Re: the downside of exposure for outside work, time to change your name for the muggles! Fran Smith should do nicely.

This copyright crap is out of hand I see it all over youtube.

KZfaq is canibalizing itself. Other highly successful channels are struggling too. I feel it’s the beginning of the end of KZfaq, at least as we know it.

The decline of KZfaq is happening faster than I expected. Data gathering for $ ends creative video. Algorithms don't appreciate real people anymore.

The internet ain’t the ‘foundation’ Asimov dreamed of.. just another sales platform unfortunately.

Rip it. Use a VPN, and put it back out into the 'public domain' of bittorrent.

the BBC has lost its founding mantra of “inform, educate and entertain”

its a hard balance trying to do what you like and what gets the views, plus this is the lowest income month, l try and do a long sunday vid to appeal the viewers but if l get some others more my liking l put them up mid week, but maintain every sunday, 1st.

The Space Odyssey panel was actually one of the videos that I really enjoyed watching. You shouldn't put too much attention to the growth. The viewers you get from shallow content most likely won't be very engaged and will less likely support you on Patreon. I have the exact same experience. I see selling kits more like a community service. Nevertheless, the margins were still ok to finance all the hardware I needed and a new editing PC last year. I create the boards for my projects anyways so I just order a few more. A sold batch pays for the next batches. Taking paid sponsorships might take some financial pressure from you. The viewers won't mind. Keep it up!

10:42 It seems to me that KZfaq is not interesting in helping anyone unless they have like 1,000,000 or more subscribers, multi-millions of views and can shove ads down your throat every 2-3 minutes in a 10-15 minute video.

If only youtube had a way to express public domain stuff without any ads... oh right. No money in that.

When will KZfaq be made to pay for their extensive complicity in copyright fraud?

You are right, cheap kits is mugs game. Even expensive high margin kits are still a PITA time sink.

Copyright laws need a worldwide reform! KZfaq especially needs to scrap their entire system and start over.

The good thing is, at least you uploaded them to Patreon, and not YT. You would've gotten copyright strikes. YT likes to push big channels, it's really obvious when you see the trending list.....A popular channel (mostly the "goof off" or "family" type that don't help viewers save money or educate them)can have 250K views in 12 hours and be "Trending", meanwhile you or I can have more views for a video in that same time frame, and you won't be on the trending list. I've only been on the list twice. Smaller channels videos get buried way down the search results. I've had viewers tell me many times over the years, I was searching for a particular DIY repair video, and watched 10-20 first, and when they found mine 2 pages down, it was the best and they couldn't figure out why it wasn't at the top. YT can be very frustrating.

Hi Fran. I have led a life of manufacturing clothing and costumes and of course all of the trials and tribulations are very similar to your manufacturing issues. However, there may be another idea... after 20 years, I eventually realized that making and selling unique or very small run, high priced items was much easier to keep up with and required very little capital investment. Your notoriety could focus your audience as buyers and really help launch this forward. We would all love watching you make limited-run, unique, expensive "toys" or custom useful items that are available to bid /purchase or custom order. Since there is no way to compete with large manufacturers, just leave them in the dust and follow the path of the Haute Couturiers: special, unique and VERY expensive. Love your channel!!!

I have TWO channels over the 150K sub mark and I'm still living hand-to-mouth. Making KZfaq a full-time gig is *NOT* an easy path. On the up-side, KZfaq themselves are doing "very nicely thank you" with ad revenues of $15b, up from $11b a year ago. Creators are hurting but YT isn't.

You’re a treasure Fran! Keep doing what you’re doing.

I quit paying the BBC license fee when I quit watching TV for KZfaq two years ago, I now pay the same amount per month via Patrion to my favourite channels. I give twice as much to Fran as I do to others because her channel is twice as awesome. Enjoy the break Fran, burnout is hard but you'll get there.

