YouTuber furious after video gets copystrike for washing machine sound

A YouTuber was left seething after one of his videos got hit with a copyright strike for including the jingle from a Samsung washing machine, causing him to call out the platform for “fraudulent” content ID claims.

YouTube’s content ID system has come under scrutiny multiple times over the years, leaving creators frustrated after their videos get claimed for playing audio from a song, film or other copyrighted material a second too long.

The site is once again facing backlash after a YouTuber revealed that he’d been hit with a copyright strike over a washing machine.

On May 27, 2024, Norwegian YouTuber ‘Albino’ revealed that one of his six-hour playthroughs of Fallout: New Vegas had been given a strike due to supposedly including the song ‘Done’ by music artist Aduego. 

However, this track was never actually in Albino’s video. Instead, the audio that plays at that particular point in his playthrough was the jingle from a Samsung washing machine, which plays when a wash cycle is complete.

That’s not all; Albino also discovered that the song from Aduego was just a recording of the washing machine jingle that had been re-uploaded to YouTube nine years ago. The actual jingle is from the song ‘Die Forelle’ from Austrian composer Franz Schubert. 

“Some guy content ID’d his washing machine and now I’m getting copyright claimed because of that,” the YouTuber explained. “Now, my money on my third channel is going into the toilet and being given to this f*cking slime.”

Albino also pointed out the myriad of comments criticizing Aduego underneath his video, with one viewer writing: “Did you record the Samsung washer, then upload it to YouTube with a content ID?” At the time of writing, it appears that Adeugo’s video has been either privated or removed from YouTube.

This isn’t the first time that Albino’s channel has been hit with “fraudulent” claims, leading him to call out YouTube in a heated post on X.

“This is the most egregious example of the MANY outright fraudulent content ID claims I’ve gotten over the years,” he wrote. “Are you guys doing anything to prevent this? It’s completely out of hand.”

YouTube offered a response to Albino’s post, where they reminded the creator that the claimant has 30 days to respond after a dispute is submitted and claiming they “understand how important” Albino’s revenue is to him… but the YouTuber wasn’t impressed by this reply.

“‘Just wait for the person blatantly stealing copyrighted material to respond,’ ah okay yes, I’m sure they did this in good faith and will make the correct call,” he mocked in a quote-retweet.

“Though it would be a shame if they simply clicked ‘reject dispute,’ took all the ad revenue money and forced me to risk having my channel terminated to appeal it! Thanks team YouTube!”

Albino is far from being alone in this situation. In fact, YouTube star Ludwig got so annoyed at the site’s copyright system that he made his own library of music for creators to use free of charge.

Even the likes of MrBeast has slammed YouTube over this problem, suggesting that a music label should stop copystriking YouTubers “every opportunity it gets and instead let us use their music. Then, we YouTubers all rally and get them 10s of billions of impressions on their music for not being c*nts to us.”

Even legendary YouTuber PewDiePie has beef with the platform’s content ID system, suggesting that he should “go to court” to help monetize his Dr. Phil reaction videos back in 2019.