YouTube Lifts the 15 Minute Cap--for Some

I posted this link recently, but it's important news that I'd like to comment on. If you've been honoring YouTube's community guidelines (no copyrighted material) you probably have a new option you may not be aware of. Go to your account and click "upload". If you've been good, chances are you will get a message telling you you are no longer limited to 15 minutes per video upload. "As long as it’s your original content, it’s fair game regardless of length," states the YouTube blog.

One of my goals with my YouTube channel has always been to partner with them to get the time cap lifted. The reason for this was to upload future feature-length material. I fully plan on releasing movies for all to view on 4 platforms: YouTube, Netflix streaming, Vodo P2P and iTunes. YouTube was the only challenge as you can't just create an account and upload your 90 minute (or longer) movie. Now, however, partnering is no longer necessary. It's a reality right now.

If you don't have an account (or you have one that violates their policy), I suggest you create one, right now, and upload your own material. Even if you don't plan on doing anything with your channel of this magnitude, you may want to later. "Clean" content now puts your channel in the pipeline to be given opportunity later. I don't see how we can lose with this.

Of course, YouTube can pull the plug on this whenever they want. The only consolation is that if they have allowed you to upload something long, it will stay they there, even if this offer is rescinded. They've grandfathered past uploads, so I see no reason they won't in the future.

Comments

Erik Test said…
Scott, thanks for sharing this. I will definitely be taking advantage of this new option.
Matthew 13 Blog said…
Thanks for this info! It really is exciting news to know that longer content can now be shared on You Tube without having to break it into parts. Just one question, in your post you said that you planed to post your feature length content on 4 platforms, and You Tube was the only one that required partnership. I was under the impression that Netflix streaming also required some sort of third party partnership in order to accept content. Is that not the case? I would love to know the process in getting content posted on their network. Thanks again for the You Tube news!
Scott Eggleston said…
Netflix still takes submission and approval, but it is a more clear process than trying to get YouTube to partner with you. The biggest hurdle with Netflix is that they prefer you to have a distributor, an element I think is unnecessary. I'm hoping they will be more lenient if content is intended for "streaming only" purposes. We'll see.