I don't enjoy making videos like this. I never will. But this is something I need to talk about, and get word out there as much as possible.
Nearly three years ago, I created and uploaded a video compilation for Season 1 of The Mysterious Cities of Gold, an old animated show that had fascinating trivia segments at the end of every episode. I thought it would be neat to put together a video of all the segments and share it with people. For over a year, the worst that had happened was getting some copyright claims when I first uploaded the video, but I was fine with that since I never intended to make a profit off the video nor claim the content as my own. All I cared about was that any one who wanted to watch it could do so.
But in August of 2022, a company called Newen randomly decided to have Blue Efficience ask YouTube to take down my video and issue me a Copyright Strike. While Newen does have a hand in later seasons of The Mysterious Cities of Gold, said seasons are not available for online viewing in my region and thus were completely absent from my video. That apparently didn't matter, and thus I was given a strike that prevented me from uploading content for a period of time. Eventually, the strike expired, and I was able to continue uploading new content. However, I refused to delete the video altogether, because not only was there no real alternative website for me to upload the video, but neither Blue Efficience & Newen had any right going after the video in the first place.
Earlier this week, however, I get an email with a subject line reminding me all too much of this incident. But when I opened said email, it said that the takedown request for my Mysterious Cities of Gold video had been deemed invalid, the video had been reinstated, and the associated copyright strike had been resolved. I SHOULD have been ecstatic that my video was viewable to the public again, but instead I felt angry and confused by their wording and timing. WHY had it taken them this long to realize that Newen didn't own any of the content in my video? WHY had it taken them so long to reinstate my video? WHY were they acting as though I was still suffering from a copyright strike that had expired in 2022? WHY was there no mention of any consequences to the complainant for issuing a copyright takedown under false pretenses in the first place? And if there is no punishment for them or any other companies doing this sort of behavior in the first place, is there anything stopping me or other victims in similar situations from issuing copyright takedowns to them in turn, since it appears only those accused suffer consequences?
I would be AMAZED if YouTube would bother to answer any of these questions.