https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/self-hosting-your-own-media-considered-harmful Skip to main content Jeff Geerling Main menu * Merch * About * Blog * Projects Self-hosting your own media considered harmful (updated) June 5, 2025 I just received my second community guidelines violation for my video demonstrating the use of LibreELEC on a Raspberry Pi 5, for 4K video playback. Community Guidelines Strike - YouTube I purposefully avoid demonstrating any of the tools (with a suffix that rhymes with "car") that are popularly used to circumvent purchasing movie, TV, and other media content, or any tools that automatically slurp up YouTube content. In fact, in my own house, for multiple decades, I've purchased physical media (CDs, DVDs, and more recently, Blu-Rays), and only have legally-acquired content on my NAS. Streaming services used to be a panacea but are now fragmented and mostly full of garbage--and lots of ads. We just wanted to be able to watch TV shows and movies without hassle (and I'm happy to pay for physical media that I want to watch). But this morning, as I was finishing up work on a video about a new mini Pi cluster, I got a cheerful email from YouTube saying my video on LibreELEC on the Pi 5 (here's the original YouTube link - now dead ) was removed because it promoted: Dangerous or Harmful Content Content that describes how to get unauthorized or free access to audio or audiovisual content, software, subscription services, or games that usually require payment isn't allowed on YouTube. I never described any of that stuff, only how to self-host your own media library. Update (one day later): YouTube has just reinstated the video, after what I presume is a human review process. I wish it didn't take making noise on socials to get past the 'AI deny' process :( Go forth, and self-host all the things! I'll post further updates in this issue in my YouTube project. This wasn't my first rodeo--in October last year, I got a strike for showing people how to install Jellyfin! In that case, I was happy to see my appeal granted within an hour of the strike being placed on the channel. (Nevermind the fact the video had been live for over two years at that point, with nary a problem!) So I thought, this case will be similar: * The video's been up for over a year, without issue * The video's had over a million views * The video doesn't promote or highlight any tools used to circumvent copyright, get around paid subscriptions, or reproduce any content illegally Slam-dunk, right? Well, not according to whomever reviewed my appeal. Apparently self-hosted open source media library management is harmful. Who knew open source software could be so subversive? The video So along that theme, I've re-uploaded the video to Internet Archive, free for anyone to download and view at their leisure. Yes, even those rebels running LibreELEC on their Raspberry Pis! Here it is: LibreELEC on the Raspberry Pi 5 - Internet Archive. LibreELEC on Pi 5 video thumbnail with play button I've also uploaded it on Floatplane, for subscribers. Alternatives I've been slowly uploading my back catalog to my channel on Floatplane, though not all my content is there yet. Some in the fediverse ask why I'm not on Peertube. Here's the problem (and it's not insurmountable): right now, there's no easy path towards sustainable content production when the audience for the content is 100x smaller, and the number of patrons/sponsors remains proportionally the same. I was never able to sustain my open source work based on patronage, and content production is the same--just more expensive to maintain to any standard (each video takes between 10-300 hours to produce, and I have a family to feed, and US health insurance companies to fund). YouTube was, and still is, a creative anomaly. I'm hugely thankful to my Patreon, GitHub, and Floatplane supporters--and I hope to have direct funding fully able to support my work someday. But until that time, YouTube's AdSense revenue and vast reach is a kind of 'golden handcuff.' The handcuff has been a bit tarnished of late, however, with Google recently adding AI summaries to videos--which seems to indicate maybe Gemini is slurping up my content and using it in their AI models? Maybe the handcuffs are fools-gold, and I just don't see it yet. Further reading * YouTube scares me; I need RAID 1 for my video content * Streaming services lost the plot * Can the Raspberry Pi 5 handle 4K? youtube video content guidelines open source libreelec jellyfin * Add new comment Comments Pawel Kraszewski - 18 hours ago Unless Youtube starts to actively combat false claims by external entities, nothing's going to change, unfortunately. The way is simple: * claims are public, with traceable origin. * on 3rd false claim company is banned for a year and pays out of its own pocket 5x the estimated lost revenue of hit creators. Full data of false claimer is displayed under the restored video for a month. False claims MUST start to hurt. * Reply Basil Mohamed Gohar - 16 hours ago In reply to Unless Youtube starts to... by Pawel Kraszewski This simple method is not conducive to the goals of the specific copyright owners, i.e., big media companies, it was setup to appease. They are the ones that threatened Google (now Alphabet) with major lawsuits if they did not provide a means for takedown of *their* copyrighted content. They don't care if there are a lot of false positives, and those that do pose little threat to Alphabet in comparison to the big media companies. So, just remember, always, these rules are not for you and me, they're for the powerful that already wield influence that can threaten the cooperating companies. We are just rounding error compared