“Your account is suspended for violating our terms of service. Common violations include uploading videos involving affiliate marketing, network marketing, cash gifting, multi-level marketing, phishing, or any videos that a reasonable person would consider to be a scam; spam, copyrighted content and pornography. For reference, here is a link to our terms of service…”

Got an email this morning from Tubemogul. My account was disabled because I uploaded videos dealing with affiliate marketing. The videos explained how to register a domain name, a review of a screen capture program and other educational information about affiliate marketing.

Read Terms and Conditions

Now mind you I had looked at the terms and conditions of Tubemogul and did not find a direct reference to affiliate marketing. In addition, the site was recommended by a program I am a member of that is as clean as a whistle, Thirty Day Challenge Plus.

So I was surprised to get the message. I went back in to the terms and looked for the prohibited items and found one condition. Item I stipulates that you cannot “upload, post or otherwise transmit commercially oriented content.” I guess that means affiliate marketing.

Lessons learned are:

Read the terms and conditions of what you sign up for very carefully.
Ask for explanations if you feel you might have a case. (In this case I thanked them for the email and told them I would move on.)
Research and find an alternative.

Now Tubemogul is a tool to distribute videos to various directories, all in one easy step. So it is a convenient tool to leverage your time.

The main sites I was interested in to distribute to were YouTube, Facebook (my commercial page), MySpace, Yahoo Video to name the main ones. I already had a tool to do that. But since I do a lot instructional type videos I wanted to give Tubemogul a test run.

I guess it depends on what you are doing your video for. If it is pure entertainment you have more options than if you are in the business of affiliate marketing, or so it seems.

So what are my options? Traffic Geyser is one. It is highly recommended across the board. So is Tubemogul, but if you are doing business online, I guess they are not in the mix. Some screen capture programs like Screenflow on the mac get you to YouTube and Itunes, as does iMovie, the video editing software that comes with the Mac. But automated tools do a more complete job of reaching more video directories that you might be interested in.

In a follow up, I will be listing more video distribution options as they develop.

In any event, what I take away from this is just learn from the experience and move on to focus on your goals and objectives.

One added point is to use the free options or free trial periods to test before you shell out the money for any of these products.

Remember just stay well, stay with it and May Your Travels Be Prosperous.

PS. Got an answer from Tubemogul. There is a condition prohibiting affiliate marketing material. But it isn’t in the terms and condition page. It is in the initial sign up page under the capcha box. I just did not read through it all.

Tube Mogul Capcha screen