Copyright Claims are Online Video’s Most Hated Tool — Unless You’re an Ex-Vine Star
Copyright claiming allows the Vine stars of yesteryear to pay rent from their social media fame
Chloe Woodard has been thriving in syndication for three years now. The Chicago actor and artist first made their name as one of the many amateur comedians uploading short, eccentric sketches to Vine during the social media platform’s brief millennial golden age.
Their most famous addition to the canon was a flip of A-Ha’s “Take On Me,” which featured a bracefaced, tie-dye shirt donned band geek as the central character. Unlike other video apps, Vine offered no methods for creators to monetize their creations, so Woodard never made a cent on any of her seven-second videos when they initially uploaded them. But years later, long after Vine went offline, they’re receiving a monthly stipend for the residual clicks their work continues to earn in the platform’s afterlife, in the same way Michael Richards, Julie Louis-Dreyfus, and Jerry Stiller earn passive mailbox-money every time a Seinfeld rerun airs.
“I’m able to pay rent just off of [Vines] and pay for groceries,” says Woodard, from their Chicago home. “I hate saying this because it makes me sound so dumb, but I haven’t had to have a second job…