to that. * Reply Jeroen - 10 hours ago In reply to This simple method is not... by Basil Mohamed Gohar Exactly. Don't forget: YouTube's customers are the advertisers, YouTube's product is our time and attention. The video's created by the content creators are merely the mechanism they use to harvest our attention. YouTube's goal is to maximize ad revenue, which does not necessarily imply treating content creators well. * Reply schnarf belson - 8 hours ago In reply to This simple method is not... by Basil Mohamed Gohar Yah, that's the problem, but it's bigger than that. The current system is only there to appease the dirty, dirty content monopolists/ cartels because they abused political power to get laws that make it that way. We need to make sure our representatives in government know this issue is a top 5 issue for the majority of people and it will cost them primaries and/or elections in order to get the laws changed. If we can convince them this will cost them elections then we can start pushing laws back from insanity toward accomplishing what a real copyright system should accomplish (increase content production with the minimum possible impact on a free market outcome. In this case the marginal cost of production of all content is effectively zero, which results in a drastically different output of new content than we currently have. To get the output levels we have right now I don't think we need all the draconian BS and long terms though. I don't think year 21 to year 100+ of the copyright term are considered at all when funding the next blockbuster, or writing the next great song/book/whatever, so cut the term seems pretty obvious, which would drop a ton of awesome old content into the public domain giving much more legitimate usage reasons to all these opensource projects. next thing would be reciprocity in any enforcement mechanism as described by the original comment and reigning in the draconian privacy invasions in the current laws. This would drastically improve everything except the balance sheet of a bunch of lazy, rent seeking eh holes. * Reply Anonymous - 6 hours ago In reply to This simple method is not... by Basil Mohamed Gohar Thanks captain * Reply Le tribunal - 16 hours ago In reply to Unless Youtube starts to... by Pawel Kraszewski The only false claim here is Alphabet/Google/Youtube. Should have been dismantled long time ago. Antitrust makes strides this year, which is encouraging. * Reply Katie b - 4 hours ago In reply to The only false claim here is... by Le tribunal what have I missed that would make one believe antitrust is making strides this year? * Reply EB - 10 min ago In reply to what have I missed that... by Katie b Google has lost 3 antitrust cases this year. One against Epic Games, one on whether they are a search monopolist, and one on whether they are a monopolist in the advertising space. These are now moving to the remedy portion. They could get away with stuff thanks to some presidential interference, but the remedies the FTC asked for are no joke! Worth checking out Big Tech on Trial, they've also had great coverage of the Facebook antitrust case, which really does not seem to be going Zuck's way. * Reply rstat1 - 4 hours ago In reply to Unless Youtube starts to... by Pawel Kraszewski Lets add "no automated claims" to that list as well. If you're gonna make a copyright claim it should be done by a human When it comes to DMCA claims at least, making false claims is already illegal and always has been. The problem is, the onus is on the entity the claim is against to pursue it and no one ever does. * Reply Robert - 16 min ago In reply to Lets add "no automated... by rstat1 The law gives the lawyer who files the DMCA notice a "good faith" exemption, and they can say "the client gave me this spreadsheet, and I accepted it." * Reply CNXSoft - 15 hours ago Kodi (XBMC) has had bad press in the past because of plugins enabling piracy. Those are not installed by default, and Kodi is clean in that regard, but many TV box resellers used to install such plugins, promising access to hundreds of thousands of videos. So many people (and authorities) ended up associating Kodi and derivatives with piracy. I agree that by that standard, Windows 11 can be considered a piracy-enabling tool because it can be used to install software to download pirated movies. But it is what it is... * Reply Asymmetrical - 15 hours ago Thank you for your insight! Keep up the good work Jeff! You are one of the good ones. * Reply Kevin - 15 hours ago Uploading your video to the Internet Archive is deliciously ironic :D I wish I could migrate off YouTube, but all the content creators I watch are there and mostly nowhere else. Peertube seems to have all the Federation issues that Mastadon and Matrix have, except lack of discoverability is even more problematic. Plus the massive storage costs. * Reply Cinos - 13 hours ago As you invite people to host their own multimedia files, why not considering hosting your videos on a self-host peertube instance and then make a video about it? * Reply LF - 10 hours ago In reply to As you invite people to host... by Cinos It's not the same self hosting for me, than self hosting for others. I have a NAS and I can watch content in 4K on my own network and 1080p over the internet while I'm the only one viewing. In order to host for others, I will need more cpu power and bandwidth that's not cheap or sustainable without a business like YouTube Ads behind. * Reply Belugaking - 13 hours ago Just a small suggestion Jeff, could you try syncing your channel with Odysee? Any videos you upload on YouTube will automatically sync with it, that way if YouTube takes down a video viewers can still find it on that platform. Odysee