YouTube apologises after removing popular 'lofi beats to relax/study to' video

YouTube has apologised for taking down a hugely popular music stream after bogus copyright claims.

The YouTube classic titled “lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to” has amassed 668 million viewers and is often used for background music for various activities.

The LofiGirl channel with the famous anime-inspired thumbnail has two streams: beats to relax/study to and beats to chill/sleep to, which have racked up 21,000 hours of playtime.

On Sunday, its creator took to Twitter to announce its "radios" had been silenced after two years of continuous streaming, sparking fury from fans.

The official account told fans their videos had been removed due to a "copyright takedown notice".

"Hopefully @YouTubeCreators @YouTube will sort this quickly," they said.

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Inevitably, #BringBackLofiGirl started trending on Twitter, prompting an influx of memes, jokes, fan art and appreciation, urging YouTube to put the videos back on the platform.

One wrote: "Lofi girl has helped me survive so many stressful study times. I loved watching 'live' and knowing that many people were also listening too."

While another hilariously written: "finally ready for her exams".

Luckily, the official YouTube account responded to the outcry and confirmed they would reappear soon.

They said: “We’ve resolved the strikes + reinstated your vids – it can sometimes take 24-48 hours for everything to be back to normal! so sorry this happened & thx for your patience as we sorted it out.”

As of Tuesday (12 July) morning, the clip was still unable to stream.

LoFi Girl, formally known as ChilledCow, was set up by French musician Dmitri in 2015. He has built 10 million subscribers with its regularly updated low-fidelity, instrumental music mix.

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