YouTube Instantly Deleted Our Entire Channel

Problem

We have been banned from YouTube and our YouTube channel has been closed by the YouTube team
We exhausted all our energy before we took action to write this article
We have tried to communicate in all possible ways with the YouTube team or to convey our voice to them in any way. Just to ask what is the real reason for closing our YouTube channel

We did not find any convincing answers or any real help
All we get are some links to Google’s help pages
We know for sure that YouTube ignores start-ups or small content creators.
And we know that the disappearance of a YouTube channel or its closure for an unrealistic reason will not affect YouTube anything
YouTube has billions of channels and videos

But today we are talking about injustice and indifference on the part of YouTube. Exploiting the power and position that YouTube has reached.

The beginning

The story began when we decided to be on YouTube and create a YouTube channel for the production company we own, or more clearly, the production and distribution company is owned by two Egyptian producers of movies and TV series.

We decided to start with the oldest that was produced by the owners of the company (the two producers) in the nineties
It is a television series ( Yawmiat Wanees ) consisting of five seasons, each season 30 episodes, except for the fourth season, 32 episodes. From 1994 to 1998. By season every year

When we started uploading videos to the channel
We were surprised by something very suspicious. Which is that there is an account (QMG Affiliate) on YouTube that claims ownership of our content and either sets a policy to monetize the videos or block the videos by using the Content ID tool
How does this happen when we are the owners and distributors of this content?

We submitted the problem to the legal advisor for opinion, and after discussion and clarification of the tools, we were advised to start the dispute over the ownership of the content to see where things will end.

Dispute

Well, we started with the first stage, which is the stage of the dispute over the ownership of videos on YouTube
The fraudulent account rejected the dispute stage and the copyright claims on the videos are back again
So this confirms that this account (QMG Affiliate) is fraudulent and insists on claiming ownership of our content that is owned by us only.
At this time, we tried to contact YouTube via Twitter, but the response was always that YouTube does not interfere in copyright disputes
How is that and YouTube is unfair at this stage? YouTube is the one who gave that tool to that account and used this tool to inflict harm on us and claim ownership of what we own.

Appeal

Well, let’s enter the second stage, which is the stage of the appeal, in which we ask that account to reconsider the decision, as it may have been wrong.
We were faced with two choices, either this account accept the appeal, or to insist on the claims, and here the videos are completely deleted from YouTube and we are given Strikes.
And one of the rules of YouTube is that when an account gets 3 strikes, the entire channel is closed

And the response from that account was the refusal and giving us a period of 7 days, either we waive the appeal stage and cancel it, or the videos will be deleted and thus the channel will be deleted.

We again consulted our legal advisor and he advised us to wait until the videos are deleted and take another action, which is the counter notification, which is the last stage in the dispute.

Counter Notification

A counter-notification is the start of legal proceedings. Under US law

https://www.copyright.gov/title17/chapter5.pdf

We have already waited and the videos were deleted and the channel was closed by YouTube because of this problem
So we sent the counter notification to YouTube, which in turn is supposed to forward the counter notification after making sure that the counter notification is complete and not missing any elements.

And we were waiting for a message from YouTube stating that the counter notification has been sent to the claimant
To be surprised by another disaster, which is YouTube’s refusal to send the counter notification because YouTube is not sure of our ownership of the content.

Well when we talk to YouTube and complain that there is a fraudulent account that is scamming and claiming ownership of content owned by us. The response is that YouTube is not a party and does not interfere as a third party between two conflicting parties over the ownership of the content.

And now YouTube refuses to forward the counter notification. Which is firstly illegal and YouTube has no right to stand as a wall between the two parties to the conflict and secondly that YouTube is not a party to the conflict and thirdly, there is no provision in US law that allows service providers to refuse counter notification.

We tried to contact the YouTube team again on Twitter and made it clear that this is illegal. The team then notified us that they forwarded the counter notification.

Well let’s wait 10 to 14 working days. to see if the fraudulent claimant will take any legal action against us to prevent us from recovering the content again.

And As expected, NO RESPONSE FROM THE CLAIMANT
The entire content was restored and the channel was restored again.

Second Termination

In the meantime, we had not uploaded all the episodes, but about 66 episodes out of 152 episodes
So the next procedure for us is to upload the rest of the episodes, but there is a problem with this fraudulent account again
Are we going to get into this again and start another conflict again?
Or what will happen?

In the meantime, we tried to contact YouTube again, but we did not find any response that helps with anything
When we requested to obtain the public record about the plaintiff in order to take legal action, we also did not find any response. Which is illegal

So let’s take the same procedure again, we uploaded the rest of the episodes and found that the same account claims ownership of the content
We took the same measures until we reached the counter notification again after the channel was closed for the second time. Then the counter-notice was dismissed again, and after we objected that it was illegal. The counter notification has been forwarded.
The claimant did not respond to the counter-notice
The videos were restored and the channel was restored again

All of this is a huge loss, materially and morally.

But this matter does not matter to YouTube, and it does not matter that much to open an investigation into the matter or that punishes this account and stops it from using the Content ID tool.

Publish

Well now we have our content and we can publish it at any time

In the period between closing the channel for the first time and the second time, we published the second and third seasons and five episodes of the fourth season. We uploaded the rest of the episodes related to the first season and the rest of the fourth season and the fifth season. Then we entered the stage of the dispute over ownership again as we mentioned previously. And the channel was deleted again and then we restored it again and now it remains to publish the rest of the episodes

Indeed, we have apologized to the channel’s followers about that the channel was unavailable for a period (which is the period during which the channel was closed) and that we will publish the rest of the seasons of the series by one episode per day

We’ve already started publishing the first season with its YouTube premiere feature and we’re done

And we decided to publish the rest of the episodes of the fourth season in the month of Ramadan. It is the month in which Muslims fast the whole month, and it is the most watched month for TV-Series.

We have informed viewers that we will publish the rest of the episodes of the fourth season, starting from the sixth day of Ramadan, so that the number of episodes coincides with the days of Ramadan. And we saw the joy in the comments of the followers of the channel.

copyright violations

Meanwhile, since the first deletion of the channel, after the second deletion, and then the restoration of the channel
We have taken action against all videos that infringe copyrights on YouTube
We found nearly 300 videos that violate our copyrights and that the fraudulent account that previously claimed to own our content sets the profit policy on those videos and profit from them.
Indeed, we have removed all of them from YouTube because they violate our copyrights.

Final Termination

Well, now we are waiting until the 6th of Ramadan, corresponding to the 7th of April, 2022 to publish the fourth season
To be surprised that the channel was deleted by YouTube for no reason
We received an email:

Hi Arabeem,

We have reviewed your content and found severe or repeated violations of our Community Guidelines. Because of this, we have removed your channel from YouTube.

We know this is probably very upsetting news, but it’s our job to make sure that YouTube is a safe place for all. If we think a channel severely violates our policies, we take it down to protect other users on the platform – but if you believe we’ve made the wrong call, you can appeal this decision. You’ll find more information about the policy in question and how to submit an appeal below.

What our policy says

Spam, scams or commercially deceptive content are not allowed on YouTube.

How come?
All we do is publish our content
Where and how did we deceive the viewers?

After a long search, we did not find an answer to the question asked
What is the huge thing that we did and as a result of which YouTube closed the channel

Viewers are having fun and we are happy. So where is the problem?

We didn’t do anything against YouTube Terms of Service.

Termination Appeal

We decided to send our first appeal to restore the channel
Within a few hours, we were answered with the following:

Hello,

Thank you for your account suspension appeal. We have decided to keep your account suspended based on our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service. Please visit http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines for more information.

Please do not respond to this email. Replies to this email will not be processed. Please refer to our Help Center for more information.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

We have tried everything from trying to communicate with the YouTube team on Twitter and posting on the YouTube forum for help and reading all the terms of the community guidelines and terms of service

We didn’t find any real help
So far, we do not understand what is happening, why we are not being answered, and why there is no transparency in dealing
It came now that we sent 4 appeals and the same response every time by refusing to restore the channel

This article will be updated and enhanced with another article about fraudulent account corruption using the content ID tool.