Well I have decided to file a lawsuit against YouTube for unfair business practices, discrimination, and violating my First Amendment Rights. YouTube feels that videos like me singing Happy Birthday to myself violate their Community Guidelines. More specifically they said it was a “Scam”. That’s right, me singing Happy Birthday to myself is considered a scam according to YouTube. My last video about arriving in Las Vegas was banned because they said it was “Spam”, before that my Ready to Party video was considered “Commercially Deceptive” and finally when I launched the new PeterFever site back in 2010, they banned that video saying it included “Sexual Content”. I was sitting at a table telling people they would see, new look and feel of PeterFever.com; there was zero nudity. Well now my next interaction with YouTube will be through my law firm.
YouTube has banned a multitude of my videos in the past because a gay hater or racist will click the Flag button say it violates some random category. These are the same people who leave anti-gay and anti-Asian comments on my videos. I will click on their name to checkout their YouTube account only to see they cancelled their account after leaving the hate message. YouTube doesn’t seem to mind supporting haters like this but allowing them to make a fake account, flag videos, and then cancel their account. Then YouTube only give you about 100 characters, not words, but characters to defend yourself. I would always write back to them, “Watch the Video Yourself, Nothing is a Violation.” 100% of the time, the videos were restored. But recently YouTube removed my ability to appeal videos removed, they just do it and I can’t do anything about it stuck. That’s where the problem lies. They allow other content that violates multiple community guidelines to stay online, but singing to myself is against the rules?
So what was the big change after 5.8 million views? I’ll tell you, YouTube sent me an email recently that they weren’t going to pay me for advertising they plays on my videos because I don’t fit one of their normal “YouTube Partner” profiles. So then I wrote back and said, I don’t want you to put advertising on my videos if you are not going to pay me for it. Once I made the change, the appeals option disappeared, videos that had over 200,000 views were suddenly in violation and my YouTube account was terminated.
I know that YouTube has the right to terminate a person’s account if they are actually violating the community guidelines, but what fucking guidelines did I violate? I’ll tell you, I wasn’t a profit center for them anymore. So now the legal system will decide what happens next. I’m not the first person to be terminated and I’m sure I won’t be the last. But at least I will have my day in court.
so sad that you aren’t on YouTube Peter i going to miss all the great stuff you did no rather is appropriate or not you still alive no matter how you feel just remember everybody is there for you, your friends and your family no matter what be strong and i always care for you take care :)::
Yeah, Warner Brothers can be dickish about protecting its copyright on the “Happy Birthday” song.
I’m glad you have the will power to go through this, youtube can be so stupid sometimes and those infinite amount of haters. It saddens me to see that there’s youtubers filing copyright infringements to videos not of their own so that they can claim it in their profiles. So much abuse. I’m confident you’ll win this
Yeah, that really blows man. Sorry that YouTube dropped their ban hammer on you too. Don’t take it personally, because it’s definitely happening to a lot of us partners.
I have a channel that’s up to almost 5 million views. I partnered with a 3rd party to protect my account from YouTube’s robotic bullcrap and unfairly disabling videos. There is a new algorithm that was released last month, and it’s very obvious because suddenly, THREE of my vids got disabled. YouTube is just so overloaded with bugs, unscrupulous business practices, and unsolved business problems that it is almost better to seek out alternatives to YouTube anyway. <3 Hope you're enjoying Chicago.
Thanks for the info, I didn’t know that.
I WILL SUPPORT YOU IN THIS VENTURE, YOUTUBE SERIOUSLY NEEDS A WAKE UP CALL ON THEIR BUSINESS PRACTICES.
Awesome Peter Fever!!
Good for you. I hate bullies
Peter,
Try Xtube instead! I don’t think you will have the same problems with them.
Keep up the good work Peter. Ignore the haters. We all love u so much 🙂
Sounds like blatant discrimination to me! I hope you make them pay … or at least get your account back without being harassed.
Whoop their ass!!!
Peter, I am so proud of you! I have always been mad with Youtube for removing/ banning your videos but removing the video of you singing happy birthday to yourself was the last straw!! There are many shit videos on Youtube that violate community guidelines but they are still in existence and nothing happens to the owners of the vids. WTF? Why is Youtube targeting one single hot guy? I know all these shit are the works of gay-haters and losers -- so YOU GO GET THEM, Peter! I support you…
See… I put Fever after my name -- in honor and support of you and your work.
Good Luck! After reading your blog, I now understand your reasons for the suit. Considering the fact that there is so much more hardcore sexual content on YouTube, I do think your analysis is correct when you state that in large part this is anti-Asian racism.
Peter, good for you for doing that! A lot of people won’t do anything because they are a large company. Be sure that you document all things including when did they remove it, because if they state that it was against their rules and regulation asked them when was it changed.
Good for you. I dont like bullys.
Youtube really has gone down the drain since they got popular and started making partners. I think they don’t have enough people monitoring complaints at all; and when they are in the wrong they do nothing to look into their mistake. They want to grow big and make all these millions but when it comes down to protecting people they could care less. I forgot when Youtube was actually fun to be on as you passed the time. I’ve seen so many disgusting things on there that should be taken off but fuck if they do. I see racist videos with a couple of thousand views that have been flagged so many times and they still pop up. What the fuck?
This is so not cool. Youtube should be smarter than this. If I find a fix for this I will let you know. I do alot of research on a wide range of subjects.
Huwatt? You singing happy birthday violates their guidelines? You might be to HOT for them Peter Fever, jajajaja
I just printed the 14 page legal Document and have not read it yet. I post alot of videos on youtube too. Facebook has removed some of my photos too.
GO GET EM!! They are a bunch of self governing wankers anyways! They do this to anyone who makes money on their. remove them so they don’t have to pay up. I will watch this with anticipation, think u might just be on a winner here.