Fortnite YouTuber who recreates songs on the game’s piano has channel demonetized for “reused content”

Fortnite YouTuber Jachael123 had his channel demonetized on the platform today due to allegations of reused content by the company, the creator wrote.

Jachael published a screengrab of the monetization status of his YouTube account, which says “Currently ineligible for monetization” and restricts him from applying for monetization again for a month. It’s unclear if this happened because of a report by a third party or if it’s due to some process on the platform.

Jachael wrote that he had been a YouTube partner for the past seven years. “I’ve never received any strikes, never had a video blocked,” Jachael said. “This is a straight up error and needs to be fixed.”

Jachael’s YouTube channel shows him playing several songs on Fortnite’s piano tiles that are far east of the map. He plays both the melody and harmony on the piano and puts them together in a video, showing his character jumping on the tiles to play it. He plays any percussion the song has with the sounds of Fortnite’s different weapons shooting.

One of his works that’s been praised the most by the community is Toto’s “Africa” played on Fortnite, which was even praised by an Epic employee on Reddit. He’s also published 13 videos of him playing the songs of a few Fortnite dances.

Demonetization usually happens when the creator publishes videos to which they don’t own copyrights, regardless if it’s gaming or any other video material. Channels who do so may or may not be allowed to keep their videos up, but they can receive a strike and be forced to remove the video from their channel in more serious cases of copyright infringement.

Jachael told Dot Esports that since he’s 19, the money he earns isn’t the biggest issue for him yet—but “the small but decent” amount he earns from YouTube is his only source of income. He said he’s still trying to figure out why YouTube demonetized his channel.

“I checked my emails in the afternoon and I had an email from YouTube sent 12 hours beforehand saying that I had monetization removed from my channel,” Jachael said. “They’ve said it’s for ‘reusing content,’ however all my content is my own and original, so I’m not sure where they got that piece of information from.”

All of Jachael’s videos are still available on his channel. “I’m hoping to hear back from YouTube soon with a resolution to this,” Jachael said.