A War of Strikes in Belarusian YouTube — Piatrukhin Got Hit
Sergei Tikhanovsky started the disputes, and now the "People's Reporter" is tearing his hair out — why did he take as many as seven minutes of the show "Sasha, What Are You Spreading?"
Siarhei Piatrukhin. Photo: Nasha Niva
Blogger Siarhei Piatrukhin reported that on November 7, he received a strike on YouTube for copyright infringement.
He said that a year ago, in the autumn of 2025, he posted "for his sponsors (I have about 30 of them)" an almost seven-minute fragment of the program "Sasha, What Are You Spreading?" by Fyodor Paulyuchenka and Aliaksandr Atroshchankau.
According to Piatrukhin, Paulyuchenka and Atroshchankau spoke about him "very colorfully" and "it was a pity to leave such a wealth of journalistic epithets unnoticed". Therefore, he posted about seven minutes of someone else's content on his channel.
"Even if the video is intended only for sponsors, it does not relieve the necessity to respect copyright. Therefore, guys, I apologize for using your material. I respect copyright," — the blogger confesses.
However, he also complains that instead of a strike, the journalists could have written to him directly and asked him to remove the video — which, he says, would have been done immediately.
Finally, Piatrukhin addresses other bloggers:
"Do not publish lengthy fragments of other people's programs without your own analysis, even for sponsors. And if misunderstandings arise between familiar authors — try to talk first."
Three violations can lead to the complete deletion of a channel.
The war of strikes, of which Siarhei Piatrukhin became a victim, was first started by blogger Siarhei Tikhanovsky, who began writing complaints to YouTube against the channels of Belarusian independent media. In response, interested parties began to closely monitor his own content, which led to six of Tikhanovsky's materials — 4 streams and 2 videos — being deleted over the past week. The reason was Tikhanovsky's use of fragments of an old video featuring Mikita Mielkazióraŭ — a popular blogger who died in December 2025.