Jim Sterling, the popular YouTube critic and host of web series The Jimquisition, has figured out a frankly ingenious way of avoiding copyright claims and content ID matches on the video-sharing site.
In his latest episode of The Jimquisition, Sterling discusses Nintendo and the middling response to the company’s recent release of Star Fox Zero. However, given Nintendo’s backwards approach to YouTube, with the company regularly flagging content for copyright infringement even if the use of footage from their games is covered by Fair Use, it would typically only be a matter of time before the company flagged the video and pulled it from the site.
This has led to Sterling devising a way to bypass these false copyright claims not just with Nintendo, but with frequent abusers of YouTube’s Content ID system. At the end of the video, Sterling explains how he had peppered it with footage from a variety of footage of games that typically lead to copyright claims, including Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Grand Theft Auto V and Beyond: Two Souls. Sterling suggests that by doing so, these companies will therefore find themselves at a loose end as they will be forced to decide among themselves who should monetize the video and attempt to profit from it.
With the frequent abuse of copyright claims plaguing the site, as we have previously outlined in our coverage of the #WTFU campaign supported by several prominent YouTube content creators (Sterling included), this presents a very clever way for video makers to ensure that their content isn’t unceremoniously removed from the site. Check out Sterling’s video below, with his description of his new method beginning at around the 9-minute mark:
