Shining Force videos being removed on YouTube

[greg]

I know I'm not the only one on here who has a YouTube channel with video game-related videos. While most of you probably have shmup-related stuff, this may affect others. I saw this video of the Happy console Gamer giving everyone an FYI of what's going on. It was a response to a video by a guy called AlphaOmegaSin who informed viewers of what's going on (I won't even link to his video... the guy makes good points, but he is such a spaz). Bayonetta videos are being targeted, and Shining Force III and Shining the Holy Ark are particularly being targeted. Some YT personality named TotalBiscuit (apparently huge, but I've never heard of him) had his "let's play" videos removed as a result. Some pickledick at Sega Japan, Fujii_Mutsuhiro@sega.co.jp, is going around on YouTube, arbitrarily flagging these videos for copyright violation. There is a Reddit article that covers this a bit. A thread on a Shining Force forum shows that many of these guys' YouTube accounts are being flagged for violation, and with three flags in a row. This has caused people's channels to be suspended.

Many of these videos are just of people's faces, saying, "Hi, I'm so-and-so, and I'm a Shining Force fan!" Can Sega really copyright people's faces and voices? It is getting out of hand. YouTube user MarauderEx wrote to Sega of America about this, and they said that it is not their policy to do such things. It's still a mystery as to whether this is Sega of Japan doing this, or if it is just some grumpy rogue jerk at Sega of Japan who has been flagging these videos.

All I can say is, watch out. For the past year, I have been slowly working on a "100 import-only Saturn Videos in 10 minutes" video, similar to this video, yet focusing on only import games, minus the techno music that everyone seems to feel obliged to put in such videos. I was going to add some footage of Shining Force III part 2, since only part 1 was released in North America. I am now going to avoid that as a result.

[EmperorIng]

I've heard of this, and I seriously hope Sega answers for this. It's a huge slap to the face of the community of fans who have kept their butts afloat through the years.

[BIL]

Reminds me of the Streets of Rage Remake debacle. Speaking of which, here's some footage of the generic third-person brawler Sega farmed out and was going to market as a new SOR before it got canned.

[GaijinPunch]

Note the ".co.jp" in the email address. Good luck getting anything rational out of Corporate Japan. Makes even less sense than Corporate America if you can believe that. Do you see any Japanese companies truly embracing technology? Light years behind, and SoJ leads that pack I'm afraid.

[Vexorg]

If Sega is going to go trigger happy on copyright takedowns, why can't they at least do us all a favor and nuke all the horrendous Sonic fanfic first?

[Ed Oscuro]

It would be hilarious if this was the prelude to releasing something...a lot of people wouldn't buy it now out of principle.

Looked through the article, of course it doesn't matter if you release via a HDPVR or emulation or whatever.

Copyright law in this area seems to be pretty clear that you can't use derivative works as if they were your own stuff. However, game companies have almost never enforced this, partly because it would make magazine reviews impossible. Of course there is often a lot of fuzziness around this area.

You will note that Sega of America's "if slanderous" response is not the operative thing here (at least in most cases - if something was actually slanderous or libelous, that would be cause for a different suit). That is essentially a way of saying "we are fine with whatever as long as it doesn't rock the boat." However that doesn't mean they have no copyright control over anything you have uploaded if it is not (some Sega employee's idea of) "slanderous."

[greg]

I don't see how copyright infringement can be enforced in any way. If it is a movie, for example, yes, you are showing an entire movie for free and that is robbing money from the company. But footage from a video game? Watching a video of a game on YouTube does not replace the experience of actually playing the game yourself. If they were copying the actual game discs and selling them, then that would be copyright infringement.

I have a handful of videos that have copyright notices just because incidentally, some song was being played in the background of the place I recorded the video. I don't know if that falls into the "fair use" category. It's not like I am uploading an .mp3 onto YouTube which would replace the option of paying for the song. I wonder if I should just fill out the dispute form for those videos.

[Ed Oscuro]

If I make some work of art, though, I do have the right of using it as I choose. I could print it in a book, put it in a game, or make a video with it. It would be strange to say that because a game's copyrightable materials first were in the game that the copyright holder has to foreswear any right to permit or deny reproduction in other media.

