tl;dr summary: My Damn Channel is under a lot of heat upon the departure of arguably their most prized talent: Grace Helbig. Fans of Helbig are revealing their fangs against My Damn Channel, accusing them of unrightfully holding on to Grace’s channel, when really, DailyGrace was created by My Damn Channel for Grace.
In case you didn’t know, the YouTube world reacted quite a bit to Grace Helbig (also known as DailyGrace) ending her business relationship with My Damn Channel. People are upset with this because they feel the DailyGrace channel, which currently has over 2 million subscribers, is no longer Grace’s. Now, it seems My Damn Channel is being painted as the villain in all this, kicking Grace to the curb after all she’s done for them and keeping the DailyGrace channel for themselves. Now, Grace will continue posting new content on her much smaller channel, graciehinabox, while DailyGrace will be a place for My Damn Channel to upload reruns of classic DailyGrace videos. All caught up? Good.
I want to start off by saying that I absolutely adore Grace Helbig, and DailyGrace is what really got me into the world of YouTube, YouTubers, and all that good stuff. I am one of those people who is a bit sad that Grace doesn’t get to keep the channel that she helped build into the megachannel it is today. However, I do not think My Damn Channel deserves all the negativity they seem to be getting from the YouTube community.
The graciehinabox channel is over 7 years old. It was Grace’s personal channel before DailyGrace even existed. The DailyGrace channel is a little over 3 years old. My Damn Channel saw something special in Grace and gave her a job, which involved her own show, Daily Grace. This includes the show’s format that we know and love (Commenting on Comments, Sexy Fridays, etc.) They created the DailyGrace channel for her, and it just so happened that Daily Grace on YouTube performed better than it did on My Damn Channel (Daily Grace videos are posted on My Damn Channel first). This is probably why most people think of the DailyGrace channel as Grace’s personal channel, since she’s pretty much the only one on it.
However, My Damn Channel has every right to keep DailyGrace after Grace decided not to continue her partnership with them, seeing as DailyGrace was created by them for Grace. I think the only way for Grace to have the channel as her own personal channel is if Grace bought the channel from My Damn Channel, which I probably wouldn’t do if I were in Grace’s position. It can be argued that My Damn Channel could just give the channel to Grace as a gift for all that she’s done for them, but seeing as all the content on DailyGrace is branded as My Damn Channel content, I’m sure there are a lot of legal issues that go with transferring a channel that brings in so much revenue (that My Damn Channel is rightfully entitled to.)
Thinking of the situation in the context of traditional media helps me put it into perspective. Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood became successful because of American Idol, but they don’t own the show, even though they have the title of “American Idols.” The two ladies helped bring viewers to American Idol and FOX, as the network, but they wouldn’t be anywhere without American Idol’s help. Would Grace Helbig have been as successful of a YouTuber if she stuck with graciehinabox and Daily Grace never happened? Sure, Grace has a great personality and she could’ve done it by herself. But when it comes down to it, Daily Grace is a show that helped bring the success Grace has now, and Daily Grace wouldn’t exist without My Damn Channel.
Again, I love Grace dearly and she will always be one of my favorite YouTubers. I will miss the Daily Grace format, and probably will unsubscribe to the DailyGrace channel because if I wanted to see vintage episodes, I’d look them up myself instead of having them appear in my sub feed. I do wish Grace all the success on the graciehinabox channel, even without the Daily Grace format. There are a lot of feelings that come with this change, but I think people need to put this whole situation into perspective before it turns uglier than it already has become.
AldyWaldy 
The details of the contract will never be revealed, but I think they were probably pretty fair until Grace had the breakout year in 2013. However, Grace knew it was the last year of her contract and she would either renegotiate a more realistic deal, or leave MDC completely and DailyGrace would end. That is standard business.
But what is upsetting is that MDC used a silence clause in the contract to effectively prevent her from mentioning leaving or saying goodbye. I don’t believe Grace ever considered MDC posting re-runs in a seamless manner designed to deceive casual subscribers that it’s business as usual. There is no clue on the YouTube page that she even left. They are moderating all chat, and deleting any post that references it. It is a under-handed and dirty way to treat your star employee, and now the reputation of MDC is trashed in a very public forum.
In her last regular DailyGrace video (“SEE YOU NEXT YEAR”), didn’t she state that she was leaving? I believe this was her sign off video, and she thanked My Damn Channel for the time she spent with them.
She stated that she would be going on vacation “only for one week” and would be back making web videos on the 6th.
Go post a comment of “Good luck on your new channel Grace” to that video and see what happens to your comment. MDC definitely is trying to hide the fact that she is no longer there.