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Many people have had conversations with me about YouTube’s copyright infringement reporting system. I’ve seen online discussions on Reddit, also, about the system.

Bottom line: If you have any videos wrongly removed for infringement, appeal. But have a professional help you appeal.

Here is a lightly-edited transcript of the video blog:

YouTube has a copyright problem.

Now, when I say that, most people think, “Well, sure there’s lots of infringing material on YouTube, right?”

That’s not quite what I mean though. Lately, copyright take-down notices are being weaponized.

How?

A lot of big YouTubers are complaining about smaller YouTube competitors and those particular videos are then being taken down. It’s really weird, but in a way it’s a bit of an antitrust violation as somebody bigger is stepping on the smaller competition using copyright law to do it.

A lot of YouTube content creators are complaining that these take down notices are not correct; that the material is either a not infringing or fair use or the complaints just don’t relate at all to either original material from the complaining party or from the video that’s being taken down.

So, when I say that YouTube has a copyright problem, I mean there’s a problem with the entire system of complaining about copyright infringement on YouTube.

I’m not sure that I have a solution for Youtube, but for anybody whose material is being taken down and maybe not being taken down fairly, there is an appeal process.

That process takes time. That process is not really fair to those who are not actually infringing somebody else’s copyright with their own YouTube videos.

That appeals process is not necessarily fair to those who are monetizing and then get stomped by somebody bigger. But if there is a problem, that’s where somebody like Verna Law does come in handy.

We can properly set up the appeals process: explain why the video is not infringing.

We can set up in the appeals process why the video might be fair use.

We could set up in the appeals process why there is a not original content in a certain video.

So let us help you.

Let us help those creators who are finding themselves being stamped on because having those actual arguments, having the cases that show YouTube what’s infringement or what’s fair use, those are all of the types of defenses that a YouTube creator needs to stop the stomping.

I’m Anthony Verna, Managing Partner. Verna Law will help you with YouTube copyright complaints.