Over the past weekend, frequent listeners of the popular YouTube livestream ‘lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to‘, hosted by ‘Lofi Girl‘, were in for a rude shock when they realised that it had been taken down from YouTube. Accruing over 668 million total views since it went live on air, the livestream is most fondly remembered for its use of an animated background featuring a studious girl seemingly hard at work with her studies.
‘Lofi Girl’ livestream briefly taken off YouTube after copyright claim
According to the team behind ‘Lofi Girl‘, the livestream was taken down after a copyright claim was filed by a Malaysian recording company known as FMC Music Sdn Bhd, which resulted in their livestream receiving a copyright strike.
The copyright strike policy was introduced by YouTube as part of their compliancy with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and was meant to help protect content creators from having their intellectual properties from being misused, misappropriated, or reproduced without their prior consent or permission.
However, YouTube has since responded to the copyright strike issued to the ‘Lofi Girl’ team and assured that their video will be reinstated within a period of 24 to 48 hours, after it found that the claims made by FMC Music Sdn Bhd to be ‘abusive’ in nature.
YouTube has decided to terminate FMC Music Sdn Bhd’s account
Comeuppance has been swift since then, with The Star reporting that YouTube has come to the decision to terminate the company’s official account in the wake of the incident.
However as of July 13th, 9.20am, the company’s YouTube page with 1.82 million subscribers, remains accessible.
Similarly, many netizens from Malaysia and abroad have also taken to bombarding the company’s social media pages with angry vitriol over the false copyright strike.
In response to the allegations, a representative from the FMC Music has told Malaysiakini that their YouTube account had been ‘hacked’, which led to the copyright claim being filed without their knowledge. They have since reported the matter to YouTube, and are awaiting the results of their investigations.
As for the Lofi Girl‘s livestream, it has since been made accessible to the public once again. You may listen to it by tapping the link here!
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