YouTubers MxR and Potastic Panda, who host the channel MxR Plays, have been asked to pay $6,000 for infringing copyright to four videos.
YouTubers MxR and Potastic Panda, who are popular for uploading videos where they react to memes and other online content, are facing a $6,000 bill for infringing the copyright of four videos they watched or risk losing their channel, MxR Plays.
It turned out that four videos they watched and reacted to have been bought up by media company Jukin Media. If they fail to pay, their channel can be taken down based on YouTube's copyright system.
According to Google, a channel receives a strike against it if a copyright owner formally notifies YouTube that a copyright infringement has taken place and if it receieves three strikes, it will be "subject to termination".
MxR and Potastic Panda said they have received four copyright claims in the same bill from Jukin Media, with Google yet to be notified. MxR Plays, their joint channel, has 840,000 subscribers while MxR's personal channel has over two million subscribers.
In a tweet, MxR expressed his concerns over the three strikes rule and said that if he doesn't pay up, Jukin Media could contact Google with all four claims at once and potentially "take down" the channel.
In a YouTube video, he said: "Today we got hit with a huge bill of $6,000. I think it's because in the past we've paid them about $2,000. If you don't pay they'll start striking your channel - they'll basically remove our channel if we don't pay them."
Jukin Media responded with a social media post, saying: "As we've mentioned repeatedly, you can completely avoid any issues related to copyright by simply licensing videos on our website. In effect, you're taking other peoples' videos without asking them, then posting them to your channel and making money off of them."
"We never want to issue copyright strikes - we have a duty to do so to protect the copyright of the creators who have signed with us," the company added.