It is true that there is some amount of work a player can put into making a video and that generally the game companies are not trying to compete with the free video uploaders, and also true that companies often profit from the free marketing. But Sega is clearly not just any old company, here. It's acting more like a jealous antiques dealer than a modern company, in this case. That is their right, at least according to the law.

I have a handful of videos that have copyright notices just because incidentally, some song was being played in the background of the place I recorded the video. I don't know if that falls into the "fair use" category. It's not like I am uploading an .mp3 onto YouTube which would replace the option of paying for the song. I wonder if I should just fill out the dispute form for those videos.

You can't really count on YouTube to go to bat for you here, but I believe that the legal standard would be a "substantial portion" of the original work must be present (or something like that).

[Mortificator]

If I make some work of art, though, I do have the right of using it as I choose.

That's the idea, but the people forcing the removal of these videos did not make Shining Force, and the people who did make Shining Force don't have the right of using it as they choose.

[BryanM]

Light years behind, and SoJ leads that pack I'm afraid.

Jesus christ, did they deserve worse than what happened to them.

The 32X/CD debacle instead of doing a backwards compatible Genesis Ultra console was bad enough. The fucking mindset of "if it's not a success in Japan, it's not a success at all" had to be the most fucktarded derpity fuck shit I ever...

They were neck and neck with Nintendo in Europe and the USA. Comparable to the goddamn Super Nintendo, which basically shat roses and gold out its butt. You'd think you'd try to capitalize on that.

Aurgh, the only stupidity that gets me this riled up is how that one company tore its own asshole open making APB. Businessmen; filthy parasites on the productive game developer class.

[greg]

fucktarded derpity fuck shit

The whole 32X thing was recently discussed on the Racketboy forum. The PC Engine had a strong presence in Japan, which prevented the Megadrive from gaining a foothold there. The SNES was delayed in the West, so the Genesis took the spot there that the PC Engine had in Japan. So America and Europe was Sega's cash cow. The Sega CD wasn't so bad really. It just has a bad reputation because of the inane FMV games like Microcosm and the tons of lame crap like the music video makers for INXS, Marky Mark, and Kriss Kross, and the other FMV crap. The 32X, however, was the derpity derp crap. Designed by Sega of America, the 32X was trying to capitalize on the Genesis too much by trying to milk it for all they could. The Saturn was the true 32 bit system, but that was developed in Japan. The 32X was SoA's attempt to "me too" it and really ruined the company's reputation. The Saturn choked in the West, while it flourished in Japan. Anyhow, this could be a separate topic of its own to discuss.

Anyhow, back to the topic at hand:

You can't really count on YouTube to go to bat for you here, but I believe that the legal standard would be a "substantial portion" of the original work must be present (or something like that).

Some cockmuncher in India stole my "100 Super Famicom Games in 10 minutes part 2" video and uploaded it onto his own channel. I lodged a complaint, but YouTube found no fault in him stealing my video. That upset me.

[GaijinPunch]

Light years behind, and SoJ leads that pack I'm afraid.

Jesus christ, did they deserve worse than what happened to them.

I was just pointing out the pig-headedness one gets in corporate Japan. It's fucking crazy, and is the main reason most gaijin eventually bail out and go either to another cuntry, or to a foreign firm within Japan. I've also got 2nd hand knowledge of the cumpany in question, to boot.

[EmperorIng]

GaijinPunch, your sexy innuendos are getting too hot for me to handle.

[GaijinPunch]

What can I say, I give the people what they want!

[Ed Oscuro]

You can't really count on YouTube to go to bat for you here, but I believe that the legal standard would be a "substantial portion" of the original work must be present (or something like that).

Some cockmuncher in India stole my "100 Super Famicom Games in 10 minutes part 2" video and uploaded it onto his own channel. I lodged a complaint, but YouTube found no fault in him stealing my video. That upset me.

People have actually stolen money from me via eBay Another tried and didn't quite pull it off (some Brazilian YouTuber it turns out.)

Like I said...was the game footage originally yours? Also, sadly, we have to ask: Do you have a legal team sending out C&D letters? Just knowing all the (and which) hoops to jump through in order to get the right attention is beyond the capability of most. But I think the more important part is that if you have some footage in there that's not yours your copyright claim is much weakened. It might be that the standard (at least for YouTube) is that you must have the rights to everything in order to have a strong copyright claim. I have a similar situation where I uploaded an old game trailer and it appeared months later on some other person's page, with them also claiming they got it off an old CD...right. They've gotten more views than I did, which rankles.

