An anonymous blackmailer has caught at least two YouTube creators in a scheme involving cash ransoms and esoteric copyright laws.
Last week, both creators shared stories of how their channels were being threatened with a third copyright strike — and the possible termination of their channels — from an anonymous extortionist. The scammer offered to reverse the strikes in return for payment to a bitcoin wallet (which, as of this writing, remains empty) or to an adjoining Paypal account (that has since been deleted).
“Once we receive our payment, we will cancel both strikes on your channel,” the blackmailer wrote in a Telegram message to one creator — ObbyRaidz — who runs a small channel dedicated to Minecraft walkthroughs. “You are free to charge back if we don’t, but we assure you we will.”
“We’ll give you a very short amount of time to make your decision,” they added.
Copyright strikes serve an important purpose for YouTube, preventing protected material — from pop songs to movie clips — from being used without authorization. YouTubers served with one or two strikes automatically have the offending videos deleted, and can also have certain channel features, like the ability to monetize, restricted in the long term. Getting those privileges back can take months of work, especially for smaller channels that are often overlooked in favor of their larger or more popular counterparts.
Three copyright strikes in a three-month period can take a video down for good. In a short clip posted to his channel on January 29th, ObbyRaidz described it as “basically extortion.” “If I don’t pay this dude,” he said, “he’s going to strike a third one of my videos down.”
This isn’t the first time that Youtube’s less-than-perfect copyright system has stabbed creators in the back. The platform’s hands-off approach to moderation has allowed copyright trolls to thrive for years — not only to extort money, but to doxx, slander, or troll. They can also be used to suppress negative news; some companies have served comedians with copyright strikes in an attempt to stifle any videos mocking their brand.
Troublemakers have also used YouTube’s copyright system to phish or doxx smaller channels. In order to submit a counterclaim, YouTube’s policies dictate that a creator must provide their personal information to the channel filing the claim, which can open the door to real-life harassment.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen extortionists take advantage of the platform. Similar cases of smaller channels being conned out of cash through the platform’s strike system have cropped up more than a few times on the site’s help forums. When official channels stall, those forums are often the only recourse victims have.
In his video, ObbyRaidz mentions that his attempts to contact YouTube personnel have all come up short, and any attempts at repealing the strikes were denied.
Those who are able to appeal the strikes don’t have it much easier. The process, when successful, can take at least a month — and during that time, “you can’t upload at all,” according to Pierce Riola, a voice actor whose YouTube channel been hit by similar extortion scams in the past.
Some creators — including Pierce — have reported that YouTube’s algorithm can “punish” channels that take breaks from uploading for an extended period of time, relegating them to the back of the feed where their content is less likely to surface. A smaller channel that’s stuck battling malicious copyright claims instead of uploading, he added, could suffer almost as much damage as if the channel was deleted outright.
Whatever strikes the extortionist brought on have now been reversed, according to a series of tweets aimed at ObbyRaidz and another creator, KenzoOG. “Both strikes are resolved and the videos reinstated,” YouTube said, in a thread on ObbyRaidz’s twitter account. Reached by The Verge, the company confirmed that the strikes had been resolved.
Asked for comment on their policies surrounding this kind of copyright abuse, a YouTube spokesperson pointed to a prior statement. “Upon review, these takedown notices were abusive,” it reads. “We have zero tolerance for the submission of fraudulent legal requests, so we also terminated the channels that submitted these.”
Still, the incident raises real concerns about YouTube’s ability to respond to copyright blackmail attempts. ObbyRaidz was unable to flag YouTube’s attention until thousands of retweets and hundreds of Reddit comments brought attention to the incident. Even channels with more than a million subscribers have only been able to get the platform’s attention in response to a viral tweet.
The biggest problem is the structure of YouTube’s copyright system, which places most of its scrutiny on the accused rather than the accuser. As one Reddit user pointed out, this extortionist was able to carry on an extortion scheme from a recently created YouTube channel with no videos, made from a throwaway email address, easy to create and easy to identify as suspicious.
The platform works under the good-faith assumption that only users with pilfered content would bother making these claims. The instruction page for users looking to file claims even warns them not to misuse the process. “But that’s not the world we live in in 2019,” says Annemarie Bridy, a University of Idaho law professor specializing in copyright. “It’s a statute from a more innocent, optimistic era in the history of the Internet.”
As Bridy put it, the problem is incentives: YouTube has a lot more to lose from angry copyright-holders than angry users. Movie reviewers on the platform who have found their channels bombarded with copyright strikes from Universal Pictures, for example, after including clips or stills from a particular Universal film in their reviews. Even after claiming that these clips were protected as fair use, some found that YouTube ultimately sided with the company rather than the creators.
“It’s the little folks who get lost in the shuffle,” says Bridy. “That’s a shame, because it’s actually the accumulated little folks who make YouTube worthwhile.”
Correction: A previous version of this piece referred to Annemarie Bridy as a professor at Stanford University. In fact, she is an affiliate scholar at Stanford and a professor at University of Idaho. The Verge regrets the error.
Comments
i clicked the photo by impulse
By prompt on 02.11.19 9:06am
And by habit, I ignored it.
By theeht10 on 02.11.19 10:08am
Youtube has also been demonetizing a lot of channels lately. This isn’t a good time to be a content creator on YouTube.
By Random897 on 02.11.19 9:07am
Hank Green did an overview of this recently
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL829Uf2lzI
It’s not easy, if it were, everyone would do it.
