You can’t escape them. Many people are drawn to them. Viral videos have become hotter than ever. One American company has capitalized on this by helping creators license their videos. 

Michelle Smith is a tour guide at the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center. Her job is to make the 16 wolves roaming the sanctuary grounds in the Colorado mountains a little more familiar to humans.

One day, in late 2014, Smith's co-worker snuggled with a wolf named Kekoa.

“I decided to start recording her. And of course she got a whole bunch of great kisses and it was a really beautiful day. It was snowy, it was kind of cold,” Smith said.

She uploaded the video to Facebook and YouTube and got an instant reaction with several million views.

Then a re-edited version of the video began to spread, carrying incorrect information.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people were stealing it which is something we really didn’t expect,” said Smith.

That’s when a company called Jukin Media entered the picture. The firm calls itself a trusted global leader in user-generated entertainment. Jukin Media wanted to license Smith's video.

The company is rather aptly named, as Jukin is slang for cool or happening. 

For the past seven years, the California company has helped people capitalize from videos they’ve shot on their phones, GoPros, and security cameras.

“So what we do is help ensure that whoever is the owner of the footage, whoever actually captured that footage is going to get compensated, is going to get credited, is going to have some control over their intellectual property,” Mike Skogmo, Jukin’s Vice President of Communications and Marketing said.

The clips are sold to advertisers, TV shows, and websites which are constantly on the look out for authentic and highly compelling video content.

Jukin, which has 40,000 videos in its library, splits the profits with content creators.

One of the videos they’re best known for is Chewbacca Mom.

“Her sort of excitement for this funny, ridiculous mask was infectious. The video ended up doing about 150 million views on Facebook,” Skogmo said.

Smith did not strike gold quite like that but since animals play well on the Internet, she’s made a couple of hundred dollars with her brief clip, out of the 10 million dollars that Jukin has paid out so far.

“It’s been a really good thing for the center because it does get more people involved. They see where we’re at, and they contact us. They want to come out, they want to learn,” Smith said.