YouTube's copyright infringement policy has become notoriously strict, but this time they may have overdone it just a bit.
It seems a clever prankster was able to completely remove Justin Bieber's YouTube Channel from the video site last weekend, simply by making false DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) violation claims, according to WebPro News. The whole fiasco sent Twitter into a frenzy before the channel was restored.
But Bieber wasn't the only one hit. PC Mag reports that the false claim making user, who went under the username, iLCreation, also hit a number of other popular artists, including Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Bruno Mars.
Vevo, who runs the channels for Bieber and a number of other popular artists, quickly posted this statement following the take down, according to digitalmediawire:
Someone is making false copyright claims against the Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga channels and YouTube has blocked access to the videos as a result. We are working with YouTube to resolve ASAP.
The videos were still available through the Vevo site, as well as their app, though many did not reappear on YouTube for sometime.
Vevo posted this notice when the video came back to Youtube:
A few videos by Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga were briefly taken down by YouTube as a result of false copyright claims. This issue has been resolved.
YouTube's strict, almost automatic, take-down-upon-notice policy for copyright infringement made the whole stunt possible, according to Geekosystem. While the policy protects the site against copyright infringement claims, this does exemplify how easy it is to abuse the system. That said, it's unclear as to whether or not YouTube has made changes to its policy in regards to some of the larger accounts in the wake of this incident.