YouTube reveals staggering amount of incorrect copyright claims

Copyright claims, which have long been the bane of many a YouTuber’s existence, are oftentimes not only overly aggressive, but sometimes simply incorrect and exploitative. Creators have long complained about the implementation of YouTube’s copyright system, which can lead to videos being completely taken down, audio muted, or ad revenues going to the claimant before a creator could even dispute the claim.

According to YouTube’s report, over 2.2 million copyright claim disputes in the first half of 2021 were settled in favor of the content creators, representing over 60% of disputed claims. The Copyright Transparency Report does not, however, specify what losses the creators incurred while challenging these claims. The report is the first of its kind, and YouTube promises to release it biannually going forward.

The main issue people have with the system, which the report itself admits “isn’t perfect,” is that there is little to no means to stop companies from filing false copyright claims, so the problem has persisted for many years on the platform and many content creators have started relying on other means of monetizing their content, such as Patreon and other similar subscription platforms.

Creators have been demanding a substantial change to the system for years now, and in 2019 YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki stated that the company was “exploring improvements,” but, so far, it seems there have not been many significant changes, aside from the automated Content ID system, which, though mostly accurate, still makes false judgments, prompting creators to go through an oftentimes lengthy appeal process.

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