By Oldarney on 02.11.19 10:05am
Not just Universal Pictures. Universal Music Group gives full-on copyright strikes (not copyright claims, which just demonitize a video) for using 3-5 seconds of a UMG-owned song.
By zduboss on 02.11.19 9:32am
My advice to anyone looking at going into the youtube creator business is to stay in school and look for career paths that are A.) recession-proof B.) not dependent on one single corporation B.) Always in demand C.) Portable. (meaning the skills are the same from place to place or internationally.)
By theeht10 on 02.11.19 10:18am
Emphasis on staying in school! Kids these days need to properly learn their ABBCs.
By SketchMo on 02.11.19 10:48am
People also need to consider which jobs are likely to be replaced by AI or robots in the next few decades.
By Random897 on 02.11.19 11:44am
Good point.
By theeht10 on 02.11.19 2:05pm
That’s the advice I give. "Yeah, making videos (or podcasts) can be a ton of fun but, hey, I have a day job and chances are so will you."
By ardent on 02.11.19 12:17pm
They may be a ton of fun but they’re also a ton of work and take way more time than anyone expects. The larger problem is there’s a huge opportunity cost with going down that road. Especially when younger people decide to give it a try instead of college while someone (like parents or scholarships) are willing to pay for it. I’m not saying college is for everyone but less time could be spent studying and working towards a degree in something like medicine, teaching, engineering or criminal justice. Not to suggest that those are an easy road to take either, just that there’s something at the end of that road that you can take to the bank,
By theeht10 on 02.11.19 2:10pm
I don’t think there’s a ton of opportunity cost with either, provided that you’re recording what you’d be doing anyway. We podcast game and media discussions, which is exactly what we’d be doing anyway if we weren’t recording it. So there’s no opportunity cost associated. But yes, if you set out to fake it til you make it, there’s a lot of opportunity cost there. Just ask Patty Mayo.
By ardent on 02.12.19 7:53am
You know I’m actually surprised no one has of yet sued YouTube that they should be paid a fair wage as an employee. Not saying I agree with it, it just seems like someone would have by now just like Uber, Lift, etc. I mean where else do they get their content for the most part and who gets hurt in these lawsuits, bans, demonetizations, etc. Certainly not Youtube itself.
By zbbayesk on 02.11.19 2:45pm
They aren’t employees.
By A Olson on 02.11.19 10:27pm
Yes, stay in school. We need more sheep people to learn to follow the rules and keep in line. XD
By AdamMahase on 02.11.19 7:15pm
Why not require some form of validation for accounts to be able to submit copyright claims – so that fraudulent claims can actually be punished? Put some onus on the one making the claim…and not solely on the accused to defend themselves?
www.techvenge.net
By Venge09 on 02.11.19 9:25pm
Wow, you would think that a writer for a technology focused website would have at least SOME idea of the basic laws for tech. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is not "YouTube’s system," it is what every website must adhere to in order to maintain safe harbor status. YouTube cannot pick and choose DMCA takedown requests, they must comply with them all. Just like they must comply with every counter-notice, even if it is obviously copyright infringing. If neither party backs down, then the dispute plays out in courts, not on YouTube.
Also, fair use is a legal defence, not blanket immunity from dealing with copyright claims. And most youtubers don’t seem to have any idea of what constitutes fair use, from what I’ve seen. Remember, even most of Weird Al’s songs aren’t considered fair use, which is why he got permission every single time.
By A Olson on 02.11.19 10:49pm
To make it worse the one deciding is not even YouTube, it is the claimer. Yes, you are reading right, they created a "system" in which anyone can come and say you have copyrighted material in your video that belongs to me and from now on I take all the profit of that video. And the contain creator can "dispute" it but the it is the "offended" part who decides if they back off or not, of course most times they do not back off. Then the creator has 2 choices, forget about it and surrender their profits or "dispute" it again, the outcome of the second dispute is in most times siding the "offender" again and then your channel gets one "strike", with the first strike you already lose features, with 3 strikes your channel is out. In all these process the contain creator never gets to talk to a person, it is all automated by "algorithms" and in some cases someone in Costa Rica will "review" the case but without talking to anyone.
In reality what is happening is that most contain creators who make a living of YouTube just surrender to every copyright complain. It is a nightmare.
By Havohej on 02.12.19 3:44am
Except YouTube does have a system, and DMCA has little to do with it. Things like unsupervised and poorly adjudicated "copyright strikes" (and associated arbitrary reductions in posting privileges), automated Content ID take downs, etc., are all purely YouTube specific innovations.
The effects — faulty presumption of claimant rectitude, excessively high stakes for creators and essentially non-existent review and oversight process — have little or nothing to do with DMCA requirements.
I suspect an actual DMCA policy - i.e., a vanilla claim/counterclaim/take it to court process — would be vastly preferred by most users of the platform. (Especially if combined with legislative tweaks to beef up penalties for bad-faith DMCA claims.)
By jacklecou on 02.12.19 1:33pm
YouTube needs a serious competitor really badly.
By Havohej on 02.12.19 3:36am
You may wish to check out Cocoscope – https://www.cocoscope.com/ .
By dalef on 02.13.19 12:55pm
Any type of adjudication system that places the onus on the accused to prove his/her innocence rather than the accuser to prove the accused guilty is destined to produce injustice. This applies whether the accusation relates to sexual harassment, sexual assault, or copyright.
By dalef on 02.13.19 12:58pm
YouTube is owned by Google whose motto is "Do the wrong thing". Wait. I got that backwards. Their motto is "Do the right thing", it just seems like they always do the wrong thing.
By Steve Someone on 02.13.19 5:18pm