How Ludwig And Jschlatt Are Combating YouTube's Copyright Rules
It's no secret that YouTube's copyright rules are strict. Not only that – strikes are often issued without good reason. No one is immune from the threat of a YouTube copyright strike, including some of the platform's biggest names. In PewDiePie's case, he got into copyright trouble for music he created himself, which is a clear example of how convoluted YouTube's messy policies can become. Developer Bungie went so far as to file a lawsuit against YouTube for fraudulent copyright claims.
In particular, amongst his peers, Ludwig has had quite the rocky run on YouTube. Notorious for his history of many copyright strikes, Ludwig has finally decided to take things into his own hands. In collaboration with fellow streamer Jschlatt, Ludwig has created a way around YouTube's strict policies. The two streamers announced their plan in a video shared on Sept. 27, 2022 titled "Schlatt and I Fixed YouTube." Ludwig explained the troublesome statistics surrounding false copyright claims on YouTube, and he also shared how he and Jschlatt put together a resource all streamers can use for free to avoid copyright strikes. Here are all the details.
Introducing Lud and Schlatts Musical Emporium
In a video announcing his new project with Jschlatt, Ludwig started by breaking down some of the issues with copyright on YouTube. He said, "Let's talk about how much copyright sucks on this website. Every single creator you know has dealt with a false copyright claim at some point in your career" He went on to cite that within the first six months of 2021, there were 2.2 million false copyright claims issued by YouTube.
Earlier this September, Ludwig ran an experiment to see how long it would take YouTube to stop him if he played copyrighted music on his livestream. It didn't last long. In fact, Ludwig set the supposed record for YouTube's fastest ban at 90 seconds.
Fed up, Ludwig decided to create his own creative workaround, along with Jschlatt and a team of musicians. As it turns out, there is a great deal of classical music in the public domain that Ludwig and Jschlatt have brought to the masses in a centralized location known as Lud and Schlatts Musical Emporium. The two also teamed up to make Nintendo-like music to avoid the company's notoriously tight copyright policies, while still capturing the essence of the music from "Animal Crossing" and the Wii shop theme.
There are currently 10 songs available in the database, most of which are classical, and the two streamers spearheading the project plan to expand it with time. It wasn't an easy process, but it seems to be a worthwhile one. As Ludwig joked in the closing of his announcement video, "YouTube, you gotta start fixing your own problems because it's getting real expensive when we fix them for you."