What is going on in YouTube’s Second Life community? Creators accuse each other of stealing content, filing false DMCA reports
YouTubers who stream themselves playing Second Life are accusing a banned member of the community of filing false copyright strikes against their videos to take them down. Second Life is a 20-year-old metaverse game in which users can create an avatar of themselves and interact with others in a virtual world.
One popular Second Life YouTuber, Daniel, who goes by the username DNSL, posted on one of his secondary channels to say that he was getting deplatformed on Sept. 26. According to a screenshot, YouTube emailed him saying someone had filed a copyright removal request against one of his videos. The message also warned him that if he got multiple copyright removal strikes, his channel would be terminated.
In the video that got flagged, Daniel allegedly included an audio clip that was saved on Soundcloud featuring another Second Life user speaking. The voice belonged to the creator who filed a copyright removal request.
“This is not music or anything; it’s literally just someone’s voice,” Daniel claims. “This isn’t just happening to me — in the past month this individual has deplatformed three Second Life content creators.”
Occasionally referred to as “copyright trolls,” groups of people or individuals on various social platforms attempt to leverage copyright laws for their own purpose of making money — whether that’s through trying to financially extort others or getting competitors’ accounts taken down. It has been an ongoing issue on YouTube for years.
When YouTube sends copyright removal requests to users, it includes the name of the user who requested the removal and their contact info. Daniel blocked that information from viewers but claimed that it was the username of the “toxic creator” who has been banned on YouTube.
“The guy has been stalking me for years,” Daniel alleges in the video. “He’s a complete menace to everyone. He’s had beef with huge YouTubers and pretty much anyone who he has come in contact with.”
While Daniel doesn’t name the person, he does allege it was Dominic Vanner, more commonly known as Britbong or BritbongReturns, in a since-deleted Reddit post. Embedded in the post is a video showing Vanner’s Second Life avatar talking about copyright strikes and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns.
“You DMCA them, bro, they ain’t going to counter it,” Vanner says in the embedded video. “If they counter it, you know who they are.”
Creators may hesitate to file a counter DMCA notice because it will require them to divulge personal information that will be sent back to the complainant. Daniel elaborated on what the private information would entail in a Reddit comment, implying it could be leveraged for doxxing.
Doxxing is the act of sharing identifying or personal information about someone online — such as their real name, home address, financial information or personal photos — and then circulating it without the person’s permission.
For copyright strikes, the person filing doesn’t have to provide any information other than an email address, which, some Reddit users claim, can be a throwaway account or made-up.
Vanner told In The Know by Yahoo that he’s had “problems” with Daniel since 2016. But, while Vanner admitted to having “been a troll in the past,” he alleged that he was not filing false DMCAs.
He claimed that he filed the copyright takedown on Daniel’s video because he included the Soundcloud clip of Vanner speaking with “zero context or commentary,” and Vanner was suspicious of the intentions behind it. Then, Vanner claimed that Daniel uploaded his video about “getting deplatformed,” as well as the video of Vanner talking about DMCAs to Reddit, as attempts to “indirectly smear me.”
Daniel did not respond to In The Know’s request for comment.
Vanner claims the clip Daniel uploaded to Reddit was posted out of context. In it, he alleged to In The Know that he was responding to an unrelated situation and that he was referring to a separate incident involving his family members being doxxed on another site.
There are two claims that can be made against YouTube creators: Community guideline claims and copyright claims. Anyone can submit a community guideline claim — which addresses a number of YouTube violations like impersonation, vulgar language and harassment — but only copyright holders can file the latter one. YouTube also has a policy that any channel with three strikes will be banned and shut down.
According to Daniel’s allegations on Reddit, Vanner is allegedly filing DMCAs to get rid of competitors.
“He’s actively bragging, taunting that these people would have to give all their information to him to get rid of the strikes,” Daniel wrote. “With all information I mean full address, phone number, etc., etc.”
In 2019, YouTube sued a “copyright troll” within the Minecraft community who was filing false copyright strikes to extort other creators. In the lawsuit, a YouTuber filed complaints against two other creators and then sent them PayPal charges in exchange for not filing a third strike, which would shut down their channels.
“In this case of particularly egregious abuse, where the copyright removal process was used for extortion, we felt compelled to pursue further legal action and make it clear that we do not tolerate abuse of our platform or its users,” a YouTube spokesperson told the Verge.
YouTube uses a combination of humans and technology to prevent abuse within its copyright system. Jack Malon, a spokesperson for YouTube, reiterated to In The Know by Yahoo that YouTube is following laws by taking complaints at face value and removing content when someone alleges their copyright is being violated.
“We have dedicated teams who work to detect and prevent invalid use of our copyright tools, and we terminate tens of thousands of accounts every year who attempt to abuse these systems,” Malon said. “That said, our copyright team regularly reviews takedown requests and pushes back when complaints are incomplete, suspicious or the content may be protected under doctrines of ‘fair use.’”
YouTuber’s Copyright Transparency Report from the second half of 2022 reads that “over 5% of videos requested for removal … were the subject of abusive copyright removal requests.”
An “invalid request” is when a user doesn’t understand copyright law or YouTube’s copyright tools. An “abusive request,” which is what YouTube classifies in the 5% statistic, is when someone “intentionally and maliciously” tries to remove YouTube content through a false copyright claim.
In terms of filing counterclaims, Malon points to YouTube’s help center, where users can read about hiring authorized representation to submit the counter-notification on their behalf so that they don’t have to share personal information — especially if creators feel like they’re the target of an “abusive” copyright request.
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