CFL Decides To Shut Down Cool YouTube Channel Promoting Its Product For Free
For sports fans in general, one of the great benefits of social media sites, particularly Twitter, has been the way highlights are shared across those platforms, both by individuals and, more commonly, by the leagues and teams themselves. Both Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) have been particularly good at this, filling up timelines with amazing highlights nearly as they happen. It's been great for promoting both products, with MLB's Advanced Media division really driving more people to the sport with this sort of content.
You all remember the Canadian Football League (CFL)? If not, and you're a football fan, the league's talent is actually quite good. That being said, the CFL does a terrible job of promoting itself and remains a niche league to say the least. And you know what doesn't help with that? How about when the league shuts down a fan who went out of his way to promote CFL content to the masses when the league didn't bother to.
One of the largest independent YouTube channels featuring CFL content no longer exists after the league recently claimed a number of its videos due to copyright violations. Adam Stevens is the creator of CFL Mixtapes, a digital platform that features elaborately edited highlight reels of some of the league's biggest stars. He has over 1,000 followers on Instagram, including a number of big-name CFL players such as Bo Levi Mitchell, Charleston Hughes, and Willie Jefferson.
Before then, I wasn't really a CFL fan, I barely watched any," Stevens told 3DownNation via telephone. But in 2021, when I really started watching it, I really liked it and I saw that there was no videos on Instagram about it. I just started doing that."
Notably, Stevens is a teenager who just grew into being a fan of the CFL. While he started this all on Instagram, he then created a YouTube channel for his custom-made highlight reels as well. That YouTube channel had several hundred subscribers and tens of thousands of views. Not small, but not huge, either. All of that content served essentially to promote the CFL and came with a disclaimer that Stevens did not own the content and wasn't affiliated with the league.
Then, recently, the CFL suddenly flagged three videos for copyright strikes and the channel was shut down. This coincides with the CFL suddenly getting into the YouTube video highlights game itself, which almost certainly precipitated the strikes.
Stevens has contacted the league through Instagram, Twitter, and email regarding the claims, though he has not received a response. Though he is aware that he had no legal right to the video clips he used in his edits, Stevens was hopeful that his content would help raise awareness regarding the quality of football the CFL has to offer.
We need to let the world know how good the talent is in this league. It's really under the radar," he said. Before I was a fan, I thought it was horrible league and the players weren't any good. But no, there's some really good players and people kind of started realizing that and I think this is a good way to show it."
This is absolutely asinine. Sure, the CFL can do this under copyright law... but why in the actual hell would it want to? There are plenty of other avenues the league could pursue in this case. It could simply ignore the infringement and enjoy the free promotion. It could work out a cheap or free licensing structure to make the content legit. Hell, it could try to figure out some way to employ Stevens, or contract with him, now or in the near future if his age is a concern.
But instead, out come the copyright strikes and the channel goes down. In theory, this could actually piss off the fans who followed Stevens' channel, sullying the reputation of the league with those fans.
Talk about a fumble.