It's always important to stand up for not only yourself. But for your team as well. I had a fraudulent content claim by a big network on our recent Halloween animation (Resident Evil 2 REANIMATED) on YouTube...and I won.

Plus it's another good reason for animators to use Newgrounds. (TL;DR on the bottom)

So let's start from the beginning. After a successful launch on Newgrounds. I posted Resident Evil 2 REANIMATED on my official YouTube channel. I filled in the details, turned off the ads, and made sure that everything was ready. When the upload was completed and 1 hour before the premiere...I got a content ID claim.

I thought that was strange. I looked into the matter and this claim didn't make any sense. I've never heard about this company nor does my animation have ties to their terrible music video. Apparently, my animation was claimed for "using the same audio from a rap video". I went to go check and basically, the rap artist used the same opening audio from the game in his rap song.

Despite this being a non-profit animation collab. They tried to claim my video.

When I got this claim. I first thought it might have been a mistake and followed the normal steps of disputing the claim. I sent over the evidence, source material, and explained the animation. I thought nothing off it and hoped that it will be dropped.

Not even a day later, they quickly rejected it.

What a bunch of wankers.

I started to dig into this and RepostNetwork is known among creators for these false claims. They are known by lets players, speedrunners, reviewers, or anyone who uses video games as it medium. They even tried this shit with PewDiePie with his own song.

What happened was an artist used the audio from the game in his song. Then RepostNetwork (owned by Soundcloud) will upload that song to the YouTube Content ID system and claim ownership of the source material. Then any videos with audio from the video games will be detected by the YouTube system. Then finally any ad revenue generated will go to that network.

So audio from games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Parasite Eve and others, RepostNetwork will claim to represent the copyright owners and will try get revenue from those videos. Resident Evil 2 REANIMATED was a non-profit animation collab. They rejected my dispute and wanted to squeeze it for any potential revenue.

I was furious that someone could abuse the system and try get away with this. So what I did next was;

• I tried informing YouTube Support to get a human to look into this
• I sent emails to Soundcloud Team explaining the situation
• I contacted the Song Artist himself to get any support or help.

NO GOOD and ZERO RESPONSES. I talked to other content creators who advised me to just delete the video or mute that part of the played audio. I didn't agree with that.

I was on my own here. It would've been easy to mute/remove the video. But I felt like I had a responsibility for not only myself but for my team. Plus, I dealt with bigger pests in the past and I've came out victorious. I wasn't going to let these leeches try make a penny off my team. So I went back for Round 2.

I submitted an appeal. Long story short. I rolled up my sleeves and in a threatening manner, sent an appeal that;

1. They don't own the source material.
2. Provided hard concrete evidence (links and screenshots)
3. Provided links to fair use/fair dealing protection laws.
4. I called their bluff and warned them that I am prepared to fight this.

I hit enter and I waited. Ready for a fight. They had 7 days to respond.

RepostNetwork didn't instantly reject it and days was counting down...7...6...5...4...3...

Then I got a response...their claim got crushed and dropped.

https://twitter.com/The_BadTwin/status/1583589093707247616

Get rekt scrub.

They will not be getting a single penny from the reanimated collab, and likey some rat behind a monitor in Hollywood got shut down by one angry British man.

Even though this whole thing wasn't a big deal. It felt like it was my duty to fight it regardless. Not just for myself but for my team and other content creators. This wasn't a mistake by RepostNetwork. No. They tried to pull a fast one on us, and I had to show that no matter how big or small we are...I don't tolerate that kind of behavior.

I hope that any artists, animators or content creators can learn from this and word will spread around. You can fight these leeches...and you can win!

tldr: network content id my video. They rejected my dispute and tried to make money off me. I fought back and won.