Update, 4:45 p.m. — Microsoft sent us a statement, citing stolen product keys embedded in YouTube comments as the reason for videos being targeted inadvertently. See the full explanation at the bottom of this post.

Original story:

Well, this is a bit bizarre. Microsoft appears to be taking down YouTube videos with content related to Windows due to apparent copyright claims.

Bruce Naylor, a tech reviewer and analyst at his YouTube channel FrugalTech, received a takedown notice this morning sent from a brand protection company called Marketly on behalf of Microsoft.

Naylor, who explains the situation here, said that he filmed the video on Jan. 6, 2013, and called it an “op-ed piece.”

“At no point during the video did I actually use any third-party copyrighted material,” he said. “No music, video, photos — nothing like that. It was strictly talking about why Windows 8 was failing in the marketplace at that time.”

Naylor said he can’t access the video on YouTube now, so he uploaded the original file to Vimeo here.

“It is my opinion that because I was very, very negative in the video about Windows 8, that it was taken down,” Naylor said. “It really pissed off somebody. They are looking for an excuse to take that video down.”

But it’s not anti-Windows videos that are being taken down. Scott Hanselman, who works for the Web Platform Team at Microsoft — yes, he works there! — made a how-to video for Windows 8.1 that was cited for copyright infringement:

So Microsoft did a copyright takedown on my "How To use Windows 8.1" @youtube video. I kind of work for Microsoft. https://t.co/SDsFAJGbQr — Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) October 14, 2014

The same type of thing happened to prominent blogger and tech reviewer Chris Pirillo, who told us that he just received a video takedown notice for a “benign informational video that I likely did to help people decide how to go about upgrading.”

Pirillo said he doesn’t think anybody at Microsoft is directly responsible for the takedowns, and noted that the Redmond company potentially hired the wrong contractor to help protect its brand on YouTube.

“It’s a blanket campaign being implemented by a company that clearly has no idea what they’re doing,” Pirillo told GeekWire. “Many of the videos flagged allegedly don’t contain anything but talking heads. This isn’t about censoring negative reviews so much as it is the gross abuse of YouTube’s copyright flagging system and is not without precedent.”

Can we agree on a hashtag for this situation? #Microstopped@SoldierKnowBest was just hit, too! Here's my flag… pic.twitter.com/y2qUtyyC74 — Chris Pirillo (@ChrisPirillo) October 14, 2014

There are others are having their Windows-related content taken down:

Ouch @Microsoft. It was a video telling people how to download the Windows 7 Beta from your website in 2009. pic.twitter.com/obbssxbreR — SoldierKnowsBest (@SoldierKnowBest) October 14, 2014

https://twitter.com/jelleeh/status/522135772817010689

https://twitter.com/MJPegler/status/522126424552251392

We’ve reached out to Microsoft for more details, and the company told us that it is “looking into this.” We’ll update this story as we learn more.

Update, 4:45 p.m. — A Microsoft spokesperson sent us this statement: