I have been on YouTube for over 8 years. I created my channel back in 2016 and I have over 10k subs across my entire channel. With this, HAAWK sees me as a prime target for their unlawful and abusive claims they are constantly allowed to do through their 3rd-party claimant status. And they should not be, in any way, allowed to do this.
Throughout my many years of being on YouTube, I have dealt with some record labels I would like to call the 'repeat offenders' of the YouTube copyright system. These include the big name record labels like UMG, WMG, and SME just to name a few. These companies have stolen so much money from me that I would not have been able to make anyway since YouTube has flat-out denied every single partner application I have made. And I am going to say that HAAWK falls under this category of being a 'repeat offender'.
Repeat offenders have a tendency to weaponize the YouTube copyright system against small, independent content creators who are unable to make a living off of YouTube, which includes myself. HAAWK is one of the many labels who constantly and very consistently attack small creators who are just trying to make it big and make a name for themselves. HAAWK just sees small creators as a huge target because they do not have the legal means and money to fight back and protect themselves against their abusive claims, but whereas someone like PewDiePie, Mr. Beast, or Markiplier would easily be able to defend themselves from this, because they have strong connections to YouTube executives, and these big creators, and many more, make YouTube money.
YouTube does not see us smaller creators worth their time, and so, we have to deal with the constant pain and suffering that comes from abusive record labels like HAAWK. These third-party record label(s) will illegally monetize content using their service, and then use those 'illegal' trademarks as a weapon against small creators. HAAWK is one of the worst offenders when it comes to this. This company takes abusing the YouTube copyright system to the next level, and it it something not even the biggest of crappy record labels like UMG will ever sink to. This company, literally, takes things to the extreme with their copyright.
HAAWK is a third-party claimant whom is known to constantly and frequently illegally monetize content that isn't theirs. And it does not go to just music. HAAWK literally goes way too far. Instead of just claiming music, they also claim free-to-use sound effects, and even go as far as stealing music from video games and monetizing it. Sometimes, it goes beyond that - sometimes the sound effects from said game can get illegally claimed under HAAWK, and the worst one I've seen is when HAAWK claimed someone's voice. Yes, you heard me right. HAAWK claimed the voice of a small creator and claimed it as their own. That is a whole other level of stooping low - Claiming you own the voice of a living, breathing person.
I make content because I love to. YouTube is my hobby, but I am very discouraged from making content when companies like HAAWK go after and attack smaller creators like us. It doesn't help that the disputes literally go back to the fraudulent party who is literally the one abusing the system. That is like me asking the bank robber for my money back. It's an ultimately ridiculous system that punishes the innocent and rewards the claimant(s) abusing the system. It is literally 'guilty until proven innocent', and it is not a mindset that any video or content sharing platform like YouTube should ever consider.
Sometimes, compilation channels will put their music through this HAAWK service, which gives them full, free reign to abuse and breach DMCA laws. The DMCA should be outright punishing claimants who constantly abuse copyright. There should be a cold, hard fine of roughly $10M dollars to companies that abuse these laws. That would scare any regular copyright troll away from abusing copyright laws again. But as far as individuals are concerned, make the fine $42k. People and companies should know that copyright is serious business and should only be used to protect their work, not constantly claim every freaking video you see on YouTube and claim that you made it when you clearly didn't.
Let me put it this way. You just made a drawing inspired (the keyword is 'inspired') by Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and share it on your social media(s). Now, all of a sudden, you get a knock on the door, and you go to answer it. It's a man in an executive or business suit/outfit. They go on to say that the work you just drew is going to them and an unknown third party. Guess who the third party is? The claimant. They take the art away from you, the one you rightfully made and put a lot of time and effort into, and the claimant who is responsible for this laughs at you because you no longer own your 'own' work. You have two options at this point, dispute the fact you own the art you made, or take the party responsible to court. Taking them to court is a last-ditch effort and you will have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees in order to clear your name. This is the state of YouTube's copyright system in a nutshell, and it allows HAAWK and other record labels to constantly screw over small creators.
The name HAAWK actually sums up their behavior very well. They are hawks. Vultures. Complete menaces to society. They scout out and look for prime targets exactly like the vultures do, and when the perfect time comes, they strike, mainly when the creator is least expecting them. This is a systematic and, quite frankly, constant occurrence. It is not just one channel that is specifically being targeted, it is hundreds. And maybe even thousands. All at once. Creators like myself are suffering due to targeted abuse from HAAWK and similar entities. This behavior should not be allowed by YouTube, and nor should it be allowed by copyright law. This type of targeted abuse to a specific group of people would get any regular individual reprimanded. But not the record labels. They are constantly allowed to do this while the Copyright Office, and YouTube, turn a blind eye and ignore this big issue.
