Pokémon Anime Community Up In Arms As ShoPro Issues Copyright Strikes On YouTubers
from the collect-all-the-dmca-abuses dept
Searching out stories we have done on intellectual property conflicts surrounding the Pokémon franchise will give you no shortage of results. Part of that is that there is simply a ton of content out there: books, cards, video games, animated TV shows, movies, and mobile games. It is also the case that there are a ton of rightsholders to all of these different content categories and many of them are quite aggressive when it comes to intellectual property. I mean, Nintendo’s involved, so how could it be otherwise?
But like I said, Nintendo isn’t alone on this. ShoPro is the publishing house for the Pokémon animated series. ShoPro is also at the center of a copyright strike blitz that has caught up a whole bunch of YouTubers engaging in very clear fair use of stills from the anime in order to discuss episodes.
As explained in a Twitter post by Pokeferlax, YouTubers using still images from the Pokémon anime have found themselves hit with a sudden barrage of copyright strikes. This has resulted in the removal of their content from the platform.
While YouTube responded to that tweet stating that it would look into the issue, Pokeferlax’s YouTube channel has basically had all of its content removed as of the time of this writing. Other YouTubers have also chimed in stating that they’re dealing with similar copyright strike issues.
Now, what is important to keep in mind when it comes to the Pokémon community and the franchise’s popularity is that it thrives on the exact kind of commentary content these YouTubers are engaged in. Be it for the games or the shows, the Pokémon fanbase is a rabid one and part of the reason for that is all of the engagement the community has with one another.
In other words, ShoPro’s actions are harmful to its own product. Or, certainly more harmful than the use of some still images of the show in a YouTube video.
Fans in the comments are outraged, encouraging those affected to attempt contacting ShoPro for an explanation. The accounts experiencing strikes repeatedly state that they are not in violation of YouTube’s Fair Use requirements, but three strikes result in the complete removal of the offending account. Because of this, many content creators are at risk of losing years worth of work.
Additionally, Twitter and YouTuber user, CoreySpikeChase, has made a video in response to the copyright strikes against Pokemon Anime accounts, stating, “ShoPro, YOU Are Hurting Your Fans & Community! STOP THIS NOW!”
Perhaps ShoPro will get the hint and stop cutting off their nose to spite their face. After all, I have heard that actually being human and treating your biggest fans well is, ahem, super effective.
Filed Under: copyright abuse, dmca, fair use, pokemon
Companies: shopro, youtube
Comments on “Pokémon Anime Community Up In Arms As ShoPro Issues Copyright Strikes On YouTubers”
I have just one question:
You create content on either your phone or your computer or in any other manner, and then you upload it to YouTube. Don’t you still have a copy stored in some medium that you can still access? If not, why not?!
Those years of work mentioned in TFS, that refers to building a community. But the fact is, one can do that again when the time comes, hopefully on one’s restored channel, or if need be, on a new channel. Granted, that means building the community back up, but the hard work has been done, it’s only a matter of the word getting out that you’ve returned to the fold.
The pain is in the fact that YT believes that the law requires them to act as judge, jury and executioner, all at the whine of certain assholes. That’s simply not true, but no one seems to want to take it to court. That’s because the copyright cartel runs a humongous ad campaign giving the false impression that they are automatically in the right by fiat, and God help anyone who believes otherwise, regardless of how big they might be.
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I know a couple youtubers, some of which have hundreds to thousands of videos on their channel… most of them don’t have the local space to store all the original content.
Even if they did, the views and comments on the original videos are available, re-uploading them doesn’t fix the loss of likes/views/comments and all the algorithmic goodness that goes along with them.
Some youtubers spend 5-10 years to earn their 100k subscribers (or more if they’re lucky) only to have that work flushed down the drain by a few copyright strikes in a short amount of time. Starting a new channel basically puts you back at square one on youtube.
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What? In my experience, the average Youtube video is maybe a few hundred megabytes. Let’s call it a gigabyte. A thousand of those would be a terabyte, and a terabyte hard drive costs perhaps $50. I wouldn’t know, because I stopped buying those 15 years ago (too small; do they even make 3.5-inch versions of these anymore?). 4TB drives can be regularly found under $100.
I’d understand if you said they don’t have space to store the originals. Or if they lost their videos in a drive failure or disaster (although another $100 would take care of backups). But Youtube recompresses quite aggressively, and there’s little excuse other than laziness or apathy to not store a Youtube-compressed version of every video you create or watch.
I have a copy of basically every TV show I’ve ever watched (and many I haven’t), and it takes up all of 8TB of space. People saying it’s “impractical” to keep Youtube videos probably haven’t done the math. But let’s say maybe it is impractical for some Youtube uploader. We know for a fact it’s practical for them to upload videos (at least once), so why on earth would they not upload a copy elsewhere? The Internet Archive will take them for free, and do not give copyright holders sweet backdoor deals for takedowns like Youtube does (and they do keep the stuff even if they become legally barred from distributing it).
