engaged watched hours”—meaning watch time is still YouTube’s most valued metric.

Hi everyone, Syd here. I have to tell you about my latest YouTube fixation: undercover creator Ben “Reckless Ben” Schneider—who’s essentially taking the investigative journalism of Channel 5 and combining it with the challenge-style content of Ryan Trahan and Airrack. 

Schneider blew up earlier this summer with his Lego heist series, helping a family track down over $200K worth of stolen Star Wars Legos. And with 11 years of content before that, I’m working through quite the backlog. 

His latest hit: Schneider just helped shut down Provo Canyon School, a Utah-based youth treatment facility, after going undercover and publishing an exposé on alleged abusive practices at the school

Paris Hilton, who attended Provo Canyon School and has previously spoken about her experience there, praised Schneider for “shining a light on what’s happening behind [those] walls.”

Here’s what else you need to know about Reckless Ben →

Why it works: Challenge content is one of the most-watched genres on YouTube. Schneider is applying those same mechanics like missions, stakes, and cliffhangers to expose alleged wrongdoings and make real-world impact. 

That combination is helping him push the genre into a new lane, even if it means getting arrested over Han Solo figurines along the way.

Who’s been taking over your YouTube feed lately? Hit reply and put me on.

Yesterday, TikTok parent company ByteDance released a statement outlining a memorandum of understanding with the Motion Picture Association (MPA)—including new commitments around IP protection in ByteDance’s AI models, Seedance and Seedream.

And the language is…pretty vague. So let’s break it down.

What happened: In February, an AI-generated video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting went viral—after being created with video generator Seedance 2.0. Shortly after, companies including Disney and the MPA sent cease-and-desist letters to ByteDance over alleged copyright infringement.

Where they landed: “For the past several months, we have had constructive engagement with ByteDance to implement meaningful guardrails on Seedance and Seedream, and this memorandum of understanding reflects our shared determination to continue our work together to further fortify those guardrails,” MPA CEO Charles Rivkin said in yesterday’s statement.

Worth noting: This is not a binding contract. The announcement did not specify what policies or guardrails will be implemented to protect IP, whether copyrighted material will be excluded from training data, or what consequences ByteDance could face if the terms of the understanding are violated.