Whatever Happened To Dave Volsky?
Don't believe the conspiracy theories
Whatever Happened To Dave Volsky?
Around a month and a half ago, the YouTube channel Dave Volsky’s Back Door mysteriously shut down. It now appears to be gone for good.
If you aren’t aware, Dave Volsky is an active member of the trading community well known for making very high quality upscale versions of old football games. If you haven’t seen his upscaled versions of classic 1970s games, you’re really missing out. His versions not only breathe new life into old and decaying video tapes, but actually make the games look better than they would have looked live.
Volsky uploaded a few hundred upscaled versions of old games before his channel went under. Most were football games, though he did occasionally do a basketball or hockey game here or there. Volsky also specialized in restoring NFL Films content in high definition, and has been known for years in the community for his dedication to the glory days of NFL Films.
Conspiracy theories about why Volsky’s channel went down abound. This Professional Football Researchers Association Forum thread is an excellent compilation of what most people think about the subject.
But I’m here to tell you that they’re wrong. I don’t believe that there’s a conspiracy against Volsky, nor do I believe that the NFL would have ever wanted to take his channel down.
Let me explain.
How Copyrighted Content On YouTube Works
First of all, the NFL had absolutely no incentive to take Volsky down.
This is because the NFL was actually making money from his content.
Now, I know that most people don’t run a YouTube channel. Most of you who do run a YouTube channel have probably never dealt with copyrighted material on a regular basis. That helps account for some of the confusion on this topic.
If you upload a video to YouTube that contains content flagged by YouTube’s Content ID system, YouTube will automatically turn any advertising revenue that your video generates over to the copyright holder.
This happens automatically, with no input needed on the part of the copyright holder. This also happens even if your channel is not monetized.
See — the thing about YouTube is that all videos wind up with advertisements, regardless of the monetization status of the channel. Getting your 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 subscribers merely enables you to receive a portion of that advertising revenue. And the money will flow in — provided, of course, that Content ID doesn’t flag your stuff.
Content ID is pretty advanced stuff, and, in my experience, it really doesn’t miss. Some clips seem to be flagged based on audio. Other clips, however, will be flagged even if you mute the audio and replace it with another track. And YouTube’s database is absolutely filled with famous historic NFL moments, including multiple moments that come from Volsky’s enhanced videos.
I don’t know if Volsky’s channel was monetized or not. Based on the YouTube guidelines, I strongly suspect that it was not. But this doesn’t mean that the NFL would have taken his content down. The truth is that the NFL was making money from every single one of his NFL related videos — and, contrary to what you may read on message boards, the NFL thus had a pretty strong incentive to let his channel remain.
Old Broadcasts Aren’t Worth Fighting Over
The other thing that conspiracy theorists tend to misunderstand is that broadcasts of old sporting events are generally not worth much.
As you may or may not know, there is a huge market out there featuring old sports broadcasts in digitized form. I’ve been part of the community for nearly 30 years now, and am quite familiar with how it works and the sort of content available.
The digital era completely revolutionized the supply of these games. While multi-generational VHS copies of old broadcasts tend to deteriorate with each successive generation, digital copies don’t degrade regardless of how many times you copy them. In other words, buying a copy of an old San Francisco 49ers game from some guy online means that you, too, can now trade or sell copies of that game as well.
When you add in the world of BitTorrent, Usenet, YouTube, and other ways in which these games spread, you’ll quickly realize that this stuff is everywhere.
Each of the major sports leagues has tried to monetize its back catalog over time. None of the leagues has had much success in doing so.
Part of the problem has to do with rights, by the way. The NFL does not own the rights to every broadcast of every NFL game. Many of the rights were originally held by the broadcasting station. In some cases, those stations want a higher share of the proceeds of potential DVD sales of old games than the NFL is willing to give up. This is why products like the now obscure complete 1985 Chicago Bears box set were missing key games.
Part of the problem has to do with lack of consumer interest. Though Dave Volsky managed to get over 35,000 subscribers on YouTube before pulling the plug, the truth is that the market for old games is actually quite limited. Most people want to watch today’s game — and, as a result, most professional sports leagues spend their time fighting online streaming, not random people uploading old games onto YouTube.
And part of the problem is that the official product simply can’t compete.
When DVD copies of old games started popping up around 2001, most dealers charged $5 per game, shipping costs included. This was a huge discount from the $20+ most people charged per game for stuff on VHS.
Nearly 25 years later, after tons of inflation and economic uncertainty, the price remains the same: about $5 per game.
Major League Baseball discovered that its World Series sets with A&E couldn’t compete against $5 per game. The National Basketball Association learned the same thing after it created its team specific box sets.
The truth is that the bootleg broadcasts tend to feature things that viewers actually want. Those of us who spend a lot of time watching old games tend to want to see original commercials. We tend to want to see controversial bits that commercial products tend to edit out, such as the famous brawl near the end of game 5 of the 1976 NBA Finals. We like to pretend that we’re rewatching the original game as it aired, as if we went through a time machine and wound up back in 1972.
Where Dave Volsky Might Reemerge
If you get past the conspiracy theories and look at reality, you’ll realize that Volsky has gone through this type of thing before. His older channel disappeared in 2020, right before COVID hit its height.
I’m sure that he’ll be back again, though we’ll see what platform he shows up on.
If Volsky understands the market, he’ll create a Patreon page of some sort, and will share high quality (and very large) versions of his upscaled creations with his subscribers. File lockers are cheap and easy to use, and it’s trivial to create a system in which subscribers are rewarded for paying a little bit extra each month. This would enable Volsky to finally monetize his work — something that he honestly never has been able to do on YouTube.
However, I don’t think that’s what is really happening.
I suspect that Volsky might actually be working with NFL Films.
It turns out that Topaz AI isn’t exactly the easiest software in the world to use. Volsky has been at this for years now, and has demonstrated considerable proficiency in taking even the worst looking originals and turning them into something at least acceptable.
I would not be surprised if NFL Films finally decided that the weird guy who kept uploading old and out of date footage might have the ability to refresh its back catalog and make it relevant again. After all, if I were a manager at NFL Films, I’d want to hire somebody with that level of dedication and ability.
Either way, I’m convinced that Volsky deleted his own channel. The fact that his channel has not left even a trace is strong evidence in itself that he did not face a copystrike. When you understand how Content ID actually works, you’ll realize that the NFL had no reason to attack his channel.
So stop with the conspiracy theories.