Dancing to a new tune (literally)

Hello Crafties!

I hope your day is going a lot better than mine. I'm afraid today's blog will be a ranty one.

As you well know, recently, I went to the Midwest Fiber Festival and even made a Channel Chat about it. You may have noticed that video vanished for a spell. On Wednesday, May 6th, 2026,

imagine my surprise when I suddenly got an email from YouTube, stating that I had a copyright strike on my channel. My heart sank even further when I realized it was my latest video.

I'm sure many of the creators you watch have mentioned in some way or another that the views/traffic have been abysmal in the recent year and honestly, same here. I sort of expected that on my return, given that my channel had faded into obscurity in the year and a half I'd been gone. Channel Chat 158 had been performing much better for me than any of my recent videos and I was very happy that my community was taking interest in something I had to say.

People already hate the widespread use of AI. I get that it has its uses but overall, it should have heavy human oversight if it's to be implemented in your business model. More on that in a moment My recent Channel Chat earned me my first every copyright strike and was removed entirely. Offensive content? No attribution? No. It was perceived as "commercial content", despite there being no evidence of that. From who? The music database, Free-to-Use, where I get my intro sound from.

Now you might say, "You get what you pay for" and that might be true. This database stuck out to me in the first place because they allow you to use music from their catalogue for non-commercial purposes and YouTube videos, so long as you use the proper attribution. As an artist, why not? I give credit where credit is due. Also factor in that I've been using this 9 second clip since October when I returned with no issues. So I reached out, hoping to have a quick resolution regarding this matter.

They responded in 30 minutes or so with something that felt more or less copy/paste and generic.

I couldn't help but think that someone clearly didn't watch the video, not even a full minute of it. And I'm particularly annoyed because this used to be someone's job, to help monitor for actual misuse of content and such. But no, everything now is sent through an impermeable robot filter to the detriment of actual human beings. Not that I think this lady here is at fault, she's just trying to do her job.

It'd been over an hour since I sent this reply so I sent another, kindly requesting a manual review of this case because there's no way this can be considered a commercial use video. I couldn't help but notice that they are also based in the EU - Denmark. While I'm no expert in law over there, I do realize that there's definitely a difference in application here. As always, I gave the proper attribution and followed their rules. When looking at the one time license, it's 50 GBP which equates to ~$68 USD.

After waiting hours for a response, I never got one. So my options from there were to either wait 3 months for the strike to expire or file a counter notification. Mind you, because of their terms, I can't demand punitive damages from any losses due to this so, I set out to counter notice because that only takes 10 days. For now, I only pray that it gets retracted.

It's not that I make much off my videos, I think when I looked the night before, it'd made $0.98 or so. It's more about the principle of the matter and the fact that My hard work was taken from me for no reason.

Now, as I stated a few paragraphs back, people hate AI. It's no secret. It's injected into everything and companies feel the need to use it to replace human beings. I don't care for the use of generative AI, myself as it hurts the creative arts immensely. If you're going to use a version of AI to act as an agent or type of virtual assistant, okay. But the technology right now isn't at a point where you can take the "trust me bro" approach with decisions it makes. I'm not the first creator to bemoan the faults of its use and I won't be the last. But if you run a business and decide to let the robots make incredibly human decisions, you can only be mad at yourself if things start to fall apart.

What's more is, as a business, that hurts *you* and *your* reputation. Business owners network and if you, as a resource, treat your customer service so coldly, that doesn't bode well for the future. Just my hot take at the moment, I suppose.

I'm not saying definitively that this is what's going on with Free-to-Use but, in this social climate that's where my thoughts went. I take pride in what I do and go above and beyond to make sure my silly little content isn't violating the rules. Is this the end of the world? No. Is it annoying? You betcha!

My video is still available on Rumble for anyone who wants to still watch. And this is one of the reasons I started dual posting back in 2020. At the time, I thought that it'd be YouTube to pull the rug from under my feet at any given moment. And honestly, revenue wise I'm very much doing this for the love of the game but that's another topic. 😅 Nearly my entire content library lives over there as well. So if anything disappears off YouTube in the future, please know it's still out there!

So what's next?

I guess, I'm going to experiment with just forgoing my intro's for now until I find a new sound that I'd like to buy a license for. Could I have just purchased the license like the rep said? Yeah, technically. However, right now it's just not worth the expense. Everything is tight at the moment on both the business and personal front and while I could shell off $70 for the license, why would I? After this whole thing, frankly it feels like coercion and I don't react all that well to ultimatums. And paying that just to remove a strike that was unnecessary to begin with is exactly that. At this juncture, I'll never use another track from them which is a shame because I've used a few.

But the show must go on!

I'm kind of flashy, so I enjoy having an intro but this might be a great time to play with my analytics and see what my audience likes here.

Anyway, thanks for reading my little rant today. I know this is a thing that happens often among creators so it's not taken personally and it's not YouTube for once. I chalk it up to the devil just being mad because I've been trusting God on some serious personal stuff lately and he wanted to stir up trouble.

Worst cast scenario, I'll just cut out the music and reupload it. It is what it is. I just feel a lot better after ranting here and I appreciate y'all lending me an ear 💖. Channel Chat 159 will be more of a catch up episode which has been long overdue. I'd started the blog for it back in March...oops! But so many interesting things have occurred since then so this should be fun.

Til then, check out one of the suggested blogs below and go follow me on Rumble!

Happy Making!