Strike Three! Apple Prompts YouTube To Remove Fan Channel Filled With Rare, Decades-Old WWDC Videos

Apple Inc. AAPL prompted a takedown of a fan's archival YouTube channel — but is apparently not making the company's history readily available to fans. 

What Happened: Brendan Shanks, the owner of the WWDC Videos channel containing hundreds of decades-old videos from past Worldwide Developer Conferences, said his account has been permanently disabled. 

Shanks' channel received three copyright strikes after Apple issued several takedown requests against the videos, some of which dated back to the early 2000s, reported The Verge.

Congratulations Apple, you took down my YouTube channel containing hundreds of…20-year old WWDC videos. Wouldn’t want anyone learning about Mac OS X, Darwin, Aqua, or WebObjects 🤣@tim_cook @pschiller @gruber @jsnell @ismh @mjtsai @reneritchie @reckless pic.twitter.com/w2UgVqOubF

— Brendan Shanks (@realmrpippy) November 4, 2022

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As per Alphabet Inc's GOOG GOOGL YouTube policies, a channel is removed after committing a maximum of three violations.

Shanks now plans to get the content over the Internet Archive as he still has original files and descriptions. 

I still have all the original files (and descriptions, which were a lot of work!), and I’ll be moving things over to the @internetarchive. It’ll take time though, and unfortunately videos get a lot less visibility when you’re not on YT

— Brendan Shanks (@realmrpippy) November 4, 2022

Why It's Important: This isn't the first time Apple went after a fan's archival content. In 2016, YouTube removed the EveryAppleVideo channel over copyright issues. The channel had many old Apple ads, WWDC sessions, and internal training videos. 

Undoubtedly, the aforementioned archived content is Apple's intellectual property, but the company doesn't make genuine efforts to make its history readily available to fans, the report noted. 

The closest official archive related to the company is a small but gradually growing Steve Jobs Archive – the site launched by Job's friends and family, not Apple. 

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