Receiving a copyright strike on your YouTube channel can be a scary occurrence, and depending on your previous activity it may result in you losing access to critical features on your channel. However, if you do receive a copyright strike there are a few measures you can take to try and remove the strike from your channel. Continue reading our blog for the full details.

Copyright strikes can occur on your channel if a copyright owner believes your video uses their content without their permission. These strikes have to be placed manually, and can be placed through YouTube’s Content ID system or via a DMCA takedown notice. If your channel receives a strike, it’s important to take immediate action to resolve the strike. Three strikes on your channel can lead to your account being subject to termination, all the videos on your channel being removed, and losing the ability to create new YouTube channels.

If you do receive a copyright strike, you will be notified via email as well as a message in your channel dashboard. You can also check your copyright notices under the video manager tab in your creator studio. Once there, you will be able to see if a video has a strike by a message appearing by the video saying: “Video taken down: Copyright strike”. 

If you have a video on your channel with a copyright strike you can click into the “copyright” tab of the video and see the strike details, as well as take a few actions to try and resolve the strike. The details will show you the content being claimed, who the claimant is, and the claimant’s contact information. If you believe that this strike was issued incorrectly and your video does not use any third party content without permission, then you can submit a counter-notification to dispute the strike. It’s important that you do not issue a counter-notification if your video does use third party content without permission. Issuing a counter-notification begins a legal process, and the claimant could have the strike upheld against your channel by filing a lawsuit against you.

If your video does use third party content without permission, there is still one step you can take to get the strike removed, and that’s to request a retraction. This will send a request to the claimant, and you’ll want to let the claimant know you're willing to delete the video and do anything else to comply with their wishes if they agree to remove their strike. You can also try emailing them with the contact info they provided with they issued the strike.

It’s important to act quickly when you channel receives a copyright strike, so please don’t ever hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions on this process.