People who earn a living by producing videos and taking a share of YouTube’s ad revenue from them have a problem: YouTube’s ad sales system also incentivizes people to steal those videos and re-upload them on their own accounts. YouTube now hopes to slow those thieves down by requiring a new channel to have 10,000 total views before it can put advertising on any of its videos.

YouTube is hoping to cut down on the proliferation of copycats and opportunists looking to make a quick ad buck off someone else’s video. If you’ve ever searched for a viral video on the site and found countless identical copies — those are the people YouTube doesn’t want to reward with ad money.

After a channel reaches a total of 10,000 views, the owner can submit it to Google-owned YouTube for admission into the advertising program, which is called the YouTube Partner Program.

“After a creator hits 10k lifetime views on their channel, we’ll review their activity against our policies,” YouTube explained in its announcement. “If everything looks good, we’ll bring this channel into YPP and begin serving ads against their content.”

The change is part of a site-wide overhaul of advertising practices after major brands like McDonald’s learned that their ads were running on videos that were popular, but had content that was anti-Semitic or homophobic.

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