The Urgh War Continued – Banned From YouTube and losing my mind

A few weeks ago I wrote a post detailing how I got myself banned from YouTube because I uploaded (in clip form) the film Urgh! A Music War in upscaled 4K to YouTube. That post was mostly just a rant about the silliness of the situation. At the time I really wasn’t that upset that I lost my channel, I was more just annoyed that it happened in the first place. I made a dummy new account and didn’t think much of it for a while.

Well, things have changed.

The more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off. I didn’t see the point in banning my entire channel. As I said in that previous post, the entirety of Urgh! is online for anyone to see at anytime. And it has been for several years now. My copy looked better, yes, but the core content was unchanged. And the fact that I got banned for my first copyright strike, something that YouTube swears never ever happens (guess what it happens) also got on my nerves. I mean, why did it take YouTube literal years to ban Nazis from their platform, but I got banned five minutes after posting an Oingo Boingo video, it didn’t make sense.

Most importantly, it was clear to me that the entire incident was a misunderstanding. I never uploaded the clips to infringe on copyright, I uploaded them so they would get tagged with Content ID and the artists/labels/whatever would get paid. Not me. And since I uploaded a few clips first and they weren’t flagged as copyright strikes or whatever, I assumed it would be safe to upload the rest. Again, it wasn’t until after I finished my uploads that the first few clips were re-classified as copyright strikes. Had any of them earned the ire of the copyright Gods, I would have never uploaded the other clips.

So, recently, I decided to fight it.

It’s gone poorly.

If you get banned from YouTube for copyright reasons, the odds are heavily against you for ever even contacting someone, anyone, who is even a position to hear you out, let alone a sympathetic ear. Because, typically speaking, people who are banned from YouTube for copyright reasons are repeat offenders. They’ve had their chance, and blew it, so YouTube doesn’t want to deal with them. If you try to appeal the ban in the boilerplate YouTube appeal form, you’ll get an auto-reply within minutes saying that you can’t use that form for bans related to copyright.

Instead, they suggest you use a free form counter-claim. However, that appeal only really applies in cases where you think you have rights to the copyrighted material. If you can’t prove that in the claim, YouTube won’t even bother the original claimant with your counter-claim. In my case, since I never made claims that I had the rights to the content I was sharing, such a form is entirely useless. What I need is a form where I can plead my case, say I made a mistake, explain how it was an honest mistake with no intention of theft, and promise not to do it again.

Such a form does not exist, it seems.

So, where does that leave me? When I started to complain about this problem on Twitter, an account by the name of @TeamYouTube butted in without me even mentioning them, offering their help. This is the official YouTube support Twitter, it seems. I explained to them the situation as best I understood it. At first, they said that they couldn’t mediate copyright disputes but eventually they said that they would look into it. Eventually they replied and said that my counter-claim couldn’t be processed because I never held rights to the content in question. Yeah, all they did was look at my counter-claim, which I knew wouldn’t work in the first place.

When I responded that the problem was more complicated than that, they said that I could communicate with them more if needed, and then they completely ghosted me. Twenty-four hours have gone by and they’ve just decided to ignore all my messages that explain the situation in detail, and how I feel that I made an honest mistake. They don’t seem to care about honest mistakes when it comes to copyright. I don’t know why.

Before they ghosted me, they suggested that I contact the party that filed a claim against me in the first place. Again, as I said in my previous post , that’s easier said than done. The claimant who filed the complaint against me the first time apparently works for Warner Bros. (who own the film) but they used a gmail address, which is clearly just a dummy email that they never check. I emailed that account several times, and never received a response. I was able to track down what I assume is their workplace email, but they never responded to that either.

I did some digging and found the copyright claims email at Warner Bros. I shot them an email explaining, in detail, that I made a mistake, it wasn’t intentional, I wasn’t intending to cost them money, that I was sorry, and that it really meant a lot to me to get my channel back.

