The video-sharing website YouTube offers a lot of opportunity for people who want to create entertaining content. If a person’s videos get enough views and his/her channel gets enough subscribers, that person normally has a chance to sign a contract with YouTube and get paid for making frequently popular content. While this sounds like a dream job, there are an abundance of content creators who have fought for their right of fair use and the false copyright claims that higher companies push onto these creators.
Fair use is the legal doctrine stating that creators do not need to pay or get permission from copyright holder to use copyright material as long as they fall under certain circumstances. Only specific entertainment types are allowed to use copyrighted material, such as video’s that comment, parody, criticize, or teach about the material. While these rules have been set to protect content makers, YouTube’s copyright system gives companies an opening to go against this civil right.
In YouTube’s copyright system, a company can make a copyright claim on a channel’s video, which makes it become non-viewable, taking money away from the channels creator with the lack of views. However, there is a way for the YouTube user to get back the content if he/she believes the claim is false. The user can make three appeals stating why the video does not infringe on copyright and instead can be seen as fair use.
While this seems like an easy way to get out of trouble, there is evidence to show that a computer program is normally used to look at the copyright issues instead of an actual human being. This program is similar to a program used to check for plagiarism in students’ papers. Sometimes the content is passed and the video will be seen under the laws of fair use, but in most cases this issue has become one of the worst nightmares for a creator on YouTube, in the form of a copyright strike.
The YouTube copyright system has a three strike method for copyright infringement. When a user gets one strike, his/her videos get limited to only 15 minutes, and the user unable to dispute a copyright claim for six months. While this may seem like a decent punishment, users, such as those who make twenty to thirty minute vlogs or critiques, lose space for content that can appease their audience. When the third strike is reached for a channel, the channel is deleted from the system completely and the user loses his/her contract and any source of monetization.
This system has been called unfair since it was first implemented as companies and video creators have been disputing content for years. With companies bullying individuals who have created a stable mode of income through video making, it shows that something is wrong with the system completely. YouTube has never done anything to penalize false claims from big named companies.
With all of the lying and lack of help from YouTube, some content creators have been lost to the unfair three strike system and have made other users feel helpless. However, a movement has risen after years of this bullying and has now come to fruition as the cause #WTFU? (Where’s The Fair Use?) This movement has reached across hundreds of popular YouTube channels who have been dealing with this injustice for the many years of their content creating. YouTube Channels such as Channel Awesome, I Hate Everything, Chris Stuckmann, and TeamFourStar, have joined this cause bringing their fans and viewers with them. By each of them making videos stating the issue to their many viewers, they have sparked an online uproar, screaming for a new copyright system and better choices on YouTube’s part.
Much like a revolution, the channels and viewers are fighting back more than ever against these companies until YouTube finally sees the issue and finds a way to solve the unfairness in a civil way. Before anyone makes a YouTube account or puts up content, he/she needs to be ready in case one of these companies’ eyes turn towards him/her.
