YouTube Creators Are Sounding the Alarm About Mass Copyright Strikes

I wanted to signal-boost a video that deserves more attention, especially from anyone who creates content on YouTube.

Watch: 13 Copyright Strikes, 60+ Videos Removed, 7 Days Until My Channel Is Gone

The creator describes receiving 13 copyright strikes, having more than 60 videos removed, and facing potential channel termination, while also highlighting several other creators who say they have been hit with dozens or even more than 100 copyright strikes.

This isn’t just a complaint about getting copyrighted for uploading somebody else’s material. The video raises much bigger questions about how YouTube handles mass copyright takedown requests, how much verification takes place before strikes are applied, and how vulnerable creators can be when large numbers of claims arrive at once.

Some of the examples shown involve reaction videos, commentary, images, trailers, fan-created material, and videos that were themselves reacting to content already available elsewhere on YouTube.

The creator also alleges that many of these claims originate from the same copyright-enforcement operation and questions whether automated systems are being used to identify and submit takedowns at scale. Those are serious allegations that deserve proper investigation rather than assumptions from either side.

But the broader problem is what concerns me most.

YouTube’s copyright system gives an enormous amount of immediate power to whoever submits a takedown request.

When enough strikes arrive, a creator can lose videos, lose the ability to upload, and potentially lose an entire channel while still trying to dispute the claims. The video shows creators describing hundreds of videos being affected and enormous amounts of time being spent manually filing counter-notifications.

Even if you don’t watch anime content or reaction channels, that should concern you.

If a copyright enforcement system can be abused against one category of creators, there’s no reason to assume other categories are immune.

YouTube absolutely needs mechanisms for legitimate copyright owners to protect their work. But protecting copyright holders and protecting creators from fraudulent, mistaken, or abusive takedowns should not be mutually exclusive.

At minimum, mass copyright actions capable of destroying an entire channel should receive meaningful human review before the damage is done.

I highly recommend watching the full video and forming your own opinion.

Watch the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sArVe8WvlA

If you’re a creator, this is an issue worth paying attention to, because the next copyright-system controversy might not involve somebody else’s niche.

Transcript:
13 copyright strikes, over 60 videos removed, seven days until my channel is gone. And trust me, I’m not the only one. But we’ll get into everybody else in a little bit. You must be thinking to yourself, “Holy [ __ ] what did this guy do?” Well, let me show you what I was striked for. So, I just grabbed a handful of them. That’s going to blow your mind. So, the first strike was for save one anime opening, One Piece versus Naruto. What I did in that video is I put One Piece openings up against Naruto openings. Now, let’s play Devil’s Advocate. I’m over here reacting to music. You’re able to strike that. How about the video game? This Naruto game is unreal. I can’t react to video game trailers now. A video game, by the way, that is developed by 10 cents more fun studio. China. Why is Viz Media removing this? Why is removeyourmedia.com removing this? The next one is absolutely insane. Naruto filler arcs summarized. You see this video right here? Naruto filler arc summarized. This is what I reacted to. Pictures. Okay, so now you’re telling me I’m getting a copyright strike because of a picture. And by the way, don’t you think this video should have been strike, too? Or was it because the word Naruto was in my title? We’ll talk about that in a bit. These next two make me want to smash my head through a wall. One Punch Man is saved. This One Punch Man fan animation is insane. So now I’m getting striked for a One Punch Man fan animation. A fan animation. The fan animation doesn’t get stried. I get strike for watching it. Or is it because the name One Punch Man is in the title? We’ll talk about that in a bit. Brutal Naruto scenes that were way worse in the manga. Well, what do you know, Joe? Look at this. The most brutal Naruto scenes that were way more intense in the manga. Another video that I reacted to on YouTube. So, this video doesn’t get a strike. I get one once again for reacting to [ __ ] images. And here’s the last one I wanted to show. Naruto unhinged. Oh [ __ ] Well, what do you know? Naruto unhinged. I must be reacting to this [ __ ] Is this picture of Obama copyrighted too? Why is it this video strike? But mine is. We’ll talk about that in a bit. Before I go further and explain everything, this video is sponsored by absolutely nobody. [ __ ] off. I’m about to give two examples, two extreme examples of the same thing that happened to me happening to other creators that so happen to be in the same niche as me, the anime niche. But if you’re part of any other niche, this doesn’t just apply to anime. So stick around. Shout out to this creator that goes by the name of Kakawa TV. 80 copyright strikes, 449 videos taken down. That’s like multiple channels worth of videos. You would expect YouTube to be like, “Oh my god, there’s something going on here. There’s something wrong.” This tweet that I found of his pretty much highlights the entire situation kind of like how I did a 51 second video asking my audience if they want Dangers in my heart which is an anime asking his audience if he should react to an anime. His face I guess just saying the word out loud dangers in my heart. Bam commentary video reading Kaisen’s tweet laring about Naruto. I guess streamer university wasn’t enough. Kaisenat needs more money. He’s over here copyright striking a channel that probably made $10 on a video. Wait a minute. Naruto. Could it be that Naruto in the title triggered the co? We’ll talk about that in a bit. A Sylvvin skit reaction about Naruto. So, he’s talking about one of these videos right here. People who think Naruto is the best anime. The third Okag taking care of Naruto. I guess you could copyright strike Naruto’s clothes. Now, I could go on and on with all the rest of these videos, but it’s going to be the same common theme. [ __ ] You silly [ __ ] thought that it stopped there. Ed anime, another anime channel. 52 copyright strikes. Him and Clawclaw TV are in a race right now. Who’s going to get the most copyright strikes? Find out in the next episode of Dragon Ball. What? Am I going to get strike for saying the [ __ ] name Dragon Ball now? I want to drag my balls on something. I’ll tell you that. And you thought that was the worst of it. [laughter] This channel got 109 copyright strikes. We’re in the triple digits now. Give this guy the gold medal for copyright strikes. Godamn it. 600 appeals. You know how long it takes to appeal 600 videos? You have to sit there and put in all your personal information. Phone number, address, real name. And the copyright striker actually sees all of that. You want to see what appealing 500 videos does to a man? I wanted to make a video of my raw reaction after I got done filing 500 counter notification appeal. 500 90 hybridized strikes 90 five videos per strike five per strike bath which is think I started at 8:45 in the morning 4:18 now exhausted whatever is happening this is not this is not okay this isn’t okay for and before you try to make fun of this guy I want you to put this together in your [ __ ] head this is his life. It’s not like YouTube have real people working for them. So, who do we get in contact with to help us? A robot? Some guy in Bangladesh living in a sewer? That’s all you’re getting in touch with. Please, YouTube, help us. Help us fire the guy desperate for money striking us from a tent and hire somebody, a real human being, that could look into our cases. Sadly, that’s not even the beginning. That’s barely a crumb of the content creators that have to deal with these false copyright strikes. Most of them are dealing with the same striker. What’s his name, you ask? Eric Green, which is a person, in fact, as it says right here. I thought it was my green screen. I thought it was a secret AI entity. No, no, no, no. This confirms it’s a person. And trust me, me and all these reaction channels, we know it’s a person. Let’s just say we did some digging, but we’ll save that for another time. Eric Green is the CEO of Remove Your Media. He previously worked at Verizon as a systems development. Eric Green attended the University of Texas at Arlington. It says he attended. Did he graduate? And wow, look, you can find his beautiful website. You know, beautiful website that you can make in 1 minute with AI prompts. Notice how I said AI prompts. This will be very important in a few. And by the way, if you scroll all the way down to contact us, it gives you the address. And if you don’t know, you put that address into maps, you get a [ __ ] Walmart. I guess he’s striking us from the [ __ ] cereal box aisle. Tell me something on what authority does this guy have to remove our media other than the corny ass name of his website? Zero authority. Zero rights to copyright strike us. Especially on a video where I’m reacting to a video of Naruto Filler summarized. And by the way, you think this is just happening right now. 2020, somebody was talking about remove your media LLC CEO Eric