Wow! Those bring back memories. I used to work in "receiving" at TOWER RECORDS in Glasgow back in the early 90's, where we were first to get our hands on all the product that came into the store before it went upstairs to be sold. I loved it on the rare occasions we would get a bunch of laser discs in from the States, and they were almost always movies, but now and again we'd get those Space Archive and NASA discs in and they looked amazing! They were always smartly packaged with oodles of stunning content, especially the NASA ones. Unfortunately, we never had a laser disc player that worked in store so we could never check the contents out, but just the look and feel of those things was something else.

Upload the digitized videos to Archive.org.

It's harder to get more attention on KZfaq these days because there's so many more people doing it, and doing it full time. So there's just that much more high quality content trying to get everyone's attention. Very different from how it was five years ago.

Fran this absolutely breaks my heart...damn them.

I guess I can echo what some others are saying here - you have to use some other streaming service other than youtube. There are several to choose from - I ran across one earlier today on a different youtube channel, where the guy was dealing with fair-use 6-second limits when discussing music theory - he uses Nebula. I haven't even signed up yet - it just happened that youtube recommended a music theory video after yours (who the hell knows why). Now it happens that I found that interesting. I don't know if I even will sign up, and there are other streaming services out there. The monetization and rating algorithms are entirely a separate issue, and I know others are also dissatisfied with youtube. Don't know what the answer is.

I work for NASA as an animator. I create a spacecraft piece and put it out through normal channels. Free for use by the public. Later, a company makes a video using it. I cannot by law upload or use it in that edited and copywritten form, even though it would not exist without me.

You should upload these discs to the Internet Archive. They don't have any automated copyright bots (though the downside is that if content uploaded on your account gets too many manual takedown requests they'll just purge everything you've uploaded, and your account, with no recourse).

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend a few weeks ago about KZfaq and what, or more specifically who, it's really for. Despite often being trumpeted as a platform for independent content creators, it isn't, it's for big business to further its own ends and make itself even wealthier, and the longer KZfaq exists, the fewer opportunities it provides for the independent creator as they get swamped by content from huge media conglomerates who are responsible for the vast majority of the most viewed KZfaq content now. These companies know the cost of everything but the value of nothing, and in the market society information and knowledge and creativity is only valued if it can be profited from by some fatcat.

Fran your video about ufos ''what are they'' was the best, most concise description of this phenomena, and how they do what they do. You're right, if that was more widely promoted , new viewers might be tuning in.

Fran, I can say that as a long time subscriber that KZfaq's algorithms will show me things that I am not interested in so much more often than YOUR videos that I actually SUBSCRIBE to. You're not letting us down, it's the media you're on (KZfaq) that is. Keep on keepin' on! I know it has to be tough, and there are probably times that you question going on, but you mean so much to so many people. I know this because your videos have been a source of entertainment and delight for this old EE for many years. You're 99% right about manufacturing, too, and the kit economy is not only a whole lot of work but minimal margins. However, I think people would pay $60 (or more) for a kit. Grab an old Heathkit catalog from the late 70s or early 80s and check the prices on some of their stuff... then triple it to adjust for inflation for today's dollars. Granted, todays maker market is different than the amateur radio/hobbyist computer market of those days and Heathkit is probably not the best poster child for anything, but I think you get the idea.

KZfaq is just plain broken. I miss videos from my favorite channels all the time. I generally have youtube auto-playing in my office all day as I work. Instead of showing me new content from the channels that I'm subscribed to, it often insists on showing me old videos that I have already seen (sometimes just earlier in the day) and other random stuff. Obviously this means that my favorite channels aren't getting paid.

Or use the "magic" derivation method: Reverse the video right to left. Add a big "watermark" (should cover at least a third of the screen).

Well this is a while ago now. Watching your video's for quite some time now and a bit more frequent past months. Like it a lot. Unique channel. Recently also saw a great vid on the Saturn F1 engine... wow..great education and not the usual shallow youtube conent. You seem to be a great person and also like you being able to tell stories without editing the hell out of it like most youtubers do.. makes it very real. I haven't got the $$$ to support you but thank you for sharing your work.

I just increased my pledge on Patreon. I wish I could do more. Have you considered putting content on LBRY?

Upload it to the Internet Archive - they'll be happy to host it.

Almost 50 years old now and still chuckle when someone says "Uranus". lol. Great video (yet again).

