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This caught me very off guard today. I received a copyright strike on one of my videos, seemingly chosen at random. A copyright strike is when a claims holder (Viacom in this case)  manually reviews and removes your video from youtube on the basis of copyright infringement.

For those of you that don't know, a copyright strike on youtube is very serious. If you receive 3 copyright strikes, your channel can be terminated permanently and you are not eligible to create new channels.

Technically my content is covered under fair use, as it is commentary and criticism. As you know,  I review Rupaul's drag race and provide brief clips from the runway for visual aid purposes. However, fair use eligibility has meant very little for creators in youtube's past. Basically, youtube leaves the "debate" of copyright infringement up to the claims holder and the disputer. They simply provide the mechanism through which the two can communicate and ultimately will side with the claims holder if the claims holder refuses to acknowledge my use is "fair use". And we all know that it is not realistic that I would ever have the financial resources to compete with Viacom in court over fair use.

I have disputed their claim, and will keep everyone updated. However, I don't have high hopes for this dispute due to the reason I discussed above that youtube basically does not care about its creators. I'm unsure if this is a one-off thing or if the strikes will continue to come in. 

I am thinking about proactive steps I could potentially take which include deleting all of my videos from youtube. My rationale is basically that if they can win this dispute, they could potentially strike ALL of my content and get me permanently banned from the platform. But am I being too hasty in considering this?

Moving forward, I am considering only uploading review videos that include ZERO visual aid in order to avoid this issue. But then I'm worried people wouldn't watch without visual aid? I don't even know if just using pictures/screenshots would protect me from striking my content. 

I am aware of one other small creator who also received a strike today, and another who received a claim (which is NOT punishable - claims just block your video with no other consequence).

 Is anyone aware of anyone else getting strikes on drag race review content?

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Comments

Synthia Vanessa Turner

Keep in mind that you are doing a wonderful job you haven't done anything wrong. The devil is busy and as Bianca Del Rio says"Not today Satan,Not today." We all are standing with you and our prayers are with you. I want you to say this to yourself. 1 2 3 the devils after me 4 5 6 he's up to his same old tricks 7 8 9 I Beat Him Every Time! I love you stay strong my friend.💋

Bradley Schiro

These two resources seem very helpful: https://youtu.be/3G3f1-x-ZwM https://www.gerbenlaw.com/blog/false-dmca-takedown-notices-ninth-circuit-holds-that-copyright-owners-must-consider-fair-use-before-issuing-take-down-notices/

Bradley Schiro

It does sound like avoiding any video and audio clips that are copyrighted is a good safety practice, even if your use of them is covered under Fair Use. I hope you can at least use photos from Instagram though, because I definitely think it's extremely valuable to have the visual.