Youtube kids don't fall under the Coogan Act

DaddyO'Five is a YouTube channel that is being talked about all over the internet. I first heard about the family's "Jackass style" prank channel from the Philip DeFranco show. I was heartbroken that the Step-mother and father were cursing and causing a panic attack and anxiety in the boys during the disappearing ink prank.
I'm no angel or saint of a mother. I am known to yell and cuss at my kids, but not because I'm pranking them. I certainly don't record those moments and upload them to YouTube.
MommyO'Five also has a channel with a few videos.
These YouTube boys and girls have schoolmates, family, neighborhood friends, all who see these uploaded videos. I would imagine others would feel okay about picking on these kids in the real world.
If you've ever had a friend who was made to feel as small as a grain of sand by a stepfather, or step-mother, you know what this DaddyO'Five kid is going through. It's bad enough being small and helpless. You can't run away and fend for yourself at 9/10 years old. You're stuck where you're at. My friend is in jail right now. Probably for the rest of his life. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong that day and he decided to do what he did, but it scares me to know that he followed through with it.
Raising kids is not easy. None of us know what we're doing. Trial and error is the best way to approach things around my house. Usually we have a lot of fails, but I'm here and going to keep trying.
As far as I know, there are no laws protecting these YouTube kid stars. Let's face it, the only reason channels like The ShayTards, Daily Bumps, and Family Fun Pack are getting subscribers and views is for the kids. My kids don't care that the Mom got her hair colored or that Dad is taking the car to get gas. My kids are watching those channels to see how much fun those kids are having. Or in the Daily Bumps case, my daughter watches because, "Finley is so cute".
I looked up the child actor labor laws and found out the Coogan Act started when Addam's Family Uncle Fester sued his mother and business manager, step-father, for $4 million dollars of his earnings. He was only awarded $126,000. There was such an uproar that they passed a law for money to be placed in a trust for these child actors.

Jackie Coogan was born into a family of vaudevillians where his father was a dancer and his mother had been a child star. On the stage by four, Jackie was touring at the age of five with his family in Los Angeles, California.

While performing on the stage, he was spotted by Charles Chaplin, who then and there planned a movie in which he and Jackie would star. To test Jackie, Chaplin first gave him a small part in A Day's Pleasure (1919), which proved that he had a screen presence. The movie that Chaplin planned that day was The Kid (1921), where the Tramp would raise Jackie and then lose him. The movie was very successful and Jackie would play a child in a number of movies and tour with his father on the stage.

By 1923, when he made Daddy (1923), he was one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood. He would leave First National for MGM where they put him into Long Live the King (1923). By 1927, at the age of 13, Coogan had grown up on the screen and his career was starting to go through a downturn. His popular film career would end with the classic tales of Tom Sawyer (1930) and Huckleberry Finn (1931).

In 1935, his father died and his mother married Arthur Bernstein, who was his business manager. When he wanted the money that he made as a child star in the 1920s, his mother and stepfather refused his request and Jackie filed suit for the approximately $4 million that he had made. Under California law at the time, he had no rights to the money he made as a child, and he was awarded only $126,000 in 1939. Because of the public uproar, the California Legislature passed the Child Actors Bill, also known as the Coogan Act, which would set up a trust fund for any child actor and protect his earnings.

In 1937, Jackie married Betty Grable and the marriage lasted for three years. During World War II, he would serve in the army and return to Hollywood after the war. Unable to restart his career, he worked in B-movies, mostly in bit parts and usually playing the heavy. It was in the 1950s that he started appearing on television and he acted in as many shows as he could. By the 1960s, he would be in two completely different television series, but both were comedies. The first one was McKeever & the Colonel (1962), where he played Sgt. Barnes in a military school from 1962 to 1963. The second series was the classic The Addams Family (1964), where he played Uncle Fester opposite Gomez and Morticia from 1964 to 1966. After that, he would continue making appearances on a number of television shows and a handful of movies. He died of a heart attack in 1984.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tony Fontana <tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>


