PewDiePie Slams YouTube's 'Backwards' Copyright Rules
It seems as though nobody can catch a break when it comes to YouTube's copyright rules lately. First, a few seconds of copyrighted music got Ludwig banned from YouTube within the first few days of his exclusive streaming contract. The start of Ludwig's YouTube career continued to go poorly, as he got hit with yet another copyright strike shortly after. Even more recently, a YouTuber Totally Not Mark saw 150 of his videos hit with copyright strikes from Toei Entertainment over reviews of manga and anime (via Kotaku), leading him to post a video railing against YouTube and Toei. And now, PewDiePie is voicing his own issues with YouTube's wildly inconsistent copyright policies, which he has called "backwards."
In a new video bearing the straightforward title "YouTube copyright seriously pisses me off...," PewDiePie expressed his anger towards the company. He starts the video discussing what happened to Totally Not Mark, mentioning that Toei Animation, is probably way too big to actually care about what any YouTuber is doing with its material. He also felt that Japanese companies appear to have a different understanding of "Fair Use," citing Nintendo's YouTube creator program as another example.
PewDiePie went on to say that YouTube always seems to side with big companies when it comes to copyright claims, even if the video falls under the terms of Fair Use, which can be problematic for YouTubers who make a living off the platform. However, PewDiePie's main issue with YouTube stems from something even stranger.
A company is claiming copyright on PewDiePie's behalf, without his permission
PewDiePie revealed how copyright claims on YouTube have recently impacted him, citing an incident in which all of his own original music received strikes. Not only was he dealing with false copyright claims, it was all over songs that he created, and therefore owns. His song "B**** Lasagna" had been claimed by a company called RepostNetwork, with a description that stated it was done "On behalf of PewDiePie."
PewDiePie states that not only did he not tell anyone to claim the video, he had also written in the description of the video, "feel free to use the track for anything (within reason) it won't be claimed." He said he wanted people to be able to freely remix the song and create new things with it, yet somehow, some outside company he isn't associated with is able to come in and claim his video without his permission.
His final example for why the copyright system on YouTube is broken is that he attempted to dispute the copyright claim made by RepostNetwork on another song, "Mine All Day," to no avail. His dispute was apparently rejected, even though RepostNetwork supposedly made the claim "on his behalf." While PewDiePie has had plenty of feuds online, this one feels pretty understandable — and it's unclear how YouTube will address his issues going forward.