Green. This company alleges to work with larger media to remove copyrighted materials and they’re attacking legitimate Etsy sites who make fan art of anime. I want you to think about what I’m about to say. This will sum up the entire video. A homeless person on Hollywood Boulevard could submit the exact same claim and they’ll have the same exact outcome as Eric Green. A vindictive fan can submit the exact same claim and have the same exact outcome. Somebody hates you. You have a hater in the crowd. while your life is in their hands. You’ll wake up the next morning with over 100 copyright strikes. Do you know what getting three copyright strikes does to a channel? You cannot post to your channel. The false copyright striker has taken away your First Amendment right. You can’t even alert your community unless you’re lucky to be popping on other platforms. You cannot put a spotlight on the injustice that is occurring. And if you contact YouTube about this, you’re going to get one of two things. An AI response or an article that nobody gives a [ __ ] about. I’m one of the lucky ones. The channel that I showed you today is being taken down, but I still have this channel, a channel with over 1 million subscribers. But what about everybody else? What about the people that I talked about today? They don’t have massive platforms. Eric Green can only achieve his goal of submitting these false claims if we can’t call them out on it. His goal and all these false copyright strikers goals are to silence us. If anime reactors are silenced, why would they stop there? We may be the first silenced, we definitely won’t be the last. So that’s why I’m telling y’all this affects all YouTubers. Every channel on YouTube. YouTube is allowing somebody that does not have the ownership, does not have the right to submit these claims falsely repeatedly every single day. Any viewer that hates a YouTuber enough, they could do exactly what Eric Green is doing to us. What’s stopping them? If this guy is striking a video of mine, reading descriptions of Naruto filler arcs, what’s stopping a person from stopping a commentary channel just talking to the camera? Under Statute 17USC 512F, anyone who knowingly makes false or bad faith material, misrepresentations in a digital copyright notice can be held liable for damages. So, let me put this in my terms. The law mandates that anyone submitting a copyright strike, they must review the video in its entirety, in its complete context, which means for me alone, it would have taken this guy thousands of hours. And that’s just me. What about all the other channels he went after? You telling me he spent tens of thousands, if not millions of hours watching our content, which means he cannot strike us down. 17 USC 512F does not explicitly ban the use of automated matching algorithms to identify copyright infringement, but it establishes severe financial liability for issuing automated takedown notices without human oversight. If an automated system takes down content that qualifies as fair use or is otherwise non-infringing, the sender could be sued for damages, attorney fees, and costs. Which means you cannot use an AI system to review our content or to submit false claims. Literally on their site, these dumb [ __ ] Achieving more with less is accomplished through carefully choreographed mass automation using economies of scale, electronic notifications, AI boolean parsing, and targeted distribution. So, he’s already admitting to abusing the copyright system. By the way, you stupid [ __ ] your AI spelled category wrong. Let’s pause for a second. I want to show y’all something. I went to Twitter and said this. If your channel has been attacked unfairly with copyright strikes deletion, reply to this post with a quick description of what happened. Over 43 replies. Obviously, we’re not going to go over all of them. One of my favorite reactors stopped doing Bleach reactions after getting a copyright strike, which was already heartbreaking, but he also just lost his sister around the same week. The guy lost his sister and now he has to deal with somebody making him lose his livelihood. Our channel, Reanimated TV, also got hit with an unfair strike. two copyright strikes on my YouTube channel and mass privateed all and deleted some videos before it got worse because I felt it coming. On Patreon, I have been strike more than 20 times and each email has 12 to 50 videos per strike. Hundreds of videos were taken down. We had 18 strikes last night and scheduled for deletion in 7 days. Another channel dealing with what I’m dealing with. These are all people talking about their experience with this false copyright striker. So, what is this video gonna do? This video is a call to action. Every channel needs to get this conversation moving. You can react to this video or you can make a video yourself. There’s some people that won’t talk about this. I’m not going to say names. They’re paid by these industries, so they’re not going to help us out. If you’re a creator going through this right now, I want to tell you, you’re not alone. We’re all in this together. So, what now? What happens? Well, for starters, YouTube, you need to answer this immediately. This is a sitewide issue affecting every single creator. The absolute least you have to do, investigate this and you need to put an end to the false copyright strikes. I have an idea. Maybe make it possible for a creator to answer with their appeal. You know, before they get stried and they get the whole your channel will be deleted in 7 days. This is a call to action to YouTube to revise their copyright system because as it stands now, it’s guilty until proven innocent, which does not follow legal due process. How come I, the victim, have to prove my innocence to YouTube? Yet, the copyright striker does not have to submit any legitimate documentation or identification that they own the rights to what they’re striking us for, or to submit these false claims on videos that don’t even show the content that he states it does. How come I, the victim, have to pay the price of having my videos taken down and my channel scheduled for termination before it’s even proven that the copyright strikes are legitimate? How come I have to manually appeal every single copyright strike? Every false claim. Meanwhile, the attacker, he could mass submit false copyright claims using an AI system. Giving us all these answers and investigating this issue, which is sitewide, by the way. Like I said, it’s the least you could do for the creators that put food on your plates. I think it’s time to finally do your jobs. Eric Green is lucky I wasn’t a part of this last time this happened. This would not have happened again. I will not be silenced. I will not back down. I am relentless. I take this very seriously. So seriously that I already have legal counsel working on the case. [ __ ] around. Find out. It’s simple as that.