November 12, 2012

im gonna wreck itWell, my YouTube account got terminated early this morning, which is a real bummer! I had it since 2005, before Google acquired, and posted more than a few videos there, plus a bunch of meticulously-curated playlists. The problem was this video I uploaded called "Wreck-It Ralph FULL MOVIE Part 1 of 1,203," which of course contained no actual footage from the movie Wreck-It Ralph; it was just the first 17 seconds of the Disney logo, which is featured in hundreds of other YouTube videos, but I digress. It was making light of YouTube piracy and maybe making a comment about the way we consume media now, plus I thought the idea of someone watching a movie in ten-second snippets was really funny (well, a lot less so in retrospect).

I got this e-mail at 1 in the morning saying because of that video my account was suspended and I had a "strike" that would last for six months, and I thought "well, that's not too bad" but then I'm poking around the YouTube site where it said my account was actually terminated - they never sent me an e-mail notifying me of that. Eventually I find a thing where I can "appeal" (I think that's what it was, there's like four different forms you can fill out) and after I do that I get an automatic message confirming yes, my account was terminated. From what I've Googled, it sounds like maybe there's a small chance it can be reinstated... I'm pessimistic about that but I'm in "wait and see" mode for the moment. I guess the moral is don't mess with Wreck-It Ralph, because he will wreck things up and make a mess of your pots and pans