YouTube has long had to deal with Copyright infringing members, however they are now taking a more proactive measure to educate those users about copyright infringement, launching what they call the “YouTube Copyright School.”

The program, a four and a half minute video in the style of a cartoon based PSA has now become required viewing for any site user who receives a copyright infringement notice from the world’s largest social video sharing website.

Watching the video (shown at the bottom of this post), you’ll quickly realized that it features characters from Happy Tree Friends, a popular YouTube video series. The video gives a quick rundown of copyright law and must be viewed before an infringing user can once again begin uploading videos to the site. After watching the video users are then required to take a short quiz about the content they just watched.

Along with the new video, YouTube has amended how they control copyright offenses. In the past users had a “permanent record” of violations, while users can now have one offense fully removed from their record by watching the video. Consider the new policy a “defensive driving class” type solution to copyright rule breaking.

YouTube is also launching a Copyright FAQ section, shown below: [Read more…]