What do you mean back on YouTube?

I was permanently banned from YouTube due to a copyright violation misunderstanding.

Yea, this sucks

What happened?

argh, back in the day I uploaded some Family Guy clips, because it was awesome and I wanted to share them… as a fan. Fox didn’t like that, and they had them removed. I had two videos removed within a few months of posting them (fair enough), but then the third sat there in my account for 3 years. Over those 3 years;

• I uploaded a handful of original videos.
• Saved videos I loves.
• Commented on videos.
• Basically was a normal user within the community (barring those infringing Family Guy clips).

How did you get permanently banned then?

Well, YouTube has a not widely publised policy of completely banning any user that has 3 strikes for copyright violations. No warning, no grace period, no nothing, your account is locked. You cannot log in and delete the offending content. You cannot directly contact anyone to review your case, you just get generic replies explaining which videos caused the ban.  So when that third video got reported… BAM! my account was never to be accessed again.

Why don’t you just create another account?

Well, you can… but it’s tricky because everything is run via Google. I love google, and everything it entails. Google links all your accounts pretty tightly and after a lot of pain and hassle I learnt I couldn’t easily be logged into my google account, and sign into YouTube.

So just use YouTube without being signed in…

Yes I did that mostly, except when you run into the issue of not being able to save good videos quickly. Also when you try and access any content that is over PG rating they require age-check… which is done… via your account. So yea, pain in the ass.

How’d you get back on?

I unlinked my banned account from my google account via http://www.youtube.com/my_account_unlink . This enabled me to create a new YouTube account linked to my main google account. I’ll never get that username back, thats fine. Please do not use this method for malicious purposes. I am extremely grateful that I can now be an active member in the YouTube community again and love being able to save videos and share them with my friends. I am also excited at the possibility of uploading my own original videos, which is something I’ve been thinking about doing (but until now, unable to even consider).

So now your back, what are you going to do?

I am going to be a productive member of the YouTube community. I have learnt that they do not take kindly to copyrighted material and do not want to experience a total ban again. I wish YouTube would review matters like this. Whilst I understand what I did was wrong, is it really fair to punish someone for something they did over 3 years ago?

I would welcome a polite conversation with anyone from YouTube regarding this matter. I do not wish to be banned again. It has been my experience however, that there is no personal interaction with users from YouTube administration.

I’m Back Baby! so here are some of my choice YouTube clips