YouTube Apologises For Removing Iconic Lofi Girl

YouTube has responded after it took down one of Lofi Girl's videos.

The Lofi Girl channel - which originally started under the name 'ChilledCow' before being rebranded to Lofi Girl in 2021 - plays videos of a Japanese-style of animation girl studying while lo-fi hip hop music plays as background relaxation for workers.

However, on Sunday, 10 July, Lofi Girl took to Twitter to reveal the channel's 'radios' had been 'taken down,' calling for YouTube Creators to 'sort this quickly'.

Two days ago, Lofi Girl tweeted: "The lofi radios have been taken down because of false copyright strikes, hopefully@YouTubeCreators @YouTube will sort this quickly..."

The screenshot shows the takedown notice sent from YouTube is in relation to a video titled, 'Lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/ study to'.

It also reveals the takedown was issued by FMC Music Sdn Bhd Malaysia.

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

On Monday, 11 July, Team YouTube replied to Lofi Girl's tweet.

"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," it stated.

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

Further tweets by Lofi Girl informed followers the 'false copyright strikes' related to 'two livestreams'.

On Monday, 11 July, it said: "The strike was retracted earlier today, however the livestreams have since been taken down entirely and not yet reinstated in their original form - hoping for things to return to normal soon."

The channel noted it was 'shocked and disappointed' YouTube 'still' doesn't have 'any kind of protection or manual review of these false claims', noting the takedown was 'entirely out of [its] control'.

It also referred to another instance the channel has seen a takedown.

Especially since it's not the first time that something like this happened - like in 2020, where our entire channel was taken down by error: (https://t.co/S4vilNFRoE) (3/7)

— Lofi Girl (@lofigirl) July 11, 2022

As a result of initially using the character of Shizuku Tsukishima from 1995 Japanese animated musical Whisper of the Heart the channel was 'terminated' in July 2017 because of copyright claims from Studio Ghibli.

However, the studying girl was replaced with an alternate animation so it was reinstated the next month.

The channel was taken down for a second time in February 2020.

YouTube called the takedown a 'mistake,' apologised and quickly 'reinstated' the channel after facing backlash.

While in 2020, TeamYouTube reassured it had 'shared [its] feedback with [its] review team to prevent similar errors from happening in the future', it appears the same issue has occurred again.

The copyright strike is significantly more serious too, as if a channel receives multiple it can be disabled or even permanently removed from the video sharing platform.

Thanks for flagging this to us! Our teams confirmed that this was a mistake on our side and your channel has now been reinstated. We’re sorry this happened! We've shared feedback with our review team to prevent similar errors from happening in the future.

— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) February 23, 2020

At the time of writing, the video - which has amassed over 600 million views - still comes up as 'live stream recording not available'.

However, in its latest update Lofi Girl reflected: "Thank you to everyone who helped spread the word, your contribution has been invaluable, and I couldn't have asked for a more supportive community!"

The channel concluded by raising awareness of an 'underlying problem on the platform' for 'countless smaller creators' in being 'hit daily by [...] false claims on both videos and livestreams'.

Lofi Girl resolved: "Nonetheless, we remain positive and hope that YouTube will consider applying changes to their copyright reporting system to prevent such a situation from reoccurring, and protect all content creators once and for all against this threat."

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