YouTube restored Bad Lip Reading’s viral parody of Star Wars: The Force Awakens on April 7 – more than 16 hours after pulling the video down because of an apparently fake copyright-takedown claim.
The video, a six-minute spoof of Disney/Lucasfilm’s Force Awakens blockbuster, features Mark Hamill doing a spot-on voiceover impression of co-star Harrison Ford.
Bad Lip Reading uploaded the video on April 6, topping one million views before YouTube removed it a few hours later. YouTube cited a copyright claim by New York-based Dramatists Play Service, which publishes and licenses plays by new and established playwrights – but on its Twitter account, DPS said that the claim was “erroneous” and that it didn’t know how the takedown claim was submitted in its name.
In an earlier report: In an email to Variety, the creator of Bad Lip Reading (who prefers to remain anonymous) said his team was working to restore the video, called The Force Awakens: A Bad Lip Reading (featuring Mark Hamill as Han Solo). “The people who made the claim (Dramatists Play Service) have zero grounds and one can’t help but assume it was done maliciously,” he wrote.
Dramatists Play Service later said on its Twitter account that the takedown notice was made in error and that the group has no copyright claims to the Bad Lip Reading video.
“We are aware of an erroneous claim made by our org to YouTube regarding the video’s copyright and are looking into how this occurred,” Dramatists Play Service said in a tweet.
The company added, “We have no claim on any works in the video and will be working with YouTube to get the video reinstated ASAP.” YouTube last year supposedly implemented a new policy aimed at addressing this kind of situation: The Google-owned video site said it would let videos subject to disputed copyright claims remain online and generate ad revenue while the disputes were being evaluated.
Bad Lip Reading is affiliated with Disney’s Maker Studios. It has teamed with Disney on previous projects, including a High School Musical parody in partnership with Disney XD.
The YouTube channel, which launched in 2011, started out with music parody videos and has expanded into satire of entertainment, sports (specifically NFL players) and politics. During the 2016 election, Bad Lip Reading released popular videos featuring Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz. To date, the channel has garnered more than 800 million video views.
Bad Lip Reading is repped by 3 Arts Entertainment. The channel’s creator is reportedly in the music production business. – Reuters/Todd Spangler
