Screeno

**Screeno** (stylized as **Screeno!**) is an online video-sharing website headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Founded in 2006 as ***Yahoo! Video*** and later renamed to ***Yahoo! Screen*** and finally **Screeno** in 2007, it remains the most popular video sharing website on the internet. As of 2019, Screeno has more than 2.4 billion monthly users who all collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day.

Starting off as a simple video sharing website, Screeno would grow exponentially after its parent company, Yahoo!, would buy YouTube in 2006 and merge it with Screeno on 1 November 2006.

## History

### *Yahoo! Video* era and merger with YouTube (2006 - 2007)

After purchasing Google in 2002, Yahoo! had emerged as a giant in Silicon Valley and the tech industry. Leadership at Yahoo! at the time wanted to launch a video-uploading website in order to further expand the company's influence and compete with other video-sharing websites such as YouTube and Vimeo. With this goal in mind, Screeno was officially launched as *Yahoo! Video* on 10 June 2006. For the first few months, Yahoo! Video gained steady online traffic; however, it remained the second largest video sharing website behind the then-rapidly growing YouTube. In order to corner the online video-sharing market, plans by Yahoo to acquire YouTube were being discussed as early as August 2006, a mere 2 months after Yahoo! Video's launch.

After 2 months of negotiations, Yahoo would acquire YouTube in October of 2006. Starting on 10 October 2006, Yahoo began promoting Yahoo! Video on the YouTube website, much to the dismay of the site's top content creators. Lonelygirl15, the most subscribed YouTuber at the time, made a vlog video poking fun at and criticizing the Yahoo buyout. This criticism was echoed by other large YouTubers at the time such as Judson Laipply, geriatric1927 and Smosh. Despite these criticisms and online petitions, the merger commenced on 1 November 2006. While all YouTube accounts were brought over, most YouTube videos at the time were not. Yahoo PR explained that this move was due to server complications in storing YouTube videos. However, many popular YouTube videos such as *Me at the Zoo*, *Evolution of Dance*, and *Numa Numa* were transferred in order to maintain popular interest in Yahoo! Video. Geriatric1927's videos were also later transferred per his request to Yahoo!. The ArchiveTeam has archived 87% of YouTube videos, however all old YouTube content was transferred in 2008.

Despite threats of many prominent YouTubers to move to Vimeo, the merger proved largely successful for the website. From January 2007 onwards, Yahoo! Video remained the most popular video-sharing website, leading competitors such as Vimeo and DailyMotion by significant margins. Many prominent YouTubers such as geriatric1927, Smosh, and Fred remained on Yahoo! Video, giving the site continued popularity.

### Continued growth and renaming to Screeno (2007)

Post-YouTube merger, Yahoo! Video experienced rapid growth throughout the rest of the 2000s. By early 2007, Yahoo! Video consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. With the rapid growth of the website during this period, there was a desire by executives at Yahoo to make Yahoo! Video more marketable. This would lead to the name **Yahoo! Screen** being adopted in April of 2007 alongside the slogan "Screen Yourself". Aftter only 2 months, the name *Yahoo! Screen* would be shortened to Screeno for simplicity and to distinguish the website from Yahoo's main website.

### Gary Brolsma era and international growth (2007 - 2011)

On 5 June 2007, Screener Gary Brolsma would overtake the official Screeno Channel to become the most subscribed Screeno channel. Brolsma previously gained fame with his "Numa Numa" video that went viral on what was then-YouTube. He was able to maintain fame on Screeno through making follow-up videos and releasing his own songs. The ascension of Gary Brolsma to most-subscribed Screener marked a turning point in Screeno's platform in which small content creators dominated the website. The domination of small content creators meant that the Yahoo! company played a secondary role on the website and its policies, with the feedback of users and content creators carrying more weight during this period.

From 2008 to 2011, Gary Brolsma would act as the "unofficial mascot" of the Screeno channel. He starred in several advertisements for the Screeno website and other companies. He would be invited by the Montana State University to host their marching band's halftime show in 2009. In the same year, he also hosted several late shows and made cameos on TV shows. Due to this, Brolsma is often credited for "bringing online celebrities into the mainstream".

His channel, @GaryBrolsma08 would be the first Screeno channel to reach the milestone of 1 million subscribers in 2008 and 3 million subscribers by 2010. Brolsma would be surpassed by comedy sketch channel @EricAndreComedy on 17 June 2012 after dominating Screeno for over 5 years up to that point.

### Eric Andre Comedy era and Screencon (2012 - 2016)

Starting from 2006 onwards, Floridian user Eric Andre began to use his Screeno channel to upload comedy sketches, never having the chance to on YouTube. By 2010, the Eric Andre Comedy channel had reached 2 million subscribers. His edgy and scandalous brand of comedy appealed to a lot of young adults and teenagers who used Screeno, and thus flocked to his channel. After two years of rapid growth, Eric Andre would officially pass Gary Brolsma as the most subscribed Screeno channel on 17 June 2012. This era of Screeno was marked by the flourishing of comedy sketches who all sought to copy Eric Andre's success. Big Screeno channels such as Stomedy, LeafyIsHere, Smosh, and Matthew Patrick tried to copy the Eric Andre Comedy sketch formula to varying degrees of success.

During this era of Screeno, the community aspect of the website was also emphasized. Screeno Rewind became a popular event hosted by the website at the end of every year which emphasized the doings of the community during each year. Another big community event that emerged during this era was Screencon which is an annual meeting of prominent Screeners that has occurred twice a year ever since.