Wish I had some dough. Love your work. You are a good example, for boys and girls, hard working people, techs, engineers and explorers. Rubin or Rogan to tell your story that needs to be told on a national stage. I pray for some hope and peace for you. Your strength will carry you through. I know it.

Yeah, post DMCA you effectively have no appeals process and no recourse. No process. If it's old enough, it should be public domain. Your video on the Hollywood warehouse fire makes it crystal clear that we are going to *lose* important cultural works because of this.

We must find ways to break KZfaq. You're not the only person getting KZfaq crap. There are ways to get around it.

That's a damn shame with the laserdisks. Would be wonderful to see them. Love you Fran, keep your chin up.Hope it all works out.

I love the venting! Keep doing you Fran and I'll keep watching. You're an inspiration, thank you

This made me sad. I only found this channel recently. You have been keeping me company for days now. I hope you are ok.

I'm a new subber, and I have almost never seen a suggestion from YT to watch your videos. YT sucks more all the time. Other channels I regularly watch have gone to another forum to escape the crap that YT slings.

Try Nebula for sure lots of good youtubers like Issac Arthur and Joe Scott have signed on with similar frustrations. Also We have had similar problems with youtube... We have deals with many minor and most major labels for broadcasting music, however youtube live doesn't have a proper appeal. There is no way to even tell them or send them said agreements. It's hard to argue with bot-police, and there is no one to contact (at least for us). Good luck and keep the great content coming! You have massive skills, If you want a semi high paying job in welding, construction, electrical/mechanical engineering, aviation, etc....here in Vegas, I am pretty sure it would be 123, however museums are a bit tough.

This has helped me a bit, look up KZfaq SEO, Search Engine Optimization. It's optimizing your video meta-data so that youtube has points of reference to distribute your videos to similar youtubers. I'm not even sure how you got recommended, im guessing Adam Savage, and The Crafts Man, but im also an aquatic themed youtuber. I enjoy your videos, theyre technically beyond my skill level, but theyre insightful. Thanks for sharing what you do, and i hope you make it through this rut with a renewed confidence.

Fran, I hope you get all the things you could ever want. I loved listening to you all the more in this video. I know the subject matter is rough, but you're an excellent contemporaneous speaker. You're amazing when you go off-script.

KZfaq is hard imo! In order to continue to get an increase in subs, I've found you have to do two videos a week. If you have a gap for a week or two, everything starts to drop. It's hard to maintain Patreon support too. When I lost my job back in October I had a lot of support from people via Patreon, which secured my channel - but like you I have seen the pledges drop gradually and not increase, despite having the same or more Patrons. I am getting to that point again where I am thinking I cannot continue due to the way things stand and may need to just stop everything and focus on things outside of KZfaq.

So sorry to hear you're having to deal with this shit. Love your channel.

I just pledged on Patreon for you Fran. As a former Evans & Sutherland employee, a former Hewlett Packard employee (who got fired for getting upset at their 55,000 offshoring of technical jobs, to Mexico), I support you.

Fran, you just need exposure. Makers the world over love your content, myself included. I found you through Adam Savage and Tested, I like your kits idea but maybe it's time for more collab videos and work with larger followings. Big fan, first time Patreon; Frank.

7:20 I'm glad you brought that up you said that the jerkoff that ran the apartment turned on the water and flooded it :( Were you ever able to pursue civil litigation ?

I'm kinda new but I love your vibe. You seem like a really cool, knowledgeable, down-to-earth person. I can tell you what I like in Science youtube: quality over quantity. Don't stress trying to pound out video after video! I like quick vids on quick concepts and long vids on engaging concepts. I like videos driven by ideas. I think it'd be cool for you to tour a museum, or take us into the manufacturing process itself. You can use youtube shorts to boost viewership. Don't be afraid to clickbait- it'll never be as annoying as Action Lab's. Collaborate with other small youtubers like Dom Burgess to cross audiences.

You are such a cool person Fran. I enjoyed the things you stated here. Once again $$$ ruins everything. I'm a gruff old rock and roller, but you are soooooo smart and I cannot blame you, I worked hard all my life, have tried to help you my little bit!

