Colleen Ballinger Appears To Upload 'Toxic Gossip Train' To Streaming Services As YouTubers That Use It Are Hit With DMCA Claims

July 11th, 2023 - 4:34 PM EDT by Adam Downer

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According to many, it appears as if Colleen Ballinger is exploiting the backlash against her after she was accused of inappropriately communicating with minors by Adam McIntyre last month.

First, she responded with a jaw-dropping apology video in which she sang a 10-minute ukelele ballad that was arguably less of an apology and more a means of belittling her accusers and critics.

"Toxic Gossip Train," as its come to be known, incensed the wider community, and several content creators such as Cr1TiKaL and Ethan Klein have harshly criticized it in recent days.


As the "Toxic Gossip Train" made a pit stop at Social Media Content Mill, many purported that Ballinger took the extraordinary step to upload the apology video song to music distribution service CD Baby, which in turn has uploaded a portion of the song to Spotify and the full thing on Apple Music, though listeners there would need to pay $10 if they want to own the whole thing.

In essence, that would mean Ballinger had copyrighted the song and supposedly flexed her rights as copyright holder to send a DMCA takedown to h3h3 for using clips from the song when discussing the controversy on the channel's podcast.

Ethan Klein Colleen Ballinger

The news gobsmacked followers of the controversy, many of who couldn't believe the extraordinary steps Ballinger appeared to take in the wake of the allegations.

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However, at least one person had to hand it to Ballinger — seeming to monetize a response to extremely serious allegations of grooming and inappropriate behavior and then copyright striking people discussing it might be the first funny thing she's done.

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She has also canceled her upcoming tour dates as Miranda Sings — notably without issuing a statement.

UPDATE: Ballinger's legal reps have denied she is the one who uploaded the song to streaming services, as well as issued any copyright claims involving the song. "Ms. Ballinger did not upload the song or video to Apple Music or to any other streaming platform for sale or for any other purpose," they stated. "We don’t know how it got published on those platforms." The song has since been removed from streaming services.



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