Fans reacting to Tyler, The Creator’s new album Chromakopia are getting copyright strikes – but he’s working overtime to reverse themFans using music from Tyler, The Creator‘s new album Chromakopia in their social media posts are seeing them muted or removed, and the rapper and producer is working overtime to stop this from happening.
Chromakopia landed on 28 October through Columbia Records, and has since seen a flurry of reaction videos and other content featuring its music posted online. These have been flagged by copyright infringement detection algorithms, and some fans say their accounts have been taken down entirely.

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But Tyler, The Creator has since told fans that his team is working on getting these copyright strikes lifted. And in an age when artists both large and small rely upon fans on social media to share and circulate their releases, it’s no surprise.
Tyler is the latest in a string of artists to insist their music not be subject to copyright restrictions; Kendrick Lamar and Drake reportedly removed said restrictions from the diss tracks they aimed at each other earlier this year, seemingly aiming to push further virality online.
Why do some artists want copyright restrictions lifted online?
While copyright laws fundamentally exist to protect artists, many were written pre-social media and the internet. Thus, a law that may have been beneficial years ago, might work to damage an artist’s reach in the present day, by preventing fans who aren’t seeking to monetise from promoting a song or album.
In the case of Tyler, The Creator, those playing Chromakopia in their reaction videos are helping to generate publicity for the record and start more conversations about his music. Some may even refer to this kind of promotion as User Generated Content, or UGC – a term commonly associated with brands and marketing, in which social media users create unpaid/unsponsored content about a specific brand, and in turn, promote it.
How things are changing
In today’s world, where platforms like TikTok are changing how we listen to and discover new music, some artists are becoming more flexible in how listeners use and share their music online.
TikTok has licensing deals in place with a number of labels for its library – it even famously feuded with Universal Music, as the label argued for a better deal – so that users can use music from popular artists in their videos. Given how the platform has had a significantly positive impact on the careers of a plethora of artists, labels and musicians would essentially be missing out by not having a deal in place.
Platforms such as Twitch are also introducing similar licensing deals. The platform now allows DJs to use copyright-protected music, with a royalty payment system that reimburses copyright holders. It’s likely that more online platforms will continue to implement systems like this, however it looks unlikely that entire albums will be available to include in any online content. This may mean full album reaction videos may still be subject to removals and restrictions going forwards, unless the artist argues otherwise.
 
Copyright and music – the law
As outlined by PRS For Music, copyright of a musical work begins automatically once a piece of music is created and documented or recorded. In the UK, this is detailed in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. In the UK, copyright lasts for a period of 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies.
To use copyright protected music in content online, you need permission from the copyright holder(s). This is referred to as a licensing deal, and will often involve a fee and royalty payments. Copyright laws in music exist to prevent work from being stolen or shared without permission, and also enable financial reimbursement for copyright holders.
What is a copyright strike? How does it work?
For this, we’ll use YouTube as an example. As per Google Support, “If you get a copyright strike for sharing a song in a YouTube video without permission, it means that a copyright owner has submitted a legal copyright removal request for using their copyright-protected content. When a copyright removal request is submitted to us, we review it. If the removal request is valid, we have to remove your video from YouTube to comply with copyright law.”
On YouTube, after three copyright strikes, your channel becomes “subject to termination”. Bear in mind, a copyright removal request is done manually by a copyright holder. However, YouTube also has a system in place known as Content ID. This works a little differently, and is fully automated.
A Content ID claim is “automatically generated when an uploaded video matches another video (or segment of a video) in YouTube’s Content ID system”. Content ID claims can block a video from being viewed, monetise the video by running ads on it (thus sometimes sharing revenue with the uploader), and even track the video’s viewership statistics.
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