Lady Gaga blocked by YouTube for copyright breach

Despite millions of fans and huge record sales, Lady Gaga appears to have enemies – and one may be YouTube. The singer’s official channel was recently blocked for what Google calls ‘multiple or severe violations of copyright.’

Lady Gaga is one of YouTube’s biggest successes – The video for ”Bad Romance’ has been watched more than 400 million times. But a recent performance in Japan is thought to be at the core of this latest snafu.

A few weeks ago the 25-year old singer appeared on a Japanese music show ‘SMAP x SMAP’ to promote her new album. While there she performed several songs including ‘Born This Way,’ ‘You & I’ and ‘The Edge of Glory.’ She then posted video of the show on her YouTube channel – and that’s when the problems began.

Media Interactive Inc., the company behind ‘Smap’ apparently didn’t agree to this or give Gaga the rights to republish their content, so they filed a complaint with the YouTube guys and Gaga went dark.

For several hours her page has just said: “This account has been suspended due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s Copyright Policy.“

The dudes at Google have made no statement so far, saying they ‘do not comment on individual videos or accounts.’

It’s expected the singer’s channel will soon be restored once the disputed videos are gone, but for someone whose talent for endless promotion has gained her three Billboard awards, five Grammys and 11-million followers on Twitter this is one piece of PR she’d probably rather avoid…

BBC