Music fans looking for lofi beats to relax/study to will find it that much harder to do so, as the number one stream on YouTube, the popular LoFi Girl, has reportedly been disabled over a copyright claim. Over the past few years, the LoFi Girl channel — which was previously known as Chilled Cow, for some reason — has grown in ubiquity, eventually renaming itself for its most popular stream, which featured an endless loop of an anime-style animated girl ostensibly listening to the downtempo, often-sampled hip-hop beats on her headphones while writing in a notebook.
According to Futurism, the channel’s proprietors have called the copyright claim that took down the stream “false” in a post on Twitter, writing, “The lofi radios have been taken down because of false copyright strikes. Hopefully, @YouTubeCreators @YouTube will sort this quickly…”
The lofi radios have been taken down because of false copyright strikes, hopefully @YouTubeCreators @YouTube will sort this quickly… pic.twitter.com/X01hL6jT2N
— Lofi Girl (@lofigirl) July 10, 2022
Fans checking out the LoFi Girl profile can still see the “lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/studio to” thumbnail, but rather than its usual bright red “Live” marker, it now shows the truly incredible runtime of 20,843:42:51 (that’s 868 days or about 2 years, four months, and two weeks of music). Clicking on it only retrieves an error message: “This live stream recording is not available.” The comments are filled with messages in at least six languages describing the stream’s personal significance to the commenters, many of whom, of course, wish for its return. The stream was last interrupted in February 2020, when it was taken down by an error at YouTube.
They might just get their wish; a reply from @TeamYouTube confirms that “the takedown requests were abusive” and that the stream should be restored in “24-48 hours.”
confirmed the takedown requests were abusive & terminated the claimants account we’ve resolved the strikes + reinstated your vids – it can sometimes take 24-48 hours for everything to be back to normal! so sorry this happened & thx for your patience as we sorted it out
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) July 11, 2022