YouTube ends Lofi Woman’s two-year-long music stream over bogus DMCA warning – TechCrunch

There are three constants in life: dying, taxes and the “lofi hip hop radio – beats to calm down/examine to” YouTube stream. That’s, till YouTube falsely hit the Lofi Woman channel with a DMCA takedown, bringing the beloved streams offline for the primary time in over two years.

With over 668 million views, the stream was one in every of YouTube’s hottest locations for individuals to go once they wished to hearken to calming, but partaking music whereas learning or working. Listeners generally used the stream’s reside chat like an anonymized, distant examine group, reminding one another to take breaks and drink water. So when the stream all of the sudden stopped, followers have been fearful.

YouTube is cluttered with hours-long streams of calming music, however the reside nature of the “lofi hip hop radio” streams units it aside. On the YouTube stream, which at the moment serves a “this reside stream recording is just not accessible” message, one of many high feedback reads: “Hopefully it isn’t over but, this stream is legitimately a massively vital a part of YouTube tradition.”

It’s true. Even past YouTube, Lofi Woman lives in spinoff communities together with the thirty-thousand-member r/LofiGirl subreddit and a Lofi Woman Discord with 700,000 members. The animation accompanying the 24/7 livestream — a Studio Ghibli-inspired picture of a woman sporting headphones and learning as her cat stares out the window at a cityscape — has been honored in cosplay, replicated by Will Smith and recreated on Cartoon Community’s YouTube channel with a personality from “Steven Universe.”

Yesterday, Lofi Woman addressed the sudden takedown in a tweet, stating that “the lofi radios have been taken down due to false copyright strikes.” In response, followers of Lofi Woman circulated the tag #BringBackLofiGirl to get YouTube’s consideration. Some even went so far as to spam and troll FMC Music, the Malaysian label that allegedly issued the false copyright criticism, whereas others created fan artwork.

Lofi Woman advised TechCrunch that all the channel’s music is launched by way of its report label, Lofi Data, so that they have the mandatory rights to share it. As a result of Lofi Woman has the correct rights to the music, YouTube decided that the account is not in violation of copyright legal guidelines. The platform responded to Lofi Woman on Twitter Monday, saying that the lacking livestream movies ought to be reinstated in 24 to 48 hours.

TechCrunch reached out to YouTube for remark and a spokesperson linked us to the corporate’s present response to Lofi Woman on Twitter.

If previous precedent holds true, Lofi Woman’s subsequent stream should begin once more from the start, fairly than as a continuation of the present 2-year-long stream. In 2020, the channel confronted an identical drawback when an unintended suspension ended its 13,000 hour stream. In that case, YouTube additionally owned up to its errors and reinstated the account, however the identical points have apparently returned.

“This occasion has shone a lightweight on an underlying drawback on the platform: It’s 2022, and there are numerous smaller creators on the market, lots of which engaged on this dialogue, that proceed to be hit each day by these false claims on each movies and livestreams,” Lofi Woman wrote in a tweet.

Right this moment, in YouTube’s reply to Lofi Woman, the corporate stated that the takedown requests have been “abusive,” which means that they have been leveraged as an assault towards the channel, fairly than out of precise concern for copyright violations. This habits is extremely widespread, however platforms have struggled to find out when these reviews are official, and once they’re unsubstantiated.

“Sadly, we’re not completely certain why FMC despatched the criticism,” Lofi Woman advised TechCrunch by way of Twitter message.

Repercussions for creators

Generally, these fraudulent DMCA takedowns can go to the intense.

In March, various YouTube streamers taking part in Future observed that they’d been slapped with copyright strikes. Even some movies from Bungie, Future’s developer, have been affected and Bungie assured followers that it wasn’t behind these actions, making issues stranger.

Because it seems, a YouTuber referred to as “Lord Nazo” had created gmail accounts impersonating Bungie’s copyright administration agency and submitted 96 fraudulent complaints towards high-profile Future YouTubers. Final month, Bungie sued the YouTuber for $7.6 million, saying that they wished to make an instance out of him.

Copyright legislation is usually murky, particularly in rising digital media, however online game streams are normally thought of “honest use” for the reason that works are transformative. You could possibly even argue that YouTube movies like “The Whole Bee Film however each time it says bee it hastens by 15%” are transformative, which might be why this style of video stays prevalent on-line. In any case, that “Bee Film” parody particularly is barely about 5 minutes lengthy, in comparison with the 90 minute movie.

The case with Bungie and “Lord Nazo” amplifies what YouTube followers have recognized for too lengthy: the DMCA system is simply too straightforward to take advantage of. Fraudulent takedowns are particularly problematic when leveraged towards on-line creators who depend on YouTube advert income for revenue. Instagram creators have additionally been impacted by so-called “ban-as-service” scams, through which unhealthy actors cost cash to mass-report somebody and get their account wrongly eliminated.

Startups like Notch have tried to pioneer an insurance coverage business for on-line creators, providing each day payouts in case they lose entry to their account, however their service at the moment solely covers hacks, not false bans. That leaves creators with few methods to guard themselves within the case of wrongful takedowns or bans. One well-liked VTuber CodeMiko has stated she has nightmares about being banned from Twitch.

Maybe as a result of Lofi Woman is so iconic, the consumer behind the channel was capable of get a response from YouTube quickly after tweeting in regards to the problem. However for smaller creators, this generally is a seemingly inconceivable accomplishment.

“We’re shocked and disillusioned to see that there’s nonetheless not any sort of safety or handbook evaluation of those false claims,” Lofi Woman wrote on Twitter. “On the finish of the day, it was completely out of our management, and the unhappy half is that there was no solution to enchantment beforehand/stop it from taking place.”

The excellent news is that Lofi Woman will quickly be again at her desk, scribbling some notes alongside her orange cat and trusty headphones, listening to some chill beats.