Key Points:

• Arizona law may require parents to set aside YouTube earnings for their kids

• Under the proposed law, half of the revenue generated must be put into special trust accounts

• Law would also allow children to request videos be removed from public platforms at age 18

Parents who make money from their kids through YouTube videos may soon be required by Arizona law to set aside some of that money for their kids.

Without dissent, the House Commerce Committee approved legislation on Jan. 27 to require that half of the revenues generated by young digital creators be placed in special trust accounts, off-limits to their parents. And the children can access those dollars upon turning 18.

And it even permits those at least 13 years old who produce their own videos and have set up their own revenue stream to keep all the money for themselves.

Rep. Julie Willoughby said the legislation is designed to address the fact that online videos by “influencers” have spread rapidly. This includes not just those who are compensated by platforms like YouTube based on the number of “clicks” but also arrangements with third parties that pay when their products are featured.

The idea by the Chandler Republican is not new. In fact, it already exists in federal law for commercial productions like movies and TV shows through something called the Coogan Law.

Named after child star Jackie Coogan, who said his mother and stepfather spent all the money he earned, it requires 15% of what’s earned to be placed in a “blocked account,” inaccessible to either parent or the child until age 18.

HB2192 has the blessing of Google, YouTube’s parent company. Lobbyist Colin Larson pointed out to members of the House Commerce Committee that this doesn’t apply when someone simply posts a video featuring a child.

“These are primarily children and their adults and legal guardians that are working as influencers,” he said.

In the case of YouTube, the company offers a share of the revenue it generates from the number of times a video is viewed when an advertiser wants to place an ad.

“But you also may be getting a sponsorship deal to feature a product,” Larson said.

One such case is Ryan Kaji, who has starred for years, beginning at age 3, in “Ryan’s World.” Produced since 2017 by parents Shioh and Loann, it featured the boy opening boxes and playing with toys, with payments to the family from the makers of those products.

At one point, according to media reports, his channel had close to 40 million subscribers. And Forbes last year listed him as one of the “top creators” with earnings of $35 million.

What this legislation would do, Larson told lawmakers, is set up some rules for how this would occur in Arizona in the future.

“Once a parent has said, ‘Yes, Hasbro, we’re going to take $10,000 so your Peppa Pig toy can be unboxed in this very popular channel,’ then, when that money is given to that parent … it’s just incumbent that once that money is transferred to the parent that the parent has to then, under the terms of the trust, put that 50% aside into that trust,” Larson said.

What the new proposal would do, he said, is enshrine all this into state law.

He said that other states like California have set up similar requirements.

“This law, this model legislation, has actually already been passed in Utah, Illinois, Arkansas,” Larson said, with Colorado lawmakers scheduled to hear the idea. “I suspect this is very much a national standard, which is the idea that there’s consistency across the states.”

But Larson also made it clear that it wouldn’t be Google, YouTube or any other platform that would be responsible for policing all this to ensure that kids get what they are due.

“It would fall on the content creator — in this case, the parent — to understand that this is an applicable law,” he said, and is triggered when certain thresholds are met.

Under HB2192, the mandate for a set-aside would take effect when at least 30% of the content created by someone in the prior month includes the child’s likeness, name or photograph. There also are also some financial conditions, such as that a content creator earns at least 10 cents per view and has earned at least $15,000 from the video in the prior 12 months.

“This is not going to capture a casual person who created a single piece of content that went viral,” Larson said.

“This is somebody who is really working at this several hours a week,” he said. “This is not something that you would accidentally fall into.”

There are some other provisions beyond compensation.

One states that, at age 18, children can decide they no longer want videos taken of them to be publicly available and require that whoever owns the content take them down.

Under the bill’s terms, the request would be made to the hosting platform, which would inform the content creator. And if that person doesn’t respond, the website could remove it and the person in the videos could sue.

But there is an exception: The online platform could ignore the request if it determines that the video content “is sufficiently newsworthy or of other public interest that outweighs the privacy interests of the minor involved.”

Finally, there’s a whole section to prohibit anyone from benefiting from knowingly or intentionally producing images of a minor “with the intent to sexually gratify or elicit a sexual response.”

“This is an unfortunate dark side of child influencing,” Larson said.

What it involves, he explained, are videos that do not cross the legal line into pornography.

“This would be something like a 14-year-old in her bathing suit — but clearly designed to appeal to prurient interest,” Larson said. And the law would give the affected minor the right to sue for damages.