Tons Of Punk Videos Were Yanked Off YouTube: Here's What Happened

Robert Kenney

Greg Ginn, second from left

On Wednesday morning, several punk bands awoke to find their videos had been removed from YouTube. They were understandably irritated; that's almost worse than running out of beer.

In their places were notes that they'd been yanked due to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints lodged by SST Records -- the legendary label founded by Black Flag's Greg Ginn, formerly based in Los Angeles but now in Austin. The allegation? That these videos were using unauthorized SST music.

But that was not so.

In fact, in the case of bands like L.A.'s The Adolescents and Austin's The Lower Class Brats -- two groups whose videos were pulled -- their music has nothing to do with SST at all. They've never been on the label, and they certainly weren't pilfering the imprint's music.

Immediately, then, animosity raged against Ginn. Various Internet forums teemed with allegations that he was on some sort of rampage, or had sold out and wasn't punk. Huffington Post even jumped into the fray, falsely claiming that Ginn improperly filed copyright claims on things he didn't own.

It turns out that Ginn is almost certainly not to blame. After speaking with him and reviewing published YouTube guidelines, this is apparently what happened: Those posting the unauthorized SST videos in question were actually random internet denizens (not band members), and those videos were legitimately shut down by the DMCA complaints.

Only, these random denizens also had other videos on their accounts, from bands like The Adolescents and The Lower Class Brats. Because YouTube has a "three strikes and you're out" rule, once a user has had three videos yanked, his entire account is often shut down. Thus, folks who had had at least three SST videos removed had all of their videos removed -- including, in some cases, from non-SST bands like The Adolescents and The Lower Class Brats.

What's not up for debate is that Ginn himself authorized the DMCA complaints against SST content, which also fueled the "you're not punk, maaaaan!" allegations. "It is not a new matter that I am concerned about how my music is presented," says Ginn. "As YouTube has 'monetized' videos, a cottage industry has popped up to make money on putting videos up. I have seen our songs put up with ads placed in the middle of the song so as to trick the content owners."