Artist Finds His Own Music Video Removed From YouTube, Lashes Out On Twitter

Hell hath no fury like a music-artist-who-sees-his-own-music-video-removed-from-YouTube scorned. The video sharing service may be doing its best to keep copyrighted material off its website, but London-based artist Calvin Harris, who saw the music video of his ‘Ready For The Weekend – Original Mix’ being deleted from his own account over copyright claims, is not amused. The artist has been lashing out on his Twitter account this morning, and you’re advised to turn your eyes away if you object to foul language.

Harris’ strong words are directed mostly at the BPI, ‘the representative voice of the UK recorded music business’ according to the organization’s website, who apparently filed the complaint in this case. They sure don’t seem to represent this particular artist’s voice, since he’s currently threatening to drive a hired car through the front window of their building and “hopefully reach the online monkeys at the back of the office” in between calling their employees retards and bastards and using the F-word a lot.

There’s a bigger issue here. According to the tipster who pointed us to Harris’ rant, this is just one example of apparent spats there’s a background war raging between music labels who are apparently turning on the heat by throwing DMCA notices at each other in the hope that music videos from competing record companies get removed from legitimate accounts (where they generally get the most views). (Update: as TechDirt’s Mike Masnick points out, there’s a good chance this case isn’t an example of those spats, but we’re digging to find out more about them so stay tuned).

In this case, it’s the BPI who filed the copyright claim, according to the artist on Twitter. Apparently, no warnings were given on beforehand, leaving Harris virtually powerless now that the video has effectively been removed without him being contacted.

How ironic is that, given this excerpt lifted from the BPI website:

The BPI believes that a graduated response system – whereby infringing subscribers are given an escalated notifications, warnings and deterrent measures – is a fair and proportionate way to effect a change in behaviour.

Who needs a change in behavior here?