Coogan Law
OVERVIEW
At present, Coogan Accounts (a.k.a Blocked Trust Accounts and Trust Accounts) are required by the State of California, New York, Louisiana and New Mexico. In most instances, you will have to supply proof of a trust account prior to receiving a work permit. 15% of the minor’s gross wages are required to be withheld by the employer and deposited into the Coogan account within 15 days of employment. The parent must supply the Coogan account number to the employer.
History of the Coogan Law
The Coogan Law is named for famous child actor Jackie Coogan. Coogan was discovered in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin and soon after cast in the comedian’s famous film, The Kid. Jackie-mania was in full force during the 1920s, spawning a wave of merchandise dedicated to his image. It wasn’t until his 21st birthday after the death of his father and the dwindling of his film career that Jackie realized he was left with none of the earnings he had work so hard for as a child. Under California law at the time, the earnings of the minor belonged solely to the parent.
Coogan eventually sued his mother and former manager for his earnings. As a result, in 1939, the Coogan Law was put into effect, presumably to protect future young actors from finding themselves in the same terrible situation that Jackie Coogan was left in. Unfortunately, the 1939 incarnation of the Coogan Law was flawed, leaving open various loopholes and necessitating long term, court sanctioned contracts for validation.
The Current Coogan Law
After many years of advocating for more protections for child actors, SAG-AFTRA Young Performers Committee, National Policy and Planning Department and other industry groups were successful in closing many of the loopholes that made the original Coogan Law ineffective. In January 1, 2000, changes in California law affirmed that earnings by minors in the entertainment industry are the property of the minor, not their parents. Since a minor cannot legally control their own money, California Law governs their earnings and creates a fiduciary relationship between the parent and the child. This change in California law also requires that 15% of all minors’ earnings must be set aside in a blocked trust account commonly known as a Coogan Account.
Jackie Coogan
Jackie Coogan went on to recover a small portion of his earnings after battling his mother in court. He became well known on the small screen playing Uncle Fester on The Addams Family, and will always be remembered for the role his story played in protecting child actors from losing their earnings
REGIONAL DETAILS
California
Parents in CA are required to open a “Coogan” Account and must be opened with a CA bank. A Coogan Account is a special blocked trust fund account found at a bank, credit union or brokerage firm.
New York
Parents in NY are required to open up an UTMA or UGMA compliant trust account. This account is similar to the “Coogan,” but does not differ regarding rules of withdrawal. The account may be opened with any bank, in any state, as long as it meets UTMA or UGMA requirements.
Louisiana and New Mexico
Parents in LA are required to open a Blocked Trust Account with any bank, in any state. Parents in New Mexico are required to open a blocked trust account only if their child earns more than $1000 per each employment contract.
Please visit the Labor Department’s website in each state for more detailed information.
COOGAN TRUST ACCOUNTS
Not all banks offer Coogan Trust Accounts, and even some that do still have employees are not familiar with the term “Coogan Account”. Sometimes explaining that you are opening up a blocked trust account for your minor child will clear up confusion.
Below you will find a partial list of banks, credit unions and brokerage firms that offer Coogan/Trust Accounts. SAG-AFTRA provides this list for information purposes only and does not endorse any particular institution. These financial institutions each have different requirements for opening accounts. Some require a first paycheck to open the account, some a minimum deposit and the interest rates vary. It is important to compare financial institutions and find the best one for you and your child.
SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union
Actors Federal Credit Union
Bank of the West
City National Bank
First Entertainment Credit Union
Morgan Stanley/Smith Barney
Union Bank of California
Wells Fargo

Unlike traditional child performers, however, the children of YouTube are not currently subject to any psychological guidelines or legal protection.

In February 2015, the Department for Education updated their licensing legislation for child performance, but specified “this does not extend to user-generated content, for example where young people or a family record themselves and share it on a website or social media”.

The current legislation states that children should not perform for more than six consecutive days, and children aged five to nine should not perform continuously for more than 2.5 hours a day. But it does not extend to user-generated content – the children of YouTube, who are filmed day and night, seven days a week, are not protected. They are also not protected from taking part in meet-and-greets and signings with fans at events such as VidCon, which have been known to last up to eight hours at a time.

When asked why the regulations do not apply to YouTubers, a Department of Education spokesperson said: “We trust parents to act in the best interests of their children.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/16/youtube-stars-vlogging-child-safety-sacconejolys-katie-and-baby

These YouTube kids have no say so in what's being uploaded. Do they have a say in the purchasing of a new house? Parent quitting their 9-5 job? New sports car for the parent? New drone? I'm sure many things are sent to these bigger YouTubers for free, but at what price?

A few months back I found a bunch of Mommy vloggers switching things up to only grocery hauls, cleaning routines, or Q and A's. They were noticing if they filmed a kid in a diaper the views were higher than a video about a trending topic. They also were looking at the locations of the watcher and the male viewership was rising.

We can't protect our kids from everything, but we can be aware of the dangers. Everything is a teachable moment. And with this DaddyO'Five situation, I hope that this moment is eye opening for many YouTubers and Twitch users. It's not OK to treat your children like they are in the Jackass movies. Prank channels are fun. Fire crackers in the bed to wake you up and smoke out the house is a bit too much for me, but I don't like loud noises. Tossing my kid over the balcony Roman Atwood prank, he would have ended that vlog by showing me pepper spraying his face for scaring the crap out of me.

Just as horror movies aren't for everyone .. certain YouTube channels aren't for everyone. Use discretion when choosing who you support on YouTube. Speak up if you notice things aren't right on someone's channel.
Animal abuse, child abuse, elder abuse.. we see these things happening on the news constantly, people in helpless situations need help.

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1. Go to the video you'd like to report.
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1. Log in to your YouTube account.
2. Below the player for the video you want to flag, click More.
3. In the drop-down menu, choose Report.
4. Select the reason for flagging that best fits the violation in the video.
5. Provide any additional details that may help the review team make their decision including timestamps or descriptions of the violation.