Ever wonder why videos get removed from YouTube? We took a large random sample of videos from our YouTube index, and gathered some interesting statistics on what was removed and why. At Webmunism.com we index over a million videos from popular video sharing site YouTube. Because videos get removed, we also check periodically to see which ones are still there. Out of scientific curiosity, we took a random sample of over 20,000 videos known to have existed in our index (20,811 videos to be exact). Of these, 89 percent of the videos were still up, with 11 percent having been removed for various reasons. There are 3 main reasons YouTube give for the removal of videos. We checked the 2,134 removed videos to determine what percentage were removed for each reason, giving the results below.48% – Removed by the user This means the video was remov best acoustic guitar ed voluntarily by the person who uploaded it. There could be any number of reasons for doing this. Maybe they produced and uploaded a better version, or maybe they just got tired of it.41% – Removed due to terms of use violation This means the video was removed at the initiative of YouTube staff, because it breached the YouTube terms of use in some way. It might have contained obscene, pornographic or otherwise unacceptable content. I think – but I can’t be sure of this – that it might also include some copyright issues. In this case it’s likely that the video was removed before a formal takedown notice was issued.11% – Removed at the request of the copyright owner The dreaded DMCA takedown notice or its equivalent. This means that YouTube were served with a request to remove the video on the grounds of copyright, and complied with that request.