Vimeo has today responded to complaints about the removal of numerous music videos from the accounts of several leading music video directors and their production companies last week, in a statement which explains their reasons for the takedown.

The video-sharing website, used widely for showreel purposes by production companies and individual directors, has cited copyright infringement for the move, explaining that they were obliged to remove the videos having received a copyright takedown notice by a rights holder under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). 

“Last week, we received a copyright takedown notice that required us to remove a number of videos with music in them," say Vimeo. "We're aware that some of our users were upset to find that their videos had been taken down, and we wanted to provide some additional information about our policies. 

"Vimeo takes claims of copyright infringement very seriously. As explained in our Terms of Service and Copyright Policy, users must have all rights to upload a video. That includes all rights to use any third party work, such as music, in the video. When we receive a valid notice from a copyright holder under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), we remove the video that is claimed to infringe the copyright holder’s rights."

The Vimeo statement also points out how directors and production companies can restore the videos to their accounts. "If a user believes that their video was removed in error they can reach out to the copyright holder in order to clear up the matter, or file a counter-notification online anytime here to petition to have their video restored. Whenever videos are restored, the play count, likes, and comments will be restored as well."