Amazon Issues False Copyright Strike Against New World YouTuber for Reporting Bug (neowin.net) 70
segaboy81 writes: Amazon Games is new to the AAA games space, finding tremendous success with their title New World. Since its release in September, YouTubers like Sethphir and Video Game Databank have begun to carve out their own niche in the New World community, seeing their subscriber base soar into the tens of thousands. However, YouTubers may begin to suffer under the watchful eye of New World's leadership. Recently, YouTuber Video Game Databank discovered a serious bug in version 1.2 regarding aptitude levels in a single crafting attempt which purportedly resulted in his loss of 40,000 coins. Dutifully, he reported the bug to Amazon customer support. When they didn't understand his complaint, he shared a video showing the bug in action. He goes on to call this a "fatal mistake" as just two hours later the video is removed from Youtube after a manual copyright claim was invoked by Amazon. While it could be a coincidence, it certainly seems like a hostile action on behalf of the games studio as it was not an automated, AI triggered task. Someone at the studio manually filed the claim.
hostile action on behalf of the games studio (Score:1, Insightful)
Copyright is hostile, whaddya expect?
Wrong use of DMCA takedown (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are illegal and Amazon should be prosecuted.
Re: Wrong use of DMCA takedown (Score:5, Interesting)
and you need loser pays to cover your court bill (Score:2)
and you need loser pays to cover your court bill as it may cost an lot to make that point.
Re: (Score:1)
and you need loser pays to cover your court bill as it may cost an lot to make that point.
You need richer pays to preserve access to the injured in court
Re: (Score:3)
In 9th circuit for that one. Case is Lenz vs. Universal Music Group over a baby dancing to a Prince song that is so distorted it is hard to work that out.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
This sounds like a takedown to silence someone describing a gamer-community harming bug until they have time to fix it.
I can see where they would like to pause the video while they fix it, but this was entirely the wrong way to do it. They had a chance to discuss it with the reporter, and didn't.
I'd bet when that video went up and hit their radar, someone in authority said "get that off youtube by any means necessary", and so it was done.
Until there are actual repercussions from abusing the takedown system
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Wrong use of DMCA takedown (Score:2)
Add to it: Streisand Effect.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed, but how about we just start suggesting switching away from AWS, would bugs in the software there that cause such problems have the same treatment if publicised? The lack of transparancy here is stunning.
Re: (Score:3)
What alternative do you recommend then?
MS Azure?
Ugh..please not, especially if you are a Red Hat or other Linux shop. It is NOT linux friendly, nor is it dependable. We had some outages that we could not believe, and very little info back on what we requested reports on.
I'm talking a massive sy
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately the American Legal System is "Deepest Pockets Wins"
Re: Wrong use of DMCA takedown (Score:2)
The Amazon police are coming to take you to Amazon jail. From there, you will be taken to Amazon Re-education camp.
Re: (Score:1)
Mark Twain put it "Any contract is only binding on the weaker party"
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, lying for material gain is the definition of fraud, and this is that. In fact many countries (Not sure about US) have bad faith and fraudulent IP claims listed as serious criminal offenses. (Particularly in Trademarks, but Copyright applies too. About a decade and a half ago, a competitor tried to register our business name so we couldnt use it, and even sent us an email boasting about it to us. He was arrested that afternoon.)
The problem is nobody seems interested in pursuing the multinationals and en
Re: (Score:2)
Law firms and Lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It's supposed to be easy to file a counter-claim to restore the video. The problem is that you put yourself in a position of potentially getting directly sued as the next recourse.
Re: (Score:3)
True, except that it's not a claim (legal statement), its a notice. But that's actually a separate issue related to corrective steps for "accidental" takedown requests. Neither the takedown notice nor a counter-notice involve the courts at all, they're civil procedures designed to handle 99% of cases of copyright infringement (and mistaken claims) without burdening the court system. And abiding by the system protects the hosting site from legal responsibility.
However, just as infringing someone's copyri
Re: (Score:2)
intentionally filing a DMCA takedown notice for content you know doesn't actually violate your copyrights (including content that is legitimate on fair use grounds)
This is absolutely not a thing. "Fair use" is a defense you can use in court when you're sued for something that actually does infringe copyright. It's anybody's guess whether the court will side with you or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Please go read Lenz Vs. Universal in the 9th Circuit and then come back to me on that one.
As to knowing where the court will side, please go read Hosseinzadeh v Klein out of the Southern District of New York.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon customer support doesn't have the means to issue a DMCA notice, either. It made it where it needed to go and the action taken was intentional. No need to make excuses for Amazon.
bad reviews hurt the game and the DMCA can remove (Score:1)
bad reviews hurt the game and the DMCA can remove them.
No we need to add this to right to repair so that the DMCA can't be used to stop it
Re: (Score:1)
bad reviews hurt the game and the DMCA can remove them.
No we need to add this to right to repair so that the DMCA can't be used to stop it
Clearly you don't understand how the DMCA works. There are already exemptions for fair-use. Passing yet another fucking law won't do a goddamn thing. Amend the DMCA to add stiff penalties for filing false claims. And then get judges to actually fucking enforce it.
