Digital Trends Used Copyright Strikes to Take Down YouTuber Caleb Denison’s Channel
Caleb Denison, one of the biggest names in audio/visual reviews, made the decision earlier this month to separate from his long-time home at Digital Trends to strike out on his own. This week, Digital Trends used YouTube’s copyright strike system to take his channel down, claiming ownership of the content.
To set the stage, it’s important to first understand Digital Trends and the position it is in in 2025. While the publication has been associated with excellent content, especially in its reviews, the company dramatically scaled back its editorial team in early 2025 by laying off nearly everyone, including the editor-in-chief. Digital Trends listed 15 editorial team members in early January but today, it maintains just five supported by a small number of unnamed contracted contributors.
For years, Denison has been known for his expert evaluations of televisions and sound systems. Seeing the direction Digital Trends was going, Denison made the choice to start his own business away from Digital Trends through a new YouTube channel called CalebRated. On April 21, he launched the channel with the publication of a video titled “I just started a new channel (and company!) | Welcome to CalebRated.” Last week, he added a second video to the channel asking his viewership to help him decide what television to review first.
View on Threads
On Monday, both videos were no longer visible on his channel.
“I appreciate everyone’s patience, understanding, and support while I navigate a very ugly, petty situation. I’ll update as I’m able, but for now, do whatever your heart leads you to do. I’m not here to put my finger on the scale… yet. More to come. There’s a GoFundMe if you want to help that way… not hard to find,” Denison wrote cryptically on Threads.
The GoFundMe he references provides a bit more information.
“On April 27th, his former employer filed copyright claims on his new channel. This was done to harass him and shut down his new business. The claims are baseless and Caleb is fighting to keep his channel going. Please help by donating funds for legal expenses,” the platform reads.
PetaPixel spoke with an investor in Caleb’s new venture. They wished to remain anonymous but provided more background information into what appears to be happening. From their explanation, it appears as though Digital Trends, via the parent company Designtechnica Corporation, is claiming ownership of the content on Caleb’s YouTube channel.
The investor also provided the below screenshot which comes from the CalebRated channel’s admin interface on YouTube.
From what is visible publicly, it is unclear how Digital Trends is claiming ownership over the content since it is not possible to copyright a person who is no longer employed nor the branding that was published after his employment. That doesn’t matter to YouTube’s copyright strike system, though. Because YouTube’s copyright strike platform assumes that a publisher is in the wrong, it defaults to taking the “safest” course of action and removes the offending videos from the platform until the dispute can be resolved.
PetaPixel reached out multiple times to Digital Trends for comment but did not receive a response. Denison declined to comment because of the ongoing legal nature of the dispute.
PetaPixel’s Take
As a former employee of Digital Trends, I have a hunch as to how the company believes it can claim ownership of Denison’s channel. NOTE: This is speculation, but it’s my best guess as to how this is working.
In Digital Trends employment contracts, there is an “inventions clause” and a “prior inventions clause” that states that you must list anything you are coming to the company with that is yours or it becomes theirs. Additionally, if you come up with any intellectual property while at Digital Trends, the company owns that.
While Denison didn’t make the channel public until April 21, the “joined” date of the channel is February 21, 2025. Digital Trends might have seen that date and since it was created during the time Caleb was still an employee, it could be argued it falls under the “inventions clause.”
There doesn’t appear to be precedent that creating a channel with no content constitutes the creation of IP but since Denison didn’t list CalebRated as a prior invention when he joined the company, Digital Trends likely feels that they can claim they own it. Notwithstanding that Caleb will likely argue there was no IP created on February 21, the use of a copyright strike in what appears to be an ownership claim is murky.
Digital Trends used YouTube’s copyright strike tool to take the content down, the basis of which is that they own Caleb’s channels (both his personal Caleb Loves Tech and CalebRated channels). The publication’s claim of ownership is the supposed basis for claiming copyright, but this does not meet the basis of a copyright claim.
Still, it worked.
