YouTube restores Lofi Girl

YouTube has reinstated the endless relaxing music live streams on the Lofi Girl channel after they were pulled down over a false copyright claim.

The channel has been running two live streams since 2017 – ‘‘lofi hip-hop radio – beats to relax/study to’’ and the ‘‘lofi hiphop radio – beats to sleep/chill to’’ – which have a combined total of close to 800 million views.

After streaming non-stop for two years, the Lofi Girl account last Sunday announced its videos had been removed following ‘‘false copyright strikes’’.

NBC reported that YouTube’s copyright policy states, ‘‘Creators should only upload videos that they have made or that they’re authorised to use.’’

Lofi Girl told TechCrunch: ‘‘All of the channel’s music is released through its record label, Lofi Records, so they have the necessary rights to share it’’, so it is not considered to be in breach of copyright laws.

The platform responded to Lofi Girl on Twitter on Monday, saying the missing livestream videos should be reinstated within 48 hours and they were.

The account has a dedicated following of students who enjoy the relaxing vibe environment for studying and sleeping. Some claim they can’t continue their day without being calmed by the music.

Twitter users rallied for the return on the streams using the hashtag #BringBackLofiGirl.

‘‘There are days this channel is the only thing helping me stay focused and reasonably positive at the day job,’’ one wrote.

Many others hoped the incident would inspire YouTube to make changes to its ‘‘broken’’ copyright system.

A similar thing happened to the Lofi Girl account in 2020, when video that had been streaming since 2017, was taken down under similar claims.