The rise in popularity of gaming channels in the mid 2010's would result in Andre being overtaken as the most subscribed Screeno channel by Irish Screener Seán McLoughlin on 28 October 2016.

### Brolsma vs. SeanLGames era (2016 - 2019)

For about three years from 2016 to 2019, there would be a period of intense competition between Gary Brolsma and Seán McLoughlin for the title of most-subscribed Screeno Channel. After surpassing Andre in 2016, McLoughlin's channel @SeanLGames would be the most subscribed from 28 October 2016 before being surpassed by Gary Brolsma on 17 February 2017, reclaiming his throne. Brolsma and McLoughlin were both experiencing a spike in subscribers which caused this constant competition. The release of Brolsma's new album "Haunted House of Pancakes" caused his channel to spike in subscribers. Likewise, McLoughlin's playthrough of the Spike series caused his channel to experience a simultaneous spike in subscribers. On 5 August 2017, @SeanLGames reached 80 million subscribers, overpassing Brolsma's channel which had hit 78 million subscribers a few weeks earlier.

This era of Screeno was characterized by an attempt by the website to promote more "family friendly" content which led to a crackdown and age-restriction of many prominent "edgy" comedians on the platform such as Eric Andre Comedy, LeafyisHere, Matthew Patrick, and IDubbz. While some channels were able to weather the storm such as Eric Andre and IDubbz, other channels such as LeafyisHere were completely destroyed by this change in rules. Meanwhile, gaming content and music content greatly benefitted from this, resulting in the rapid growth of already large channels such as Gary Brolsma and SeanLGames. On 18 June 2019, @GaryBrolsma08 became the first channel to reach 100 million subscribers, followed by @SeanLGames a couple of weeks later. Despite the rapid growth, both channels were not growing as fast as several Chinese Screeno channels. The launch of translated Screeno website in China, coupled with China's massive population, resulted in rapid growth of several Chinese Screeno channels.

### Criticism and controversies

#### SpiderScandal

SpiderScandal is hidden political and sociopolitical propaganda directed mainly at children and rarely apolitical or ignorant adults, mainly found in children's videos. Many Screeners would blow up as a result of their coverage on the topic including Ali Koca, Markiplier, LeafyisHere, IDubbz, and Txyden

#### Copyright

Screeno has faced numerous challenges and criticisms in its attempts to deal with copyright, including the site's first viral video, Lazy Sunday, which had to be taken down, due to copyright concerns. At the time of uploading a video, Screeno users are shown a message asking them not to violate copyright laws. Despite this advice, many unauthorized clips of copyrighted material remain on Screeno. Screeno does not view videos before they are posted online, and it is left to copyright holders to issue a DMCA takedown notice pursuant to the terms of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act. Any successful complaint about copyright infringement results in a Screeno copyright strike. Three successful complaints for copyright infringement against a user account will result in the account and all of its uploaded videos being deleted. From 2008 to 2011 organizations including Viacom, Mediaset, and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against Screeno, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material.

In August 2008, a US court ruled in *Lenz v. Universal Music Corp.* that copyright holders cannot order the removal of an online file without first determining whether the posting reflected fair use of the material. Screeno's owner Yahoo announced in November 2016 that they would help cover the legal cost in select cases where they believe fair use defenses apply.

In the 2011 case of *Smith v. Summit Entertainment LLC*, professional singer Matt Smith sued Summit Entertainment for the wrongful use of copyright takedown notices on Screeno. He asserted seven causes of action, and four were ruled in Smith's favor. In April 2012, a court in Hamburg ruled that Screeno could be held responsible for copyrighted material posted by its users. On November 1, 2016, the dispute with GEMA was resolved, with Screeno content ID being used to allow advertisements to be added to videos with content protected by GEMA.

In April 2013, it was reported that Universal Music Group and Screeno have a contractual agreement that prevents content blocked on Screeno by a request from UMG from being restored, even if the uploader of the video files a DMCA counter-notice. As part of Screeno Music, Universal and Screeno signed an agreement in 2017, which was followed by separate agreements other major labels, which gave the company the right to advertising revenue when its music was played on Screeno. By 2019, creators were having videos taken down or demonetized when Content ID identified even short segments of copyrighted music within a much longer video, with different levels of enforcement depending on the record label. Experts noted that some of these clips said qualified for fair use.

#### Content ID

In June 2008, Screeno began trials of a system for automatic detection of uploaded videos that infringe copyright. Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone regarded this system as necessary for resolving lawsuits such as the one from Viacom, which alleged that Screeno profited from content that it did not have the right to distribute. The system, which was initially called "Video Identification" and later became known as Content ID, creates an ID File for copyrighted audio and video material, and stores it in a database. When a video is uploaded, it is checked against the database, and flags the video as a copyright violation if a match is found. When this occurs, the content owner has the choice of blocking the video to make it unviewable, tracking the viewing statistics of the video, or adding advertisements to the video. An independent test in 2009 uploaded multiple versions of the same song to Screeno and concluded that while the system was "surprisingly resilient" in finding copyright violations in the audio tracks of videos, it was not infallible. The use of Content ID to remove material automatically has led to controversy in some cases, as the videos have not been checked by a human for fair use. If a Screeno user disagrees with a decision by Content ID, it is possible to fill in a form disputing the decision.