YouTube Apologizes for Removing 'Lofi Girl' Streams Over False Copyright Claims

YouTube apologized for removing two popular livestreams from 'Lofi Girl' over false copyright claims and promised to restore them in the coming days.

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YouTube will soon reinstate two popular livestreams by Lofi Girl, which were removed over what was later determined to be “abusive” takedown requests. 

On Sunday, Lofi Girl shared a notice from YouTube regarding the removal of the “lofi hip hop radio — beats to relax/study to” and “lofi hip hop radio — beats to sleep/chill to” streams due to alleged copyright violations. 

The lofi radios have been taken down because of false copyright strikes, hopefully @YouTubeCreators @YouTube will sort this quickly... pic.twitter.com/X01hL6jT2N

— Lofi Girl (@lofigirl) July 10, 2022

Lofi Girl stood by its assertion of “false copyright strikes,” telling TechCrunch that all music on the channel is released through its record label, Lofi Records. The following day, YouTube issued an apology to Lofi Girl via Twitter, and estimated that the two livestreams should be restored within 24 to 48 hours.

confirmed the takedown requests were abusive & terminated the claimants account 😔 we've resolved the strikes + reinstated your vids – it can sometimes take 24-48 hours for everything to be back to normal! so sorry this happened & thx for your patience as we sorted it out ❤️‍🩹

— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) July 11, 2022

YouTube’s community guidelines dictate the first copyright strike serves as a warning and if the account were to receive three strikes, it would lead to termination. Lofi Girl’s former account ChilledCow was taken down in Feb. 2020 for violating the terms of service, a decision that YouTube ultimately acknowledged was a mistake on its part. 

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