YouTube Settles Lawsuit against Christopher for False Copyright Claims

Posted On October 22, 2019April 25, 2020

YouTube, an American video-sharing site headquartered in San Bruno, California, has settled the lawsuit against Christopher Brady, who attempted to extort ‘Minecraft’ creators by falsely flagging their videos over Copyright Infringement and refused to cease unless they paid him.

In Brady’s official apology, which is a part of this settlement, Christopher L. Brady admitted that he had provided YouTube with dozens of notices falsely claiming that matter uploaded by YouTube users infringed his copyrights. Mr. Brady wrote that he apologized to the YouTube community, to YouTube itself, and to the YouTube users who are directly impacted by his actions.

As per the settlement terms, Brady will also pay $25,000, which YouTube intends to donate to non-profit advocacy that advocates on behalf of ‘Minecraft’ creators.

YouTube spokesperson Farshad Shadloo, in a statement, said that this settlement puts light on the real consequences for those who attempt to misuse their copyright work. Besides, they will continue their practice to prevent further abuse of their creator’s works.

YouTube filed against Brady in August this year, after witnessing complaints, tweeted by two Minecraft-focused creators – Kenzo with 462K subscribers and ObbyRaidz with 11.4K subscribers, stating that Christopher had filed false copyright claims against them. The plaints explained that Brady, who used more than 15 different identities, targeted these two and many other creators by filing some manual copyright claims alleging creators’ channels had stolen his content. The channels then got one copyright strike for every claim. As YouTube holds a three-strikes-and-you-are-out system with copyright infringement, a third strike would have led grounds for the end of the creators’ channels.

After the second strike, Brady served creators with the messages demanding money in exchange for canceling the previous two strikes and not filing a channel-terminating third strike.

Through the messages, Brady communicated that once they receive their payment, they will cancel both strikes on creators’ channels. On the other hand, if creators decide not to pay the set amount, they will file a third strike. He also wrote that the creators have very little time to make their decision. The sum that he demanded ranges from $100 to $300.

The strikes were removed from Kenzo’s and ObbyRaidz’s channels after they notified YouTube.

YouTube said that they regularly terminate accounts of those who misuse their copyright system. Nevertheless, in this case of egregious abuse where the copyright removal method was related to extortion, they felt compelled to pursue further towards legal action and to make it clear that they do not tolerate abuse of their platform or its users. For more visit: https://www.kashishipr.com/