Their response was swift and brutal. They said in no uncertain terms that they were not interested in retracting my claim, and that I deserved to get my channel banned because only repeat offenders get their channels banned. Again, I am not a repeat offender, but when I told them that they didn’t seem to believe me or care. All additional emails to Warner Bros. have been ignored, save for one where they literally just cut and pasted their original response and sent it again. They straight-up do not believe me, or they just never read my emails explaining the situation in the first place. I tried to explain this to TeamYouTube, but they don’t seem interested in the fact that Warner Bros. has been given false information regarding my previous copyright strikes (which, again, were none).

With TeamYouTube ignoring me, and Warner Bros. being outright antagonistic to me, my options are running out swiftly. I left a post on the YouTube help forums. I read somewhere that people from YouTube do actually read those. I hope someone from YouTube does stumble across that post and takes pity on me. I also contacted the EFF and explained the situation to them. They seemed to show some interest and asked for more information, so I’m waiting for them to get back to me. I might be able to use some old professional contacts at Warner Bros. to get some help, and I’m waiting on them as well. If those three avenues fail, my only real recourse is to lawyer up and fight it. I honestly don’t know if I have a case at all, but my hopes are that the simple threat of legal action will convince Warner Bros. just to drop it and let me have my channel back assuming I delete the offending videos.

This entire situation is incredibly frustrating and depressing. I truly and honestly feel that if someone, anyone, either at YouTube or Warner Bros., took five minutes to just read what I typed to them they would see that I didn’t mean anything by what I did and would cut me some slack. Shit, I even offered to pay a legal fine to Warner Bros. and they didn’t even acknowledge it. Between that and removing the Content ID, that’s two ways that Warner Bros. has failed to make money off of this situation.

It’s also annoying because I know that if I was a major YouTuber or influencer, this would have been resolved already. The preferential treatment in who YouTube helps and how much they help them is obvious. I mean, hell, why I was instabanned for content that literally dozens of other channels have as well?

Why is this a big deal? Well, when you’re banned from YouTube, they really mean it. Your ass is banned. I created a new account just to watch videos, and I assume they won’t go after that, but if I attempted to create and content with a new account and they found out, they’d just ban me all over again.

Also, being banned from YouTube is actually a bigger issue than you’d think. I need to keep two browser windows open at all times, since I needed to create a new Google Account just to have subscriptions on YouTube. One window is for my YouTubing, the other for my Google Maps, Gmail, and so on. And on my phone, which is an android device, I can’t even use YouTube. I can do video searches and watch those, but if I use the app itself, it wants me to sign out of Google on my phone, and I assume that would just fuck up so much shit I don’t even want to attempt it.

With everything going on in my life at the moment, my dad dying, other family health issues, my own personal health issues, job problems due to COVID, and the overall crappiness of the world in every aspect imaginable, this has actually gotten me down quite a bit. And the frustration in knowing that it could all be solved if someone actually cared to pay attention just makes it even more aggravating and depressing. I had to go out and get out of my house for a while today just to get the negative thoughts out of my head.

So yeah, I need help. I need help in a lot of ways, but unless there are any shrinks in Tokyo who are willing to work pro bono, let’s just focus on the YouTube problem. To anyone who’s reading this:

1. Have you found yourself in a similar situation with YouTube? What worked for you?
2. Anyone have any ideas about any other organizations or groups I could contact that might be able to help me?
3. Anyone know any other ways to perhaps get the ear of someone at YouTube who might listen to the problem
4. Push come to shove, anyone know any lawyer who will take this case? I’ll pay.

Got answers to those questions, leave a comment. Yes, my comments are still broken (I’m sorry) so they won’t appear on the website, but I’ll still be able to read them! So leave contact info as well if you think you got some ideas to help me out.

And if you want to help but don’t know what to do, go to my Twitter (@LostTurntable) and chime in on any of the multiple posts I’ve made to @TeamYouTube. Ask them what gives, but do it nicely please! No harassment and no foul language. You won’t help anyone by doing that. I’m angry that they’re ignoing me, but I also understand that they have a very hard job. Also, RT my complaints to @TeamYouTube if you can. I don’t know if it will help, but it sure as hell can’t make anything worse.

Sigh.

Thanks.