The latest victim to YouTube's bizarre copyright content claim system was ChilledCow's "Lofi Hip Hop Radio Stream," but don't worry– Dexterto reports that it's back. ChilledCow's channel is known for its unending stream of chill hip hop and a loop of an anime girl studying. Nothing that's against YouTube's terms of service. It's also so well known that it was featured on Bojack Horseman, but that still didn't stop it from falling victim to a bad copyright system.
YouTube has frequently been the target of criticism for wrongfully killing channels, with only the top dogs on the platform having the resources and audience backlash to defend themselves. It's been a problem for years.
It seems this time the termination was made in error, and YouTube apologized, stating that they were sorry it happened and that they'd shared feedback with the review team to stop it from happening again. Considering the prevalence of these problems, however, it's more than likely PR for "stop complaining, it's back now." After all, YouTube's copyright ID system has claimed silence and white noise before.
As for the content creator, ChilledCow put forth a heartfelt thanks to their community of 4.3 million subscribers, stating that they'd get back to streaming soon. As of now, the channel is back up.
Still, people were understandably upset as the reason for the termination will likely remain hidden forever. Some of the biggest content creators have written heartfelt emails asking what was wrong, only to be met with automated replies.
Twitter user @yuusharo asked how the issue occurred, and what steps would prevent it from happening again. Getting started on YouTube these days is almost impossible due to the competition, but there's an added danger of that work randomly disappearing one day with no rhyme or reason.
This could be a good reason, such as using a copyrighted song, or an insane reason such as a million dollar company copyright claiming a section of silence on an original video and saying "that's our song." YouTube content creator Gus Johnson showed that playing "drop it like it's hot" on paper towels got him a manual copyright strike in 2018, so none of this is new.
Unfortunately, without a valid competitor for YouTube, there's no reason for the company to change its practices any time soon. We're just happy Lofi Hip Hop Beats to Study To was available to write this article with.