If you are like most of the internet age you have heard of The Fine Bros. It happens to be a YouTube channel that is dedicated to the art of “reacting” to other YouTube videos in a very humorous way. The young, thirty-something, brothers have been in the YouTube game since 2004 and have been creating viral content since day one. The Fine Bros are online producers, writers and directors according to a Wikipedia.org page about them.
In terms of popularity on YouTube, The Fine Bros is on the top of the list with more than fourteen million subscribers and more than three billion channel views. That is all great and is likely to bring in some money for the famous brothers, but a recent gaffe might have cost them some of that money. In an attempt to trademark the “react” video format, the brothers faced a major, uphill battle in which they wanted to “license” the format they use in exchange for some of the profits others make using it.
When you have a product or service that is good and wanted by many others, it sometimes makes sense to license the idea, product or service out to others and just sit back and enjoy the extra profits for doing the same amount of work. This is one thing that The Fine Bros apparently did not sit down and figure out before it was too late and when all was said and done, the channel has lost more than 500,000 subscribers.
Many of those are likely to be fans of YouTube and the popular channel that thought the trademark was too “corporate” for their taste. The recent story was picked up by just about every single news agency in America and all around the world. Lawyers commented on forums and trolls took to the social media wire to voice their specific opinions. All of this happened in just one week and since then The Fine Bros have pulled the trademark paperwork and have issued a couple of statements.
Some might not blame the brothers from trying to take advantage of a process they have perfected, but maybe they should have gone about it in another way. Just because they have the thrown when it comes to what they produce and the popularity of it, that does not mean the public is going to have the same opinion. The internet has created a barrier in which people can voice their thoughts, and meet up with others that feel the same way organizing an online protest without even realizing that is what is happening. The Fine Bros learned that can happen and even though the uproar has been lessened, the backlash is not over.