You Tube Channel income

[troutman]

A YouTube channel generates approximately $5000 CDN annually and is reported on tax return as "Other Income". Since the videos are copyrighted under user's name, do the rights and revenues pass to the spouse upon death and not revert to Google/YouTube? How do you notify them? Should the income be deposited into a joint bank account?

[cral12]

hypothetical or actual scenario?

Question: how many annual views would a channel need to generate to make $5000? (I guess there are factors involved such as advertising methods etc.)

[Matata]

Originally Posted by cral12

hypothetical or actual scenario?

Question: how many annual views would a channel need to generate to make $5000? (I guess there are factors involved such as advertising methods etc.)

This Top 10 Facts video about PewDiePie (the most popular youtube personality by a lot) gives you a rough idea about the financial side of youtube.

He estimates a value of $0.00167/view for a popular Youtube channel, so you'd need about 3 million view to make $5k. PewDiePie is estimated to make +$400k/month.

[Regular_John]

Google/Wikipedia says copyright in Canada is Life + 50 years, so I'm guessing the copyright reverts to next of kin and/or the estate.

As for the Google/Youtube account, this page here might help.
https://support.google.com/accounts/...deceased?hl=en

We recognize, however, that many people pass away without leaving clear instructions about how to manage their online accounts. We can work with immediate family members and representatives to close online accounts in some cases once a user is known to be deceased, and in certain circumstances we may provide content from a deceased user’s account. In all of these cases, our primary responsibility is to keep our users’ information secure, safe, and private. Note that Google is not able to provide passwords or other mechanisms that would enable anyone to log in to a user’s account.

But I'm not a lawyer, I just build websites.

[Locke]

That depends, sometimes rights can be held by a corporation so then it becomes a question of shareholders.

[Boblobla]

I would tell you to consult a lawyer who deals with this sort of thing but...

[Winsor_Pilates]

I would usually expect Troutman to come into the thread with a good answer, but...

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by Matata

This Top 10 Facts video about PewDiePie (the most popular youtube personality by a lot) gives you a rough idea about the financial side of youtube.

He estimates a value of $0.00167/view for a popular Youtube channel, so you'd need about 3 million view to make $5k. PewDiePie is estimated to make +$400k/month.

I just don't get why this guy is so popular, ah well...good for him

[Wormius]

My question would be how is this considered when the copyright holder dies? Does the recipient receive the income tax free as it is an inheritance?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Wormius

My question would be how is this considered when the copyright holder dies? Does the recipient receive the income tax free as it is an inheritance?

I'd imagine that if the copyright passes to a successor, that the income is still taxed.