Re: (Score:2)
To get a judge to enforce it, you need to get the corporation in front of the judge. That means one guy who gets his content stolen through a DMCA claim needs to hire a lawyer to go up against the corporation's army of lawyers who have nothing better to do than to bury the opposition in paper.
Right to repair may be stopped with BS like this (Score:4, Interesting)
Right to repair may be stopped with BS like this.
As they can use the DMCA to take down repair info from the web that they don't want to get out
Re: (Score:2)
How would right to repair be affected? You cannot take down a video of someone opening up their laptop. How the laptop looks inside is not a copyrightable piece of creative work.
videos and docs of doing the repair + software nee (Score:2)
videos and docs of doing the repair + software needed as well.
Re: (Score:2)
If the company that produced the device wrote the doc, then they can copyright it. However, the first person who buys it can write down the instructions in their own words and completely bypass the original copyright.
Same goes for software if they are clean-room reimplementations. Though I suspect any right-to-repair law would have a special rule around software required to update a device.
Re: (Score:3)
Simple. Apple issues a DMCA on your video on how to replace a faulty part. You go to Youtube to dispute the claim. Youtube asks Apple to pinky swear that it is a legit DMCA take down. At no point does Youtube require Apple to prove their claim. That is the actual process.
Unfortunately It's Not a False Strike (Score:4, Interesting)
Current interpretation of US copyright law (it hasn't been reallly tested in court yet) is that the software manufacturer owns the copyright on game footage.
People think that since they create the video they own it, but since they are creating a work that is just a playing of an existing work, it doesn't really apply.
If you film a screen playing Star Wars it doesn't become your work, even if you are adding text and commentary, video games are the same way.
It would be nice if someone let this go to court since streaming/lets plays/etc are now a billion dollar industry.
Personally it would be nice if video games were treated more like musical instruments, you own recordings of you using the product, Yamaha doesn't get to claim your videos because you used their brand of keyboard.
Re:Unfortunately It's Not a False Strike (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a "let's play" video. It's a demonstration of a bug - a clear fair use case. News and commentary that make limited use of such footage does not need permission or licensing.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe, I couldn't find the original video that got taken down.
But "bug demonstration" hasn't been tested in courts. Would it be a violation to post a clip of a film that had a glitch in the render that you're pointing out, my guess is that it would be
Don't get me wrong, it's a very shitty thing to do. The fact they left up the 100+ other videos he has is telling what they were trying to do.
Fair use is much more specific and narrow than people think.
It is certainly possible the guys video was long and the
Re: (Score:2)
Fair use is much more specific and narrow than people think.
Citation needed.
The length of the video is less relevant than the purpose. Especially since a game isn't something with a defined linear length. If they are showing 20 minutes of a bug and it is otherwise uninteresting, there is no possible way that it's not fair use. If they give away half the game in a playthrough it could affect the value of actually buying the game and would not likely pass as fair use.
Re: (Score:2)
As BWS pointed out below fair use is not simple. The purpose of the violation is a smaller deal than people seem to think it is. You can't just declare "education", "parody", "non-commercial", or "news" to make anything valid.
There are many factors that have to be weighed.
Amazon owns the rights to in game footage, they are supposed to take fair use into consideration when issuing copyright strikes (per YouTube). This could be fair use, or not, if the person wanted to take it to court. But it's not (lega
Re: (Score:2)
No, but you can actually critique, and the title alone is doing that here. That assumes there is no voice over.
Re: (Score:2)
A reasonable evaluation of bug footage would be that the behavior or visual component was not intended and is thus not a creative work. Including minimal other content to give context to the bug would likely be fair use, even if there is no added context given by the player/evaluator.
Fair use was recently ruled to include creating a condensed edit of another's footage, and providing no additional context aside from a title on the video. Even such minimal editorializing took minimal efforts for the courts
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting case. I had heard about it, but didn't read too much about it before.
The courts highlighted a few details that wouldn't apply, the Bug Video isn't creative. While Benjamins video did create a story using the parts of the video that he included. In addition Hughes publicly bragged about weaponizing the copyright system to hurt Benjamin and profit herself.
Again, I'm not saying Amazon would win if it went to court. Just that it isn't a 100% slam dunk enough that the copyright claim was in itsel
Re: (Score:2)
Well, Akilah sued Hughes, but I think this is even clearer case of fair use than that of Hosseinzadeh v Klein if there was one. And in that second one the judge said it was: 'quintessential criticism and comment'.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are commenting and critiquing the glitch and only had the enough to show the glitch... This is what fair use is for. It is to allow reviews and such.
Re: (Score:2)
But "bug demonstration" hasn't been tested in courts. Would it be a violation to post a clip of a film that had a glitch in the render that you're pointing out, my guess is that it would be
Nope. It falls squarely under criticism and commentary. Let's look at the four pillars:
Re: (Score:2)
Nope. It falls squarely under criticism and commentary. Let's look at the four pillars:
So unless the original poster posted a three-hour clip and monetized it, I think it's safe to say that this usage falls so solidly under fair use that no judge in his/her right mind would disagree.