doesn't seem to have the same problems as YouTube. * Reply Jeroen - 11 hours ago Serious question: I have looked at Floatplane, and would love to use it, but I don't see a way to justify $5 a month for single channel. I mean, I am subscribed to 177 channels on YouTube. Even if I would refine that to just the top 25% of channels, I would still have to spend over $220 a MONTH to watch them on Floatplane (assuming they would all be on there of course). I hope I don't come across as cheap or something because I realize making those video's is a lot of work, it just feels like $5 / month / channel is in a different league compared to anything else out there (Nebula: $6 / month for ALL channels, YouTube Premium: $14 / month, etc). Or am I simply misunderstanding how this works? * Reply Jeff Geerling - 10 hours ago In reply to Serious question: I have... by Jeroen That is indeed the tough thing about Floatplane's model. And a very common and valid criticism. Though it's also probably the main reason it's sustainable while other platforms have come and gone. Not to say it's good or has nearly the same overall reach. If YouTube went away, I'd still try to find another platform to host the videos in a non-pay-to-view manner. * Reply Anonymous - 10 hours ago Post your videos on Rumble. Lack of competition for YouTube causes a them to have power and a monopoly. Competition removes this power. Rumble has gone publicly traded. They have become a peer to YouTube. Smaller. Their ads keep them profitable for the long-term, so accept their ads being not quite as smooth as YouTube as the cost of preventing being censored. Or from YouTube being able to have power of what is allowed to be communicated. Keep creating your videos. Keep supporting these projects. We need them. I'm finding historically critical videos disappear from the internet. There was one interview with Jack Dorsey that he was threatened that if he didn't allow censorship rollout over twitter, that he felt (or was told?) they would remove twitter from the mobile app stores and kill it. Do you want to see that interview? It has been scrubbed off of the internet. This happens with many key videos in history. We need a FileCoin IPFS way to use open source blockchain way to keep these videos forever. Even beyond the lifetime of any author, owner or company. LibreELEC and JellyFin can be the open source part of making them easy to retrieve and watch. Open source for freedom. Blockchain for publishing freedom. Controlling information is their weapon. Protecting freedom for information spread keeps all other freedoms protected (and defendable). * Reply OhYeah - 5 hours ago In reply to Post your videos on Rumble... by Anonymous Yes, this. Post to Rumble. * Reply Anonymous Penguin - 4 hours ago In reply to Post your videos on Rumble... by Anonymous That's unfortunate about rumble going public. They must now bow to shareholders which is what drove YouTube off a cliff. They must hold shareholder value above all else, known as "shareholder primacy." If Hollywood comes knocking with a C&D, they aren't taking your side. I guess I need to post more here to get around the silly spam filter. Who likes technology? I love technology, and this clean talk service is super swell. * Reply cvan - 4 hours ago In reply to Post your videos on Rumble... by Anonymous I'm not sure what posting to rumble would solve? Rumble is a public company, so like youtube they'll bend to big companies against you without a second thought. It's just putting on a second pair of golden handcuffs. * Reply Matthias Wandel - 8 hours ago Thanks for mentioning the google gemini summaries. There are a lot of videos that are about really one thing that could be summarized in 25 words or less. I'm curious, but the videos are 10 or more minutes long (presumably to monetize better). I used to use a free service for that but it stopped working, and all the other summarizing services I found either don't work or require a monthly subscription. Having google gemini do it is very useful. I know, sucks for creators. But make videos that are full of stuff, not a 25 word topic spread out over 15 minutes. Your videos are good that way, not tempted to AI summarize yours. * Reply EddieT - 8 hours ago Here is the problem, until the rigs start to mske things more affordable for average joe. At this time piracy is going to never end. Subscriptions to multiple services taking some one jard earn cash then offering crap is not the way to do. Ie, piracy is not going away anytine soon. It want to stop piracy make so people can have a convenient place yo get their content and pay $15 multiply 5. * Reply Yewtube - 8 hours ago I find it funny that a video about self-hosting your own media is considered dangerous and/or harmful, but countless videos/livestreams impersonating celebrities and pushing crypto scams are still going strong since 2020. * Reply servers@home - 7 hours ago As a fellow YouTuber I feel your pain. YouTube has got an indiscriminate way of deciding what "harmful" content is. It's very hard to have a successful channel with a moving target in what is ok and what is not, even with videos which have been up for years without issue. I fear YouTube will be like other big companies we abandon by self hosting or go to the fediverse. What a loss.... * Reply Googol Leo - 7 hours ago Harmful eh? Let's see what Google's own Gemini Flash 2.5 has to say about it: > How can I self host my own media on LibreELEC on a Pi 5? Sure, here's how you can self-host your own media on LibreELEC on a Raspberry Pi 5. What you'll need: Raspberry Pi 5, A microSD card[...] Steps: 1. Install LibreELEC on your microSD card Download LibreELEC: Go to the official LibreELEC website (https:// libreelec.tv/downloads/) and download the disk image for Raspberry Pi 5. Make sure you select the correct version. Flash the image[...] 2. Initial Setup of LibreELEC on your Pi 5 [...] 3. Connect and Configure your External Storage [...] 4. Transfer Your Media Files[...] 5. Add Media Sources in Kodi [...] 6. Enjoy Your Media! Once the scanning is complete, your media will be beautifully organized in your Kodi library,[...] [...]By following these steps, you'll have a robust and flexible self-hosted media center running on your Raspberry Pi 5 with LibreELEC! *** The unedited response is 927 words long *** If it was actually harmful or illegal I would think that Gemini itself has a problem * Reply King - 7 hours ago Golden handcuffs to a corp that will delete your channel with one more arbitrary stike? This is a golden noose and you need to get out of there. * Reply Mark Lindsay - 7 hours ago With all of the ads, even in paid for video streaming services, and the fragmenting into so many different services it feels like a slow reversion to old school TV. Even Prime Video now has "Now Playing" selections. Perhaps the key to self hosted video content will be a leaner model of hosting one constant stream rather than an enormous amount of individual streams. Make open source software so anyone can do it. Then provide a thin service on top to assist with discovery, aggregation, monetization, etc. It doesn't take a microcontroller to blink an LED. Often the most efficient way to do something is the way we used to do it. Convenience is often the excuse to provide less when we could provide more, but providing more doesn't make more money. * Reply NightHawk-ATL - 7 hours ago You know that it is more about the parent company (Google) that doesn't like people self-hosting because they want all of our data to sell and we continue to get targeted ads. It is akin to us trying to go "off-grid" digitally as to not be tracked or have our data mined and shared. Self-hosting is harmful, but not to us. It is harmful to Google and any other monopolistic tech giant. * Reply disco - 6 hours ago chatgpt is similarly censoring advice on self hosting. i was recently doing some research on plex and jellyfin alternatives, self hosting music, etc. and it refused to answer some topics. * Reply ashlar - 6 hours ago I long for the day when someone will take them to court over crap like this. Keep up the good work. * Reply Anonymous - 6 hours ago Please put your videos on nostr as well, so that this stuff doesn't happen * Reply A Non-Moose - 1 hour ago In reply to Please put your videos on... by Anonymous Posting to nostr is like hanging out in a nazi bar. * Reply Eric H - 5 hours ago That's rich coming from them. "Dangerous content", yet I see massively misleading and scam ads on their service every time. Heat up your car from freezing to 70 for free type crap. Things that are so abundantly fraudulent that you'd have to be in on it or lack a 2nd grade education to not see it. I report those ads and I still see them for weeks. I'm sure it has nothing to do with getting paid... ha. * Reply Nicolay - 5 hours ago You should upload to or stand up your own Peertube instance as a low-effort backup source. Not a replacement of YouTube. Something that shows up when people look for your content in a search engine. Put AdSense on it too. * Reply HAC - 5 hours ago So, when Youtube is the new Music Labels of 2000, how do we democratize it? P2P-like ad-services. A competitive distributed way to finance small providers, that's cheaper for advertisers, and ensures both a wide community of watchers that prefer free content within a reasonable ad ratio and a wide ad-provider network. * Reply dave x - 5 hours ago The video refers to info in the description below that doesn't appear to be in th IA description. * Reply ilyag - 4 hours ago Thank you so much for this article. I appreciate you exposing the issue, even as a huge fan of YouTube, and sympathetic to their problems as a very large entity (which makes it difficult to address individual cases and systemic problems). I also want to test out your commenting system, which seems really cool. * Reply artie-finkelstein - 4 hours ago It would be nice if the You-tube comment details were attached to the Internet Archive posting * Reply Jeff Geerling - 4 hours ago In reply to It would be nice if the You... by artie-finkelstein That's one thing that hurts the most for me -- unlike I guess some YouTube channels, there's a ton of great information shared in the comments, and I hate giving any of that up. Similar to this blog, comments often have 10x better content than the original post :) * Reply Katie b - 4 hours ago just like on Instagram it's probably either terrible auto moderation algorithms or groups of motivated individuals mass report content they don't like or they feel threatens a status quo. lost plenty of Instagram accounts for not violating guidelines but still getting punished for saying things that don't support current heirarchies * Reply George Anagnostou - 3 hours ago Oh boy! What else am I going to see? How about taking down videos that describe how to setup Samba shares? Since one can use that with Kodi, why not take it down as well? We can all thank the bold and beautiful person that reported the videos, I guess. * Reply Syle - 1 hour ago Solution is simple, host your videos on your own server with nginx or peertube etc. If a video gets banned, link to it in your other videos on YouTube. There is no point fighting or adding stress to your life, give them the 1 strike policy and move video over. * Reply Search [ ] [Search] Geerling Family Crest All content copyright Jeff Geerling. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Top of page.