According to screenshots posted to “Louder with Crowder,” YouTube cut the show’s stream after an apparently fraudulent claim of copyright infringement was reported. The account that reported the false claim has run the same apparent scam against other YouTubers outside of Crowder, too.
“[I]f the channel receives three hard strikes, we’re out,” wrote Courtney Kirchoff at “Louder with Crowder.” “We take strikes seriously. But this strike, from the looks of it, is completely invalid. That’s a polite way of saying it’s bulls***. Yet our stream was still removed from the largest free online streaming ‘platform’ in the world.”
The account apparently purported to represent Warner Brothers and issued a copyright claim, triggering YouTube to remove the stream.
“What we found out with simple searches is this ‘mbentkover’ (account) character has violated federal law (making false copyright claims) since 2018,” Kirchoff said, adding complaints about the account from other YouTubers.
In March, for example, Divyansh Gupta complained online, “My Youtube Channel is Striked by [email protected] and this guy 3 False Striked me on my Ben 10 gameplay Series saying it belongs to Warner Bros which is not true! PLEASE HELP @YouTube @YouTubeIndia I can’t afford to lose my channel & Videos.”
From your screenshot, it looks like you've already submitted a counter notification. This is best next step if you think the strikes were made in error. Our team will review this and forward it to the claimant. You can read more about it here: https://t.co/2stm64ZpdJ
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) March 9, 2020
Another YouTuber in 2018 posted: “[Does] Youtube really believe this name, [it’s] like something off The Simpsons [email protected], gmail not an official domain. The video itself was NOT made or taken by ANY staff at the so called Warner Bros, so copyrite is false claim, this is a FAKE Claims [sic], by a Troll Joker.”
Do Youtube REally believe this name, its like something off The Simpsons [email protected] , gmail not an official domain.
The video itself was NOT made or taken by ANY staff at the so called Warner Bros , so copyrite is false claim, this is a FAKE Claims, by a Troll Joker pic.twitter.com/sBuYVfHFIi
— London England News 2024 🏴 (@LondonHertsNews) August 2, 2018
Kirchoff railed at YouTube, chalking up the incident to either intentional negligence or utter YouTube incompetence.
Either YouTube “allows this bad actor to continue issuing false strikes against channels, thus putting those entire channels at risk,” she wrote, or “the biggest tech company in the world, YouTube, lacks the ability to stop a random fraud with a Gmail account from successfully abusing the system against the biggest conservative channel their platform has ever seen. And other smaller channels to boot.”
“Either way, not a good look for YouTube,” Kirchoff said.
Related: Steven Crowder on The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special