Re: Re: Re: From a video watcher who caught a glimpse behind the curtain:
The videos you watch are not comparable to all of the image files and video files directly involved in the making of those videos. If you don’t mind spoilers, take a minute to observe Markiplier’s playthrough of Inscryption Act 3. If you don’t want to watch it, the video at timestamp 33:16 shows that Markiplier has preview files (temporary files created in the process of making videos, I think) with sizes anywhere from 14MB to 286GB. Yes, 286 GIGABYTES. Temporary, but that requires terabytes of otherwise free space. Markiplier’s not everyone, but raw video recordings, countless video clips, images (for anything from the one-off gags to long-term backgrounds), video templates, and draft versions of videos require a ton of space, and a few terabytes of total disk space is not going to cut it if a video creator makes at least a video a week AND wants to keep most of the source files permanently. That’s without considering local backups.
I suppose that nowadays people have less of an excuse to not make online backups, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the average video creator doesn’t know how to make them.
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Hence the statement “I’d understand if you said they don’t have space to store the originals”. But that’s not really what we’re talking about. The top-level commenter wrote “then you upload it to YouTube. Don’t you still have a copy stored[…]?”
We’re talking about people losing videos due to Youtube deleting/blocking them. Youtube never had the original hundreds of gigabytes, which means their actions have little bearing on whether the uploaders still have those.
Re: re: but no one seems to want to take it to court.
I wonder why?
Is it because they pay nothing for the service YouTube provides and therefore have no way to force YouTube to provide service? Yes. It’s a simple case of section 230.
Basing your business model on the whims of a service provider you have no business relationship with is something you can do, but you don’t have a leg to stand on when they pull this shit.
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Unfortunately, there’s not really a legal recourse. The US doesn’t have jurisdiction over Japanese copyright claims, and Japan does not have any “fair usage” exemptions to copyright.
When posting content to the internet, you need to not just be familiar with your own local laws but the laws of the country the original copyright holder has.
The US government or courts cannot force YouTube to only enforce US interpretation of copyright laws on foreign works because they cannot protect YouTube or content creators from lawsuits being filed in other countries.
Are Japanese copyright laws archaic and stupid? Absolutely, yes. But no court can protect content creators until those laws change.
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That is because individuals cannot afford to defend their rights against abuse of the DMCA. If someone took it to court, the would probably win but could take a decade or so of court battles, and who has the time and money to take on such a battle.
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Most “copyright strikes” are based on private agreements between Youtube and big copyright holders. The victims can’t challenge the law because these actions are not based on the DMCA or any other law.
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The DMCA is what motivates those private agreements. Youtube’s copyright strikes are a softer alternative to DMCA takedowns, but remain heavily tilted in rightsholders’ favor because otherwise rightsholders wouldn’t have made the agreements in the first place.
EFF’s paper “Unfiltered: How YouTube’s Content ID Discourages Fair Use and Dictates What We See Online” explains Youtube’s moderately complicated dispute system for Content ID claims. The video uploader can safely dispute a claim once. The rightsholder can decide whether to release the claim. Suppose that the rightsholder disagrees with the dispute and keeps the copyright claim. If the video uploader appeals the dispute then the rightsholder will be able to file an actual copyright takedown, and you can guess what Youtube will do to protect Youtube’s DMCA 512 “safe harbor”. After the DMCA kicks in, the video uploader can dispute the takedown, but doing so will allow the rightsholder to sue the video uploader. (IANAL, so maybe the rightsholder could sue at an earlier stage, or not.)
What can a video creator do after the initial dispute, which the rightsholder has discretion over? Nothing much without money to spare for a good lawyer and an inevitably costly court battle.
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No doubt. But now you’re several steps away from the actual entity you want to sue: the US government. You don’t have a direct first amendment claim, because they didn’t require Youtube to make this deal. So you may have to show that Youtube is doing it only because of a law the government actually did pass. And can you compel Youtube to testify or produce records regarding that, if they’re no longer interested? Remember that their decision to take things down is protected speech, and they’re now basically in bed with everyone requesting these takedowns; see Youtube TV, Youtube Movies, Youtube Premium, Youtube Music, …
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Do you want to reduce a fortune to nothing faster than Elon Musk,because that is what it takes to take on a government.
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For channels that have hundreds of videos, it simply isnt viable to have years and years worth of content backed up because of how much space it takes up. Think about it like this; We already have to clean out our phones after a while because there are too many pictures. Now imagine how much space that would take if it was 10, 20, or even 30 minute videos. You would need dozens of flash drives or an entirely separate computer to just store it all and not everyone has that kind of money.
Also YouTube has made it notoriously difficult to fight copyright claims because if you dispute a claim, youtube itself doesn’t really check it (much), they ask the people claiming it if they want to continue the claim and of course they will say yes. If they’re even remotely in the right, thats a strike and it can take weeks if not longer to fix even a false claim.
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Only Youtube can realistically take it to court, and they’ve given up (and why not?—it keeps their legal bills low and apparently doesn’t stop people from using them). They now give copyright holders special access to take stuff down. Youtube’s decision to take it down, for even bullshit reasons, is protected by CDA section 230 and the first amendment. The government can’t be successfully sued unless Youtube’s taking it down based on requirements of US law, notably the DMCA—and they’re usually not. Are there some grounds under which copyright holders could be liable? I have my doubts. They’re just giving an opinion to Youtube, not making a statement under penalty of perjury as far as I know.
(Perhaps ShoPro will get the hint and stop cutting off their nose to spite their face. After all, I have heard that actually being human and treating your biggest fans well is, ahem, super effective.)
I kinda doubt they’ll care.
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Sadly, that’s true.
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But it turns out that treating them like shit is, sadly, also super effective. Nintendo’s having