On the 20th of October, 2013, popular gaming journalist and critic John “Totalbiscuit” Bain made a video explaining that his critique of Day One Garry’s Incident had been removed from YouTube. The culprits were the developers of the game themselves, Wild Games Studio. They claimed that Bain had used their copyrighted content to earn advertising revenue without due permission.
In this critique, Bain had been evaluating Garry’s Incident with his trademark harshness, pointing out the subpar graphics throughout the game, which featured pixelated textures and poorly defined models, and the shoddy gameplay which was biased against the player, with unresponsive controls and erratic enemy behaviour.
So it could be seen as suspicious that a scathing review by a popular YouTuber (who at the time had approaching a million subscribers) was taken down by the developers of the game themselves. Indeed, the true intent of Wild Games Studio appears even more malicious when Bain reveals emails showing their interest his review, followed by the agreement of the studio – who even sent him a free review code with which to download the game. Furthermore, the developer publically put forward blanket permission for anyone to make video content about their game. Finally, at the time of recording, Bain points out several videos that were still available criticising Garry’s Incident, all of which were monetised.
Bain theorised that his critique was likely taken down because of his video’s higher view count than the rest on YouTube. But, most chillingly, he points out how a company were able to quickly remove criticism of their game from the internet, just because it was negative. Legally it didn’t infringe copyright – critique can be done on copyrighted content and be monetised.
If this doesn’t shock you, you haven’t yet grasped what this means.
The removal of his critique was far more than just a video being taken down – it was his education of consumers that this game was not worth spending money on. Analysis which the games developers realised could harm their sales. With YouTube’s “shoot first, ask questions later” attitude to copyright, content creators like Bain have no chance to even defend themselves.
In essence, they have been rendered silent by a system that priorities companies over criticism.
This video was met with massive support, from not only his audience, but from other content creators and journalists. Finally, YouTube responded, removing the copyright strike against Bain, and reinstated his video. With this, it would be assumed that YouTube might reconsider their attitude to copyright claims by companies, to prevent this happening again.
On the 12th of February 2014, it happened again. This time, it was by the amusingly named FUN Creators, responsible for the universally panned Guise of The Wolf. Bain’s PR Manager emailed the developers, asking for the video to be reinstated, sending the link of video and describing what had happened previously with Wild Games Studio. FUN Creators responded with several emails, issuing warnings and threats of legal action. Much to their anger, Bain tweeted screenshots of these emails to the public.
This culminated in a final email from FUN Creators who demanded that Bain close his YouTube channel permanently, remove all tweets from his Twitter account, and to remain silent about the email. At this point, Bain had already gotten into contact with his lawyer, and the video was finally reinstated.
YouTube is broken. The inability of content creators to do anything to defend themselves is frightening. They’re having to fight against their platform, which is far more concerned with the welfare of companies. Companies who are far more concerned about generating profit in whatever unethical way they deem necessary.
Make no mistake, while these content creators do strive to make revenue, they also provide a key service to us, the consumers. They release content on a regular basis, giving us a detailed and analytical look at products and helping us come to conclusions on if we want to spend our money on it. This often become these people’s livelihoods – many people don’t realise the amount of time spent researching, recording and editing content for an audience.
But these people’s way of life is still under risk. YouTube’s states that if a content creator, no matter how big or small, receives three copyright strikes, then their account is permanently closed. And it isn’t just gaming journalists that are affected by this – any YouTuber can be abused by fraudulent copyright claims. A new system called “Content ID” means that companies can automatically gain all advertising revenue on any video that may contain their content, even if it is being used for a valid purpose that does not breach copyright laws.
For example, The Co-Optional Podcast is a weekly podcast that provides commentary on the latest gaming news. Recently, one of their videos was claimed by Content ID, and all monetisation was given to Nintendo. The reason? In a three hour long show, they analysed and provided commentary on a two minute trailer for Pokémon. For providing critique on a two minute trailer, and indirectly advertising the game, YouTube allowed Nintendo to gain all advertising revenue for their three hours of film.
YouTube has become an incredible platform for content creators that would otherwise have no way to express themselves. It has allowed new forms of entertainment to develop and evolve – you only need to look at PewDiePie, the most subscribed personality on YouTube, who plays video games to entertain over 33 million watchers at time of writing. But these content creators are having to fight against the platform that they help support. If we want to promote even better content on YouTube, we must help the next big gamer win that fight.
You’d be surprised at how serious video games are, on the internet.
The Sixth Form Journal 