star wars force awakens

Photo via Star Wars

Bad Lip Reading’s viral ’Force Awakens’ parody taken down by a copyright claim

The company associated with it says it didn't make the claim.

 

Michelle Jaworski

Streaming

Posted on Apr 7, 2017   Updated on May 24, 2021, 6:13 pm CDT

Bad Lip Reading delighted fans by taking on Star Wars: The Force Awakens with some help from Mark Hamill as Han Solo, but a copyright claim took it down soon after it went viral.

The channel’s parody of The Force Awakens was like any of its others videos: The dialogue in footage from the movie is replaced with parody audio. Bad Lip Reading’s been doing it for years without much issue. (Plus, Bad Lip Reading is part of Maker Studios, which is owned by Disney.)

But the video was gone (it has since been restored), replaced with a message that reads, “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Dramatists Play Service.” Dramatists Play Service is a company that publishes and handles the licenses of plays for playwrights.

copyright claim bad lip reading

Bad Lip Reading spent part of Friday getting the video back online, telling Variety that Dramatists Play Service had “zero grounds” to make the copyright claim. While the person behind the channel, who remains anonymous, believed it might have been done with ill-intent, Dramatists Play Service said it had nothing to do with the copyright claim.

Dramatists Play Service and Bad Lip Reading both worked to get YouTube to restore the Force Awakens parody to YouTube.

Update 6:47pm: The video in question has now been reinstated. According to Waxy, the Dramatists Play Service said the takedown notice was “human error.”

H/T Variety

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*First Published: Apr 7, 2017, 11:07 am CDT