Youtuber Receives 150 Copyright Claims for Using Anime Clips in His Videos

Toei Animation, the studio that had produced culturally defining anime adaptations such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Sailor Moon, is facing harsh criticisms from the western anime community. The company copyright claimed over 150 videos from the Youtuber Totally Not Mark who creates video essays on many of the company’s works.

Totally Not Mark is a Youtuber with over with over half a million. Most of his content thus far has been video essays and reviews over anime from Toei animations and other major studios. His reviews often include clips from the anime adaptations however fall under fair use in most countries as his work can be seen as extremely transformative. Unfortunately, Japanese copyright laws lack any fair use that protects criticism and right holders reserve full control over their intellectual property on websites such as Youtube.

Whilst Toei Animation reserves full control over Marks’ videos and Youtube has also sided with the corporation, many prominent figures in the Youtube community have made videos on the issue. Pewdiepie, Moistcr1tikal, and Mother’s Basement are only a few content creators among many who have brought light to the situation. Each of the listed channels possesses large fan bases and their video’s easily break 1 million views.

Leo H., a freshman commented on the situation and said,” Japanese companies and creators are normally very possessive over their work as they almost always put 100 percent into them, but from what I have seen from the situation, Mark’s videos are extremely transformative content and shouldn’t have been struck in the first place.”

The outrage sparked by the copyright strikes has not only outraged much of the western anime community but also the Youtube community. Many Youtubers have cited how Youtube has become increasingly more corporation orientated in recent years especially after the controversial removal of the dislike button. Totally Not Mark can legally take back his intellectual property in countries outside of Japan, However, it would take Mark several years to successfully appeal of his past videos due to Youtube’s copyright appeal system being so terrible. This among many other events have called into question Youtube’s loyalty to its creators.

Ethan Y., a junior in AISG commented on Youtube’s current state and said,” Honestly, Youtube is just kind of like that. They are now trying to be lucrative as possible so they’ve just shifted away from being the cool creator-focused platform they used to be.”