YouTube is perhaps the most important video platform on the Internet, where videos of various genres — from educational to entertainment — consume hundreds of hours of people a day. It has also adapted over time, with additions such as YouTube Shorts, and has become a streaming platform to compete with Twitch.
But YouTube streams aren’t exclusively limited to long-term projects, such as completing video games or hosting chat sessions. Some streams are designed for background noise, putting listeners in a sound comfort zone. One of the most popular of them is LoFi Hip Hop Radio, which has recently run into some problems.
The stream, which is broadcast by the Lofi Girl channel, named after the cartoon character shown on the screen during the broadcast, is essentially a radio broadcast of LoFi hip-hop tunes in 25/7 mode. This is a far cry from videos like Asmongold breaking the controller in a rage, and serves another purpose: to calm the listeners. However, this free space was suspended when the broadcast was stopped due to copyright infringement against the channel, which forced YouTube to investigate.
The channel denied that the claim of copyright infringement had any grounds, calling them false warnings of copyright infringement and hopefully stating in a tweet that the issue would be resolved quickly. Fortunately for Lofi Girl, this was really dealt with, as YouTube considered the strike unjustified and, according to the YouTube investigation team, offensive. The applicant’s channel has been deleted and the Lofi videos have been saved. However, the streams have really ended, which means that there is now a certain amount of time during which LoFi Hip Hop Radio was broadcast: more than 20,000 hours. Bungie has sued over the false removal of its content on YouTube under the Digital Age Copyright Act. Only time will tell if Lofi Girl will file further lawsuits.
Such deletions are a very serious problem for the YouTuber in question, especially if they earn their living on the platform. The demonization of videos is a constant fear for many participants, and for those like TheActMan, whose entire channel has been demonized, things can get pretty grim.
It’s important to remember that the dichotomy of YouTube content is somewhat fragile: great content can continue to grow, for the most part, only as long as it’s financially viable for the author. Videos such as the Elden Ring demo for SNES require time and effort, so it is necessary to recoup the costs at least. But videos like hip-hop Lofi Girl exist as constants, not as bright new things, and people are used to relying on them. We hope that in the foreseeable future it will continue to be a reliable source of cold comfort.