The worst part about this is that this HAAWK entity, and many other big record labels similar to HAAWK, are YouTube Partnered. Do you know what the 'Partner' status grants these record labels? A whole host of special powers, tools, and whatnot that small creators will never have. And this includes the ability to add your videos (or music) to YouTube's Content ID system. And if you are not a Partner, you will not be given the ability to protect your work, but whereas big record labels like HAAWK are allowed to have these powers, and if you give an entity like HAAWK these special powers, there are high chances that they will go on and abuse it. Creators like myself are often denied Partner status because of quote-unquote 'reused content', but these big bad wolves in the form of record labels are instantly given Partner, and then go on to see how far they can push their luck before someone finally has enough and sues them. And you can bet they will have people backing them up.
And that's not even the worst part of YouTube's bias when it comes to their Partner program. You have these YouTubers like SSSniperwolf who constantly create garbage content farms or outright clickbait and trick their audience. MrBossFTW is a Partner for YouTube, and what does he do? Constantly lie to his brainwashed audience and goes on and tells them that 'Oh my god a new GTA 6 trailer is incoming!'. There was another YouTuber who did just that named Sernando. He constantly made fake GTA VI covers and told his fans that he got an early copy of the game because his 'friend's friend's dad works at Rockstar Games'. And we have full-on content farms like Cocomelon who put out garbage 'kids' content and are full of just complete brainrot, and yet these channels are somehow some of the most subscribed channels on the platform. 4 channels that are either content farms or clickbait. And all 4 of them are Partnered. It makes me absolutely sick to see the bias YouTube has on some of its biggest influencers and channels.
Jacksfilms was one of the channels who critiqued SSSniperwolf's very obvious and blatant content farm via a game he played with his audience. He clearly pointed out everything that was wrong with her content, and what does she do in response? Go outside of Jack's house, record a LIVE video, and dox him. To her very massive Instagram audience. After constant back and forth from Jack and YouTube about protecting their creator(s), YouTube does the most idiotic thing ever. YouTube gives SSSniperwolf a temporary and brief suspension of her monetization, and pins the blame on both YouTubers when the one who was clearly in the wrong was SSSniperwolf. She got away with not only having a content farm, but also threatening another creator and putting them in danger. Since she has a massive audience, she is able to get away with this and gets slaps on the wrist, whereas small channels like me have to deal with constant pressure from these labels like HAAWK, Adrev, and many more. This needs to stop, and it needs to stop not later, but right now. There is no 'later' when it comes to copyright abuse.
Luckily, whenever I dispute any and all of the claims by HAAWK that they give to me on my videos, all of the claims usually get retracted within a day, and if I am really lucky, within an hour. I know there are many others who might not be as lucky as I am and often has HAAWK rejecting their disputes and forcing them to submit an appeal, which risks their channel(s) with a copyright strike. In my case, HAAWK knows that they are in the wrong, constantly, and always throws up their hands and says "You got us", and releases all of the claims on the applicable video(s). Every time I get false flagged for use of copyrighted material from HAAWK, I dispute them, and boom - claims are gone within a day. There are many others who aren't as lucky as I am and will have HAAWK be stubborn and double-down on their decision. Creators should not have to deal with the stress and anxiety that comes from dealing with big name record labels and third-party claimants such as HAAWK, and that mainly includes the very small ones that are just trying to make content that they (and their fans!) enjoy.
This is why I often encourage my fanbase to use adblockers whenever I get a claim from a record label or third-party claimant such as HAAWK. Claimants who abuse the copyright system of not just YouTube, but also America as a whole, should never be rewarded. And when the claimant puts a claim on the video, all of the ad revenue goes to the fraudulent party, the video is monetized, and the viewer now has to deal with ads that don't even support the creator financially and instead put more money in the fraudulent party's greedy wallet. And as such, I always make sure to tell my viewers that 'x company is claiming y video, make sure to turn on your adblocker when watching'. The reason I do this is not because I am getting sick of my fans being force-fed ads on my videos that get copyrighted, it is because I am sick and tired of the greedy labels and claimants laying claim to my content in the first place when they know they are in the wrong. That is the main reason why I will always support my fans who use adblockers.
You know what hurts a company, record label, claimant, or entity? People not giving them money. Record labels, claimants, and whatnot know that money is the lifeblood of their entire company, and without money, they are out of business. It's not me not wanting my fans to not see ads. It's me wanting to financially hurt the companies and record labels who are constantly screwing me over. So, I will tell my fans to install adblockers on any video that is claimed. This will hurt the stock price of the company in question, and if they lose enough of their money, people are gonna be mad at them. Do you know who will be mad at them? Their shareholders. They will have to sell their stocks at a significant loss, and then everyone in corporate loses. It would just be a lose/lose for everyone; the corps, the executives, the suits, and the shareholders. The companies who abuse copyright laws should not be rewarded for screwing people over constantly, on a daily basis. They should be punished, financially. So, we need to hit them where it hurts the most. Their wallets. That is the place where we should be aiming for.
Do you wanna know why piracy is still a thing in modern society? Because of companies and entities like HAAWK being overzealous with copyright. The viewer on YouTube gets a significantly and very worse, and outright, inferior experience to that of someone who pirates and downloads your YouTube video. A recent video from YouTuber Louis Rossmann I watched about them never going to pay for YouTube Premium ever again said it best: "Anytime you create a system where the pirate is rewarded yet the legitimate customer gets screwed, the legitimate customer decides that they are going to pirate and they are never going to give you money again". These record labels should know that screwing over creators is only going to screw themselves over in the longrun. More and more people will resort to piracy and will never buy money from the record label or claimant in question ever again.
