Merits of the underlying copyright claim (and any fair use defense) aside, what is the process by which platforms such as YouTube adjudicate copyright disputes? And what recourse is available to content creators who seek to dispute an infringement claim (and what happens to the ad revenue in the meantime)? What are the implications for the rights of content creators and rights holders under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)? In this and the following post we will look at the requirements under the DMCA and how platforms have responded with their own processes.Įnacted in 1998, the DMCA was intended to address new issues relating to uses of copyrighted material update existing copyright legislation for the digital age. PewDiePie’s public gripe raises real issues regarding the treatment of copyright disputes on social media platforms. Like what?! I just thought it was bullshit.” This is actually infringing on copyright, according to this company! So all the revenue now goes to this company for the entire video. This is what it sounds like *plays clip* – it’s “too similar”, isn’t it? So I appealed it, obviously – because it’s bullshit. At the end, we played ‘My Heart Will Go On’ (or at least that’s what we said we were going to play). When YouTube flagged and “demonetized” the video, PewDiePie shared the following reaction on social media: At least to me, the original melody is hardly recognizable in PewDiePie’s brief, discordant recorder performance (disclaimer: I am not a musicologist).

The content creator had posted a half-hour “Meme Review” segment that concluded with a, shall we say, interesting rendition of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” on the recorder. Yet this week, PewDiePie had some beef to air with YouTube. And as of now, he has amassed over 26 billion views and despite recent controversy is among the platform’s highest earners. In 2016, YouTube sent him a Ruby Play Button to commemorate his achievement of 50 million subscribers on the platform.

The rise of YouTube and the rise of PewDiePie have been symbiotic. He reached one million subscribers by 2012 and his channel had become the most-subscribed on YouTube by 2013. Early on, the Swedish gamer and vlogger gained a following for posting gaming content, vlogs, comedy shorts and music videos. Over ten years ago, relatively early in the history of the video-sharing platform, the now-famous YouTuber uploaded the first videos to his channel. PewDiePie’s YouTube channel description is simply: “I make videos.”

My heart will go on song review