YouTube removes Rebecca Black's 'Friday'

Rebecca Black’s official music video ‘Friday’ was removed from YouTube after a legal claim. A message in place of the video now reads: "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Rebecca Black. Sorry about that."

The 13 year old girl received widespread attention after her music video went viral on social networking sites. ‘Friday’ received 160 million page views before being removed from YouTube. While critics have dubbed her single as the worst song ever, hits for her video on internet have earned her the title of ‘viral star’ for Black. 

Black's spokesman says her team sent a takedown notice to YouTube because of a dispute over the video with Ark. Early last week, the firm began charging viewers $US2.99 to watch the clip. On her Twitter page, Black said she had nothing to do with the firm charging $US2.99 to people looking to watch the clip. "My manager and lawyer are on this and are going to get to the bottom of it," Black tweeted.

The video was produced by Ark Music Factory, which charges a few hundred dollars to cast aspiring pop stars in prepackaged music videos. In Black's case, it was a birthday gift from her mother who paid $4,000 to have the single and an accompanying music video put out as a vanity release.