18:22 That sounded JUST like something Adam Savage would say... you had me laughing really good remembering all the MythBusters episodes.. :)

I am presently in the process of setting up a video server that will be open to the world. If you want to send me any video you'd like hosted on this server then feel free. I've had so much stuff demonetized by KZfaq (unfairly) I've decided to put *anything* they demonetize on that server and thus it will be totally beyond the reach of the copyright trolls.

Fran I stumbled upon your channel a couple of weeks ago and have been hooked ever since. This video convinced me to become a Patreon. Thanks for everything you do!

I understand the frustration. I gave up on editing fun things/inserts in videos and now include only my own content including art, and music intros/headers. May not be the best, but I own it all. I once got claimed for a song I wrote and performed, as it had a celebrity name in the title. So stressful. Sweet channel.

Oh Fran! SO very sorry to hear of this crap! KZfaq has gotten pretty strict/tight/cheap lately, while still screwing up accounts and how content is stored. I almost started my own channel, but after reading horror stories I decided not to. They take TONS of time to produce content, and there is some pretty awful/stupid/meaningless content that seems to have a large following for some unknown reason. I would love to contribute more, but I am financially strapped so I do what I can, but your channel is worth WAY more than I can give, and I can only wish the best for you. I will continue to watch and donate what I can because you do try and create excellent content. I just hope you don't fall apart and do take some time away from youtube as it has become alot for you and you DO need a break! Don't worry about us.... we will still be there when YOU are ready! Take care and all the best to you! Bill

Wow. Skylab. Man i remember that. Had my own hand drawn target on the roof so it wouldn't hit when it was coming down. Long time ago now.

I am sharing this to support you in the only way that I can. there is no way that someone in the UK should be able to copyright claim something that was done in and by NASA...ugh

EDUCATION SHOULD NOT BE CENCORED. Great video. This makes me pretty mad at the way our world works sometimes...

Do what you love. Focus on making sure that at the beginning of every video you remind people to subscribe, let them know how to support you, patreon, bit coin, paypal and ask them to share your videos. Sell tools and repair kits from a drop ship company. You got this.

I hear you. My support for you won't stop. Not sure what else I can do other than wishing you all the best.

What ever you do, don't blame yourself. In what way did you change what you were doing to cause this? There are several KZfaqrs that are running into the same situation and asking the same questions (check out some of Rick Beato's rants). What you present is an educational channel which AFAIK should allow "fair use" of some copyrighted material (they will still take you down but who said life is fair? ). I realize you situation isn't exactly the same but Rick has been consulted by congress about what to do with streaming content. I don't know but he may have some direction or ideas. Love your channel and will keep watching anyway. Keep doing what your doing as long as it makes you happy :). Thank You!

Thank you for sharing this! Wish everyone would listen to this who is trying to hit it big in youtube ... Hugs!

I remember when I used over 100 years old public domain film material in some video for my Lo-Fi ambient stuff and soon I got copyright strike from some record label. I did the research and found out they had one music video on their channel that used material from the same pd film. I contacted KZfaq and the claim was removed, but after that I also removed my video because I knew someone else may strike it again. it would have been too much work compared to fact that my video gets only few views per year. In other words. That automated copyrigt strike thing just doesn't work right

Everyone go and add Fran Blanche to "featured channels" on their own channel.

Hi Fran. Understood your KZfaq rant. I have to wonder though if some of the subscriber issues is just the dwindling number of tinker types today. Now I'm in my early 50s, I remember or have actually used some of the gizmos you feature on your channel, love it! Now I'm also a ham radio nerd of ~30 yrs. actually built some of my guitar effects (Tom Scholz was my idol), so I naturally drifted into your orbit. I'm in engineering (instrumentation electronics) and I don't see the hardware-savvy types coming along. Engineering grads are software savvy, very little hardware understanding. Not a cut against them, they are bright but building stuff is just not part of their interests. There are lots of Raspberry Pii and Arduino YT pages, that's saturated. Plus the content that is "popular" on YT seems to be mindless drama and jiggle....nobody seems to want to actually learn anything anymore. So I bet YT just caters to what sells, not to educational and fun content like yours. So yeah I'm sounding more like an old timer every day it seems LOL. FWIW I've enjoyed your content and so many of those gadgets bring back good memories for me, thank you.

