YouTube has removed Robelinda2, the channel of YouTube archivist Rob Moody, after receiving several copyright infringement complaints.

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Social media users expressed their displeasure at the news of the termination of the much-loved YouTube channel, almost certainly the biggest archive of cricket videos on the internet. The account had been active for 14 years, with videos receiving millions of views.

The channel had been hit by a copyright strike before, from Cricket Australia in June 2020. The channel received high viewership during the peak of the global lockdown, when fans were starved of live cricket action.

It turned out to be an act committed in error. Cricket Australia had already granted Robelinda2 immunity from copyrights long ago. Even CA chair Earl Eddings admitted to Robelinda2 helping him get through “some difficult times in the lockdown”.

Rhett Bartlett, a historian at the Richmond Football Club, later posted a message from Marhaba Cricket India Ltd, the organisation that had raised the complaints against Moody’s channel.

Meanwhile, the cricket fraternity expressed their outrage at the entire incident. After all, this was someone who believed: “It’s actually really fun when people out there on social media have got their own little memories from all these matches That’s what is really cool that people do remember different things when they watch the same match.

Rob Moody, the owner of the channel, updated his followers on X (formerly Twitter). He explained that YouTube had terminated his account because they received “multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement regarding material the user posted”.

Moody had started off by recording “virtually every match on television” in video tapes in the 1980s. It took him three years to convert his archive into DVDs. When a friend wanted to see a video from a Sheffield Shield match, he requested Moody to upload a video, which set his channel into motion.

The first channel was simply Robelinda, where he was “unable to upload long videos after a few months”; so he created a second channel, Robelinda2. Cricket historians and statisticians have reached out to him for material from time to time.

According to the Herald Sun, the ICC have reached out to Moody to see if they can offer assistance. “I always knew there might be a day when I logged into the channel and the sign came up “this page does not exist.’ Finally it happened and I am a little sad,” he told the Australian newspaper. “Normally when this happens you need some serious effort which is well above my resources to get the channel going again. One good thing is that I have already been contacted by the ICC copyright man who said they want to have a chat and see what can be done. I talk to them a bit and we get along well even though they might occasionally tell me to stay in my lane.”