Many YouTube creators can add the Guinness World Records logo to the thumbnails of their videos, in addition to adding phrases such as “record” or “world record” to their titles to garner more views. But this apparently caused a somewhat justified backlash.
According to the information shared by several content producers, Guinness World Records has started to assign royalties to content that contains phrases that break records. The only common point of these contents was the misleading use of Guinness’s logo in its image.
Even the one who had a “world record” in the title was copyrighted:
DuckyTheGamer, one of the names that faced Guinness’s copyright request, said, “i carried a Fortnite Mobile WORLD RECORD HOLDER! (most solo wins in the world)”, he placed the Guinness logo on the image of his video. The video was 4 years old.
Likewise, LAZAR featured the logo in the thumbnail of his video titled “Breaking EVERY FORTNITE WORLD RECORD”. Although this video is 5 years old, it was removed due to Guinness’ copyright request.
Why is this a legitimate reaction?
The more interesting the title and image of a video on YouTube, the better chance of success. But for this interest, content producers can resort to exaggerated and illegal ways. Using the Guinness World Records licensed logo is one of them. Since this logo is recognized by everyone, it becomes one of the elements that attract the attention of the first person who looks at the image.
Of course, there is no confirmation about whether the actions in the video are a world record, these records are not evaluated by Guinness. In other words, Guinness’s logo is used misleadingly to attract attention.
Using the logo of a licensed and non-affiliated organization is also illegal, and may even damage the reputation of the institution. Guinness probably resorted to such a way to prevent bad scenarios in the future and not to be a source of interest for content producers.
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