I recently found your channel Fran and enjoy your content and your personality especially. I’m sorry to hear that you’re having so much difficulty with KZfaq, copyright stuff etc. and just know that I and others want to support you so just let us know “how” we can do that. The “copyright” claims seem silly and trivial as it sounds like that all you wanted to do was make people aware of these things on laserdisc and didn’t want to try and make $ off this.

This has gotten really out of hand! The privatization of information is about as distressing as companies laying claim to water sources.

If BBC is claiming they they own the copyright, and that can be proved illegal, then I think you can sue them for damages, and/or at least get an injunction.

I try to run rare or out of print footage & movies in public domain. But some crappy band burns a CD with a just a few sound effects or brief audio clips from the footage with their music onto their "copyrighted" CD, then turn around & make copyright claims against everyone running the old footage. And KZfaq almost always take the side of the claimant. I even got a strike trying to fight a dispute about well documented public domain material. How could the audio in my 1928 footage possibly infringe on their 2015 rap CD? Then I ran some public domain US Air Force military footage, & got some Russian copyright company claim rights to it. Played Mozart & Bach of me playing on a pipe organ in a church I that I was working on, & got a dozen copyright claims against that too. Nobody owns rights to Mozart, or my own performance of it.

Wow, you're right they boxed you... I've been watching and subscribed to dozens of KZfaq maker and teardown channels since its early days, and this is the first time I've seen a video for FranLab. Hope you're able to make it work despite them!

Here's a suggestion -- not for Fran (precisely). Share a fave Franlab video to your Facebook page. I'm always amazed at the likes I get from people I know who I would not expect to look at or like what I put up there. As a community, we can help by multiplying exposure. Shall we try it?

0:02 Uh-oh, Fran's got something on her mind...

Fran, I'm just now seeing this video. I've been subscribed for a good while. I however didn't know to ring the bell, at that time. That is something I've corrected. Now, I will be seeing more of your awesome videos. I do have one suggestion that may work for you. I think it has worked well for Adam Booth (Abom79 here on KZfaq) as well as others. That is, get with one of the t-shirt printing houses, like Tee Spring. I can't remember off hand what company Abom79 uses. Another option, see if you can collaborate with some of the other KZfaq creators. That may give a major boost to your channel and theirs. I hope things start looking up for you, soon.

The viewers love your vintage tech schenanagains. That’s what brought me here. 60s and 50s teardowns You might be able to make a bit of moola on the side by repairing old smelly electronics while you’re making videos. I **LOVE** watching crusty old tech getting ripped apart and even more fixed!

What could youtube do to lessen the hamster wheel effect? It seems wrong to penalize quality content creators ranking and visibility wise for not uploading at a set pace.

Much love Fran. KZfaq would never be the same without you. 🤘🏻

Once a week seems like a pretty reasonable pace. I admire you. Do what you need to do to keep yourself sane and healthy.

I know all about the "box". Sounds exaxtly like the music industry. I miss the old days of hand to hand product and individuality. Although I am new to watching your content I love your passion and content. You have to keep pushing! The fighters fight, that's what we do. 👊💪

:01 Saw that face and thought to myself, "I'm not getting the regular song, am I."

BBC, huh? Seems like it's the recording medium that is somehow triggering the bots.

Hi Fran, how do you calculate the frequency of the 11th harmonic of 77 Hz or 77 kHz does the Khz 11th harmonic end up in the ultrasonic range?

I feel your pain the attention span of people are getting shorter, people want instant gratification, if I could afford to contribute I would! I enjoy your videos you take a refreshing approach to the topic.

Fran, if you aren’t on instructables, you should be. Doing DIY and maker videos and tutorials is what’s all about. I’ve seen almost a 100,000 views on one build documented there. I hope to see you there. You can use third party services to extend your reach if KZfaq isn’t disseminating your content. Pinterest Instructables Facebook Instagram Really you should be plugging Patreon at the end of each video, and you should be promoting your videos far and wide. DM me if you want to talk about coming up with a more sustainable content strategy.

