Most videos from singer Utada Hikaru’s official Youtube channel were suddenly removed for copyright infringement. This month, Utada herself uploaded all of her PVs (promotional videos) to the same channel, so this must surely be a formality. But what in the world happened?
Videos were removed for copyright infringement on the night of November 17th. Utada herself tweeted in shock, “Eeeeeehhhh? How did that happen?!” It’s been confirmed that it was a contractor’s mistake for removing a bulk of the videos. Utada commented, “I’ve confirmed the reason. A contractor for EMI (the record company) always makes requests for videos to be removed, and mistakenly removed everything…Ah, Unbelievable that this happened. I’m sobbing.”
Utada’s PV of “Goodbye Happiness” which she directed also fell victim to the mass removal, and the only sole video that survived was, “Mr. Bear’s Company Visit.” Her official channel was fast approaching 3 million views, and on November 15th, it was ranked 4th in the world in the musician category. Her channel also ranked 15th of all channels on Youtube.
Recently, it was announced that one of Utada’s songs will be the theme song for the movie, “Ashita no Joe.” Utada was also going to take a break, but suddenly this happened. When the videos were restored, Utada tweeted to her fans, “The official channel is all restored!”
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