The reason music piracy cut down, if not stopped completely, is because companies like the RIAA were forced to innovate their way out of the problem. Remember that whole "Piracy. It's A Crime." ad that you used to see all the time on your DVDs and maybe even some early Blu-Rays? All that it did was just treated piracy as if it was akin to breaking into a parked car, stealing someone's handbag or television, or straight-up shoplifting. The worst part is that the music that was used for this ad was actually pirated and illegally obtained. This ad did frankly absolutely nothing to stop the rate of file sharing, and so, companies were forced to innovate by selling their music for basically free ($0.99) on music platforms and making up lost revenue at live concerts. If these record labels like HAAWK want to stop piracy, then they need to stop attacking small creators like the vultures they are.
Companies like HAAWK need to be told and understood that piracy will continue if they continue to act like spoiled crybabies. And also, this constant attack of small creators will eventually cause HAAWK to lose their artists and talent, which will only further diminish their stock value in the stock market and only upset their shareholders even more. If it gets bad enough, the record label in question will be forced to liquidate all of their assets, and will then be forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which will put all of their employees at risk of being laid off (fired). If they do not want it to come down to this (HAAWK), then they need to treat creators with the due respect that they should be treated with.
In my school, we had a system for learning a little thing that we like to call "RESPECT". Each letter of the word meant a different thing. We called it "All About Respect". There were 7 different categories, those being 'Recognize', 'Empathy', 'Self-Monitor', 'Personal Space', 'Earn Trust', 'Cheer on Others', and 'Treat Everyone as Equal'. These are the rules of 'RESPECT' that we lived by during kindergarten, and they have stuck with me for many years and I have taken them to heart, because of the importance they hold in the here and now. I want to focus on the two most important ones in this case, earning trust and treating everyone as equal, because they are, in my opinion, the two ones with the most importance in a case such as this.
EARN TRUST - You need to earn the trust of others through your actions. If you treat others well, you will gain their trust and support. Right now, my support and trust with HAAWK is at an all-time low because of their hound-like behavior when it comes to copyright. They have hurt so many creators. It is truly a countless number at this point. Because so many people have been hurt and distraught by HAAWK's actions, there are so many content creators that do not trust them with their work, or music. I have ultimately refused to ever work with HAAWK due to what they have done to me, and countless others. Copyright owners are given access to these tools to use in case someone is blatantly stealing their work and claiming it as their own. But in this case, it is the claimant who is the one blatantly stealing work. And as a result, the perception and reputation of HAAWK is down the crapper. The only way that they will ever be able to rebuild trust with creators is if they stop needlessly hurting creators and attacking them relentlessly.
TREAT - Treat others the same way you want to be treated. If you want to be treated kindly by your peers, you must treat them kindly first. Respect is earned, not given. And HAAWK doesn't seem to understand this. I can say that HAAWK is pretty much the equivalent of the school bully. Do you know what the bully does? Picks on the weak who don't have the ability to fight back. They will demand lunch money from kids, knock down their backpack or other items, humiliate them in front of the whole school, and a whole host of other things. What HAAWK is doing right now is pretty much what a bully would do. They pick on small creators who do not have the legal means to fight back, or are too scared to. This gives HAAWK a very unfair advantage. They will claim videos when they clearly don't own the content, reject disputes, and also steal money from creators trying to make a living, especially the creators who are completely unable to make money on YouTube in the first place. This is straight-up cyberbullying in the form of abusing copyright. And what happens as a result? They are the ones getting picked on by the creators now, since they are having to resort to stealing money from the small creators to make a quick buck. And then they are humiliated on social media, just like how the bully humiliates the victim in front of the entire school. If you treat others poorly, you will be treated poorly as well. People are picking on HAAWK on all kinds of social media because of this, and well, HAAWK technically only has themselves to blame. If they do not want to be treated like this, then they should treat small creators like they are actually worth something instead of acting like complete menaces.
In short, HAAWK is just another one of those claimants trying to hurt the innocent. They just need to be shut down, entirely. Their entire business motto revolves around the abuse of the copyright and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and YouTube should be equally held accountable as well for not doing anything at all to prevent this. They are just letting this company hurt creators, and so, they are equally responsible. Right now, YouTube is a living nightmare because of claimants such as this one, and they should be taking very drastic steps to balance out the copyright system and ensure that both creators and claimants are both treated fairly and both have an equal say. The current copyright system on YouTube is weighed in favor of the record labels and the claimants. A good way that YouTube could show that they are serious about dealing with this problem is by shutting down and stopping one of their biggest repeat offenders - HAAWK for a 3rd Party. It would finally put YouTube back in a good light, and more creators might even consider returning to the platform if they start to actually get serious about handling copyright-related issues and start actually punishing the claimants repeatedly abusing it.
In short, HAAWK is just... evil.
They need to be shut down. Period.