In December, Anime YouTuber Mark Fitzpatrick’s channel Totally Not Mark was hit with 150 copyright violation claims from Japanese publisher Toei Animation.
Fitzpatrick recently released a new video revealing that he won the copyright war against Toei and also caused YouTube to implement a new copyright rule that favors content creators.
YouTube introduced a new rule allowing a better approach to international copyright rules; a video can be taken down in one country but remain up in other countries.
Practically, the rule means that a video may be taken down in countries with strict policies such as Japan, but remain up in countries with lenient fair use policies, like the US.
In the new video, Fitzpatrick said that an anonymous individual “high up at YouTube” contacted him via Discord to apologize for his predicament. Fitzpatrick’s contact revealed that there have been other conflicts between YouTube and Toei regarding the fair use of his content.
