YouTube copyright strikes are a pain for every YouTube creator – they are incredibly common since there are lots of copyright trolls on the platform, difficult to fight and ultimately, not worth the effort in some people’s eyes. In this article, we will discuss copyright and content ID strikes on YouTube and give you detailed instructions on how to remove copyright strikes on YouTube.
Table of Contents
Types of YouTube strikes
Community Guidelines Strike on YouTube
There are three main types of strikes your channel can receive on YouTube. The first type is the Community Guidelines Strike. This type of strike is pretty rare and only applies if your content violated YouTube’s Community Guidelines and ToS. Unless you’re posting pornography, violent content, etc., you most likely won’t receive one of these strikes.
Content ID strike on YouTube
The second YouTube strike type is the Content ID claim. Content ID is a YouTube algorithm that automatically checks every video on the platform for copyrighted content. If such content is identified, the company or person that owns the rights to the content is notified and can file a claim against the person who uploaded the video. If your video received a Content ID claim, it is most likely a legitimate claim from the owner of the content. Most YouTube creators don’t fight Content ID claims because it’s very time-consuming and these claims don’t really hurt the channel anyway. Most of the time, if a video is flagged by Content ID, the copyright owner will either not take any action at all, block the video completely or in certain countries or collect the profits from your video themselves. A Copyright ID strike is not a copyright violation, so YouTube’s three-strike rule does not apply to it.
Copyright Violation strike on YouTube
Finally, a Copyright Violation strike is the most dangerous of the three YouTube strike types. When your video receives a copyright violation, it means that someone noticed their copyrighted content in your video, filled out a request for YouTube to take it down, provided their contact information, details about their work and filled out a legal agreement stating that they believe you have infringed on their content copyright. Then, this claim was reviewed by YouTube and they agreed.
Copyright strikes are incredibly serious – even one copyright violation on YouTube can prevent you from monetizing videos or conducting live streams and if you get three active strikes, your channel will be blocked forever.
How to remove a copyright strike on YouTube?
If you receive a copyright claim on YouTube, the first step is not to delete the video. If you remove the video, the copyright strike will not go away but you will look very guilty. Plus, if you are successful at disputing the strike, the video won’t be restored because you have already deleted it. And if you decide to reupload it, you may have to go through the entire process once again. To do this, go to the creator studio, open the Video Manager, click on Copyright Notices and select Copyright Strike.
If you indeed received a copyright strike, you should carefully examine your video to determine whether you have actually violated any copyrights or if your content usage falls under fair use. For instance, if you posted a song you didn’t create or perform or an entire episode of a cartoon, you have definitely violated copyrights. In this case, you should accept the strike. You will need to go through YouTube’s copyright school and your account will receive certain penalties for 90 days. You can also accept the strike if you believe your content usage was in line with the fair use rules but you don’t want to fight the strike.
Another possible avenue to deal with a copyright strike is to contact the owner of the content of their lawyer directly and try to reason with them, using YouTube’s fair use policies to back up your position.
The last option is also the most dangerous one and you should not take it without thinking things through, considering the repercussions and even talking to a lawyer. You can submit a counterclaim to YouTube and make a detailed argument as to why you believe the copyright owner is wrong. This will essentially result in a legal dispute and can even lead to a court battle between you and the copyright owner.
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