I went ahead and made my video a response to theirs so people can look and compare the upload dates

Anybody who wants to go the games commentary / Retsupurae route should look to the standard in this format, MST3K, where although it is a derivative work, the original movies they're parodying either had the rights secured for this use, or (I think this was probably the case for all of them) they are in the public domain. MST'able movies were made during the era of mandatory copyright renewal and mandatory copyright notices (in the U.S.), so that failure to adhere to some portion of the copyright law meant you lost copyright. This has not been the case in the U.S. since 1988/1989, and games made earlier should still be copyrighted if they never failed the copyright renewal (I think the term of copyright was long enough that this wouldn't have happened in the era of the NES at least).

[Ruldra]

Saw this a few days ago over at GAF. Possible explanation (although still retarded) about this mess:

Sega is not deleting videos of their new game Shining Ark but of videos for the old shining games Shining Force 3 and, probably more importantly, Shining The Holy Ark. Due to the similar names, you get more results for their old games than you get for the new game when searching on YouTube. This is something they want to stop, since they apparently regard YouTube as an important part of their marketing, but don't care for neither the old Shining games nor the fanbase of these games -- to the point that they would rather destroy the work of these passionate hardcore fans.

[BryanM]

God it's like sticking a finger into a rotten open wound.

There are guys out there who love Shining Force more than me, but only a thimble full of them made a rom editor thingabob for it.

Reminds me of that Landstalker on the PSP demo thing they had mocked up/going. It looked really good, like a high-res 3d clone of the beast..

[GaijinPunch]

Gayest genre ever.

[BryanM]

I preferred it back when it was full of hot man-on-centaur action.

[greg]

Apparently they are not only targeting English-speaking fans, but Japanese fans as well. A playthrough video of Shining the Holy Ark on Nico Douga has been removed due to "copyright infringement."
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13587026

[Specineff]

So this doesn't fall into the "Fair Use" clause?

[EmperorIng]

It actually does, but Youtube/Google won't dare risk legal action by Sega.

[Ed Oscuro]

It actually does, but Youtube/Google won't dare risk legal action by Sega.

Maybe, maybe not...the four factors test used here in the U.S. doesn't clearly vindicate this.

It also seems that recently the commercial or non-commercial aspect of the "purpose and character" factor is being reduced - in this case, probably many YouTube users don't see money from these videos, but it is possible for them to do so. That would go against the second test. The "purpose" of parody has often been used variously, sometimes you have to actually be parodying the work itself.

The third factor, the amount and substantiality of a work, could also go either way - if you show all of the game that a person is likely to see while playing (especially for an RPG) that would factor one way, but if a friendly court decides that a mere video of the game does not have the same character as a play.

The most interesting thing I see browsing through this is the "Fair use and professional communities" section; I think that some "professional" game reviewers do substantially the same thing now that it is possible with modern video technology, so this should be taken into account. The very name of NAVGTR seems to suggest this after all.

[powersoul]

If Sega is going to go trigger happy on copyright takedowns, why can't they at least do us all a favor and nuke all the horrendous Sonic fanfic first?

This.

[BIL]

If Sega is going to go trigger happy on copyright takedowns, why can't they at least do us all a favor and nuke all the horrendous Sonic fanfic first?

This.

No! We non-fans love guffawing at atrocious Sonic culture!

[Ed Oscuro]

If we put all our quarters together maybe we can buy FEKA and create the robot revolution!

[BIL]

A part of our heritage.

[EmperorIng]

I don't want to continue off-topic, but Tails Gets Trolled is truly a masterpiece that can only have been conceived in our modern, digital age.

[BIL]

Yes. I'll start selling bootleg Sonic games out of my trunk in protest if Sega so much as hint they'd go after TGT.

[greg]

Here's an interesting video that details the relationship between shiningforcecentral.com and Sega of Japan. SFC has been very gracious and giving to Sega/Camelot, but they've only had a cold shoulder turned on them. It's as if Sega hates the old Shining Force games and considers anyone who would like them to make another turn-based strategy Shining Force game to be a troll and an enemy. Imagine if Nintendo had such a dipshit attitude towards Fire Emblem fans! No wonder Sega is flailing these days.