This isn't some security researcher or something, he's a dude who has a side-hustle making new world videos. He posts between 1-3 videos a day, most of them about 10-15 minutes. All the videos I checked were monetized, a calculator estimates his income to be about $50 a day. So, totally commercial.
The part where he demos the bug takes about 1 minute, the video was a 12 minutes long, entirely of in-game footage (as these content creators do, he just talks a lot and goes around and around to pad the video
Re: (Score:1)
There is no such thing as a 'clear fair use' case. Fair use is a defense against a claim of infringement. It is up to a court to decide if, in fact, a particular use is fair or not.
Re: (Score:3)
Anything can have a degree of obviousness or clarity, especially if there's precedent. I'm not sure why you're acting like fair use can never be clear.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Clear and obvious to who? You don't think a copyright holder may have a different interpretation of fair use than a potential infringer does? This is why we have courts.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, there is, I give you Hosseinzadeh v Klein, or more colloquially known as Matt Hoss v h3h3, and to quote the judge:
And
Re: (Score:1)
True, but that doesn't mean that any time someone is criticising a work that it is fair use. The courts had to weigh the factors. This is an whole other medium.
We are slowly getting more data points with YouTube videos, but as far as I know none of them are about video games, nor any of them from giant companies. If it was Disney v Klein, are you sure it would have went the same way?
I'm not saying that Amazon would win in court, who knows. Which it would be extra funny if this was the one that got legs
Re:Unfortunately It's Not a False Strike (Score:5, Insightful)
Urm, you do know Klein was a youtube video. Yes, without seeing the video I can't be sure myself, however we can consider the fair use factors:
1. Showing bug is critique and commentary on the underlying work. Specifically commenting on the bug in question. (Pretty sure that goes to the bug video).
2. The copyrighted work is a commercial video game (this one goes to amazon, this is also the weakest as in most cases in front of the court, commercial use is likely).
3. If just the bug is showing, It is minimal use for the critique and commentary in question, showing the gameplay to trigger and demonstrate the bug in question. (Probably goes to the bug video creator)
4. It is certainly not a market substitute for the underlying work as you are not in control of the characters movements through the video. Now one might be able to get the story via video, but showing bug in leveling of crafting system is not story. (Goes to the video creator)
So weighing them up, here it is fairly demonstrative that this is most likely fair use as to this specific video. Was that too hard to think through? I think it is probably stronger than the Matt Hoss vs. H3H3 case, as there they were both youtube videos, so that last factor is closer and even there the judge was fairly clear on the matter, the audience wasn't the same so it wasn't a market substitute.
Re: (Score:1)
The fact is that the factors could be debated, and might be different depending on the video, for example, if the bug takes 1 minute to demo, but he has 20 minutes of other stuff. Again, as I've stated several times in this thread (not sure to you though), I'm not saying Amazon would (or should) win.
Just that when that random Amazon employee clicked the button for the takedown request and they affirmed they they own the copyrighted work in question and they took fair use into account that wasn't fraudulent
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, and if you actually read my full analysis here, I qualified that one. But it is also unlikely, and he does have such other videos on his channel they didn't touch. So that makes me believe that amazon didn't even consider the amount used at all. AKA they did no analysis whatsoever!
Re: (Score:1)
You might have number 2 backwards... Because the video showing the bug is probably not commercial/monetized, that factor would probably also lean towards fair use
Re: (Score:2)
Even if the video is monetized, it's as "news content," essentially. You'd better believe that news organizations monetize their videos and include plenty of fair use footage. What's important is that it doesn't de-value or replace the value of going out and buying the game (like posting a long clip or an edit of a movie might).
Re: (Score:2)
Possible, but it is also the least relevant of all the factors in most cases, it is often merely mentioned by the judge at best.
As to whether it is commercial use, I don't know if it was monetized on youtube, it might have been, and is reasonable to assume to commercial use than non-commercial.
Re: (Score:2)
I have no idea what you think that proves. That is a JUDGE making that decision, which is what I said. The judge viewed the material and found it to be fair use, just like the law says.
Re: (Score:2)
That there are examples where the judge is telling them, it is obvious and I shouldn't even be reading this complaint.
This is what judge doing the polite telling the plaintiff to clear off looks like in copyright cases.
Re: (Score:1)
If some C-level at Yamaha reads this, by the time we wake up tomorrow we read "Yamaha, the most successful music network in the history with over 1 billion active musical players, now owns copyright over 78% of all musical performances -- its main challengers, Japanese brands Korg and Roland, consider merger to increase their copyright portfolio within popular bands; classical luxury brands Stradivarius and Steinway & Sons now enter negotiations with Yamaha after it was discovered virtually all of their
Re: (Score:2)
oh no.... what have I done! oh the humanity!
sue all bars / arcades with 80's and 90's pin's an (Score:2)
sue all bars / arcades with 80's and 90's pin's and vid's as they use Yamaha chips
also music rights can be sticky as well don't have (Score:2)
also music rights can be sticky as well don't have steaming rights for that music and the music industry want's to be payed 3-4+ times for the same content.
We're gonna do to games.... (Score:2)
what we did to brick and mortar stores.
Amazon and Blue Origin (Score:1)