Two well-known NASCAR YouTubers recently called on the NASCAR community to help them deal with similar yet different issues regarding their YouTube content and even the loss of one of their YouTube Channels.
The online NASCAR community is about as tight-knit as they come, with content creators and fans having run-ins across different social media platforms. This past weekend, the online NASCAR community was united on two fronts to help two well-known NASCAR YouTubers, Michael Mrucz and Elly Productions.
Saturday morning, fans woke up to find that the Mrucz channel, known for its NASCAR gaming content and sketch comedy, had disappeared. In its place stood a cryptocurrency channel titled ‘M. Taylor’.
Of course, this was not on purpose, as Mrucz quickly took to X to call on fans and YouTube’s @TeamYouTube X account for help, though the issue would not be resolved until Sunday morning, with his account even being temporarily terminated as a precaution by YouTube.
In the meantime, his channel dropped from 74.2K subscribers to 73.8 K subscribers at one point, though it has rebounded to 74.1K subscribers at press time. Nonetheless, during this time, the NASCAR community showed up to support Mrucz.
Mrucz explained the hack during a YouTube upload on Monday afternoon, saying that it resulted from malware downloaded from a high-quality email from what he perceived to be a prospective sponsor. He said he was thankful for the aid from the NASCAR community and TeamYouTube, saying the support he saw online was a humbling experience.
While Mrucz has regained control of his content, Connor Hudson, better known as Elly Productions, who has over 80,000 subscribers on his channel and is known for his video essays about NASCAR, also waived the proverbial caution flag about stolen content on Saturday.
In a YouTube upload of combined clips from August 28, September 4, September 11, and September 20, Hudson claimed that an unaffiliated TikTok account was re-uploading his content in full without permission or credit, in a non-transformative manner.
The TikTok account, titled ‘jdjsjybcirk,’ began uploading content from Hudson and other NASCAR/motorsports YouTubers to their account on July 9. However, the account’s uploads of reused content date even further back, with content from creators outside the NASCAR community popping up in late June.
In total, this account has gained 10.2K Followers and 72.6K Likes by uploading this content. Thanks to Hudson documenting this account, you can see that since he first took note of this user, jdjsjybcirk has gained roughly 18.5K Likes and 400 more Followers.
Even though he reported the account and attempted to contact TikTok for over a month, Hudson has yet to receive aid from TikTok Support, despite these uploads being an infringement of his intellectual property rights, per TikTok’s Copyright Infringement portion of its own Intellectual Property Policy page:
“We do not allow any content that infringes copyright. The use of copyrighted content of others without proper authorization or legally valid reason may lead to a violation of TikTok’s policies.”
Hudson even stated that the video he uploaded was initially a fallback plan if TikTok had not yet assisted him. Even after Hudson uploaded this video, calling out the creator, calling on TikTok to fix this, and asking for support from his viewers, the account has continued to upload his content, including videos dating back to 2023 and one uploaded as recently as this past Friday.
Of course, Hudson is not the first to publicly discuss his YouTube content being re-uploaded on TikTok. The Reddit thread linked below features several creators sharing their experience with this issue.
Someone on TikTok Is Stealing All My YouTube Videos and TikTok Does Nothing With my Infringement Reports
byu/blisscigarco inPartneredYoutube
As of press time, Hudson has yet to announce any updates on the matter. Information on reporting potentially stolen content on TikTok can be found on the company’s Intellectual Property Policy page.
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