Philip De Franco Investigates Alinity and PewDiePie Copyright Scandal Calling it “A disgusting move”

Creator of YouTube news channel Philip De Franco has completed his own investigation into the recent copyright scandal involving Twitch streamer Alinity and YouTuber PewDiePie, concluding that he is “incredibly concerned.”

If unaware, recently popular Twitch streamer Alinity said while broadcasting that she was going to “copy strike” a PewDiePie video, after he included a clip from her stream and called her a “thot”.

The clip quickly sparked controversy, as PewDiePie’s video was clearly fair use, and Alinity explained that she frequently made copyright claims against YouTube videos about her because “I get money out of that”.

Essentially, Alinity, through an agency called CollabDRM, was making copyright claims on any video which included content from her stream, in order to receive the revenue from that video.

This was proven when a small channel called “L of The Day” was hit with a copyright claim on a video where the creator simply gave commentary about the situation, and clearly was fair use.

Hearing of the situation, De Franco said he was “incredibly concerned”, and has gone on to do his own investigation, as a prominent figure in the YouTube world.

“Copyright claiming is an important tool, but we need to make sure that it is not abused.

If someone takes a clip from a Ninja Twitch stream, or a chunk from the H3 podcast, and just uploads it. It’s not news, it’s not commentary, it is not transformative. […] The creators of those videos should get paid.

But when copyright claims become a weapon – when a person or a company go: ‘I don’t like what you’re saying, I’m going to take money out of your pocket’ – that’s a huge fucking problem.

In my eyes, it is a blanket attack on speech and fair use. It’s a disgusting move.”

De Franco also shows a screenshot of correspondence he had with PewDiePie, confirming that Alinity did indeed make a claim against his video as she threatened.

He also reached out to someone at CollabDRM, who claimed that they only aim to “protect the rights” of content creators, and that their job is to “place claims if our client’s  videos are used without a license on YouTube.”

You can watch De Franco’s full video on the situation below, where he gives details of his investigation and his causes for concern.