Our team made the case, YouTube agreed the videos were not fair use, and issued the strikes. YouTube notified the two channels in question, said there was a chance our request wouldn’t make it through, and asked our legal team for their case. A number of other very critical videos were not responded to in any way. Our legal team felt this was not fair use, and issued a copyright strike request to YouTube for those two videos. Those two reaction videos used 90 percent of our footage without any edits, cuts, or otherwise transformative use, and one of them in particular featured what our legal team felt was a pretty racist character. The Verge said of the dozens of videos mocking The Verge’s original video only two were targeted. While The Verge did apologize for the YouTube copyright strikes, some YouTubers are still upset over how the entire thing went down and for the reasons The Verge gave. YouTube copyright strikes can have a very negative impact on any YouTube channel and that’s partially why the situation did become toxic. The Verge’s Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel issued a statement on the situation, calling the whole thing “toxic.” Thankfully, it looks like both sides are dropping this entirely and looking to move on.The Vox Media YouTube copyright strikes drama seems to be resolving itself - although not without a little more drama surrounding the resolution. Still, the legal system is a tricky beast, so it could have gone either way. With that in mind, I don't necessarily think that Vox Media would have won a court case had this gone any further. KitGuru Says: There is a legal precedent protecting reaction videos on YouTube, in large part thanks to the lengthy lawsuit that H3H3 went through and won. The Verge is sticking to its stance that the two videos on question were in violation of Fair Use but it looks like the site isn't interested in taking the situation any further, particularly after the backlash these strikes caused online.
It seems that at least in the case of Bitwit, YouTube was set on taking action before the email was sent. A little later on, ReviewTechUSA also had the strike on his channel removed.Īccording to Patel, he actually sent emails to have the two strikes retracted himself and posted proof of a brief email sent through to YouTube's copyright team. Kyle from Bitwit tweeted the response he received from YouTube, in which YouTube took a stance and said that Kyle's video fell under fair use- the strike on his channel was then removed. We mentioned the two channels in question yesterday, with the first being Bitwit and the other being ReviewTechUSA. According to Patel, Vox's legal team singled two reaction videos out in particular and decided that they did not fall under fair use due to the amount of footage used from The Verge's original (now deleted) video.Īccording to The Verge, only two videos were issued takedown notices, while other critical videos remained up and unaffected. In a post addressing the copyright strike situation, The Verge's Nilay Patel explained their side of the story. At the time, neither Vox Media nor The Verge had said anything publicly about the situation, although that changed today. At the time, the two channels affected disputed the claims and were able to get them retracted fairly swiftly.
Yesterday, Vox Media and The Verge were found to be sending out copyright strikes against two specific channels for reacting to a PC build guide video from several months ago.