Yeah. trying to make a living off of KZfaq money is hard enough. Also having to pay for significant commercial space is definitely hard mode.

For new subs, you could do a series, meaning one video every couple months, about stuff the new viewers would find interesting. I'm just an old viewer but I see guys making extreme lasers, water cooled LEDs on drones, wacky stuff like Electric Boom. I don't mean to copy anyone but do what you love and be interesting to this generation. If you use a soldering iron, put an affiliate amazon in the description and get 50 cents from the sell of that, put your merchandise (T-shirts and your swag) on the wall. Do you have access to a kid, meaning 16-21 yr old, to have on the show. Have her/him build a FPV drone and fly it, and build/invent stuff that this generation wants to build and do a song together. Your present content is exactly what I like because your work station is how mine would look like, your projects are stuff my generation think about. Your pace is refreshing to me as someone who never watches TV and spends all my entertainment time online. But I am becoming more like these kids and find myself clicking forward on videos or watching them at 125%. I don't want content like yours to disappear, people are so disposable now and it is getting worse. I would like YT to see competition to force them to be what they were when they knew they needed creators. I have experienced the copywrite hammer several times. Music/sounds that are copywrite free today will be sold to someone then they will take your earnings. Artist that don't care will die or sell their stuff to a corporation then you get a strike. I had a video where I put headphones on and you would hear a very little sound of the song that played for 2 seconds while other louder sounds were going, and some corporation flagged me. In a World where you can buy Happy Birthday and get paid everytime someone sung 2 words of it with the notes. Sorry rant over. Good luck smart and talented lady.

That was a hard watch. I feel for you Fran.... humbled by your humility, keep working it there is hope at the end.

I'd suggest having a conversation with fellow KZfaqr "lawful masses with leonard French" about the copyright issues you've had.

Just shared to feckbook, I wish I knew how to do more.

16 months later and Fran has added more than 100K subscribers!!! (218K at the time of writing). Well Done!!!

Sorry you have to deal with this stuff. I know this was a year ago, but feel for you. Great success with this.

You can put up the original public domain NASA videos, but you can’t (legally) put up a compilation that someone else has created.

Who owns the library? Well, no, publishers cannot stop you from reading books, that has nothing to do with copyright. However, if you take a book from the library, copy it and distribute it, then yeah, the publishers would probably have an issue with that. That is essentially what you're doing here, you're distributing copyrighted material. Well, that's the second question, is it copyrighted? If it is fully NASA material then no it is not copyrighted, because everything NASA publishes is in the public domain and claims of its copyright is fraudulent. However, depending on what has been done with that material before it was put on the laserdiscs it may have ended up being copyrighted again. Like writing music using sounds/data from NASA missions for instance, or painting a painting based on a space photograph. There are many examples. Either way, KZfaq is really the wrong platform for the preservation of this kind of material. Archive dot org would be a much better outlet, and I would encourage you to upload it there.

I have a couple of Archive LaserDisc with thousands of photos, each frame an image on the CAV disc. There maybe dozens of such discs lefts in the world. They maybe lost. And those Space Archive discs could be VERY helpful and educational for photos and such that most of us have never seen. :(

I always thought that information stored in a library was "Public Domain", makes you wonder if those who are copyrighting all the stuff on those laser discs actually intended it to be viewed by the public or not, if not, they shouldn't have bothered making those laser discs in the first place, I think it's getting to the point where copyright laws are being abused for ulterior motives.

Just came here to say KZfaq is not for archiving old but cool stuff. archive.org is :)

The more youbTube monetizes it's own platform, the more it'll practice being a cop.

This is what puzzles me about the 'Fair Use' part in U.S. law where it's meant to be fine to show it for educational purposes but then the 'owners' complain. Either have a Fair Use law or don't.

When I come out of the woods I like to watch your blog because u remind me of a girl in one of my wildlife biology classes years ago. Take care