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Anime YouTubers Targeted For Copyright Strikes By Toei, Sho-Pro
posted on by Kim Morrissy
Two prominent anime YouTubers who were embroiled in copyright-related troubles in recent months have reached wildly differing resolutions, highlighting the inconsistencies in copyright enforcement on the video streaming platform.
After being struck by over 150 copyright claims from Toei in December, Mark Fitzpatrick of the Totally Not Mark review channel reported in a video last Thursday that he has reached a concession with YouTube and the rights owner: the flagged videos will be blocked in Japan but remain accessible in other countries. In order to issue a takedown in other regions with differing copyright and fair use laws, the company must argue its case based on the laws of those territories.
Fitzpatrick claimed that someone “high up at YouTube'' reached out to him through Discord and informed him of the policy, which YouTube intends to roll out on a wider scale in the future. A YouTube policy communications manager told Kotaku that although this copyright policy is not new, it is the first instance of YouTube applying it in practice.
On the other hand, the YouTuber Suede, who created the parody/review "Pokémon Journey" series, will have his channel deleted entirely in three months. In a video posted on Wednesday, he explained that Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions (Sho-Pro) sent a court complaint demanding that he pay 80,200 yen (approximately US$700) in damages plus legal fees.
Suede warned that, instead of utilizing YouTube's automatic copyright claim system, companies can resort to manually sending legal threats to pressure YouTube creators. This tactic also disarms YouTubers the ability to issue a counter claim through YouTube's system and makes it prohibitively expensive for them to fight back. He also claimed that the geoblocking solution employed in Totally Not Mark's case can also be rendered moot if the company makes a claim for damages based on views accrued in Japan in the past.
Suede advocated that all YouTubers be given access to geoblocking in order to preemptively prevent issues like his from recurring in other contexts.
In other YouTube copyright-related news, video game music uploader GilvaSunner announced on their Twitter account on Wednesday that their channel has received over 3,500 copyright blocks from Nintendo in total, and that they will be discontinuing the channel because of this. They claimed that they did not monetize the tracks, but also stated that they respect the company's legal rights. A number of the targeted videos were music tracks not currently available legally on music streaming and download platforms. GilvaSunner received 1,300 copyright blocks in December and another 2,200 this week.
[Via Kotaku, Nintendo Life]
