I’ve been trying in relative vain to figure out how I feel about people reacting to my content. I’ve had enough success that YouTubers and streamers alike have published reactions to my content.
These reactions don’t fall under fair use or fair dealing in most cases, so legally they’re pretty grey. I’ve seen some reaction channels which I think could reasonably class their content as transformative, not only reacting to one piece of content but also cross-referencing it with other relevant bits of information and sometimes anecdotes to present a wider degree of information.
However, I’ve also seen some channels which fail to build on the source material. I’ve seen videos of streamers leaving a video playing while taking a break from the stream or sitting in silence for minutes while letting content play. I’ve had people read my content verbatim without any input of their own. I’ve also seen people butcher my work by failing to fully read or comprehend it, such that they critique my work in front of their followers without having done due diligence.
I’ve never seen any evidence of significant traffic to my site from video hosting sites, indicating that the people who watch reaction content don’t generally follow the links to view the source content themselves. Why would they? What have they to gain from visiting the source when they’ve just been exposed to the content in full via another medium?
I think that, in the majority of cases, the original creator should be consulted before their content is reacted to. If you do try to have the content taken down for infringement, influencer culture means that it can backfire by stirring up quite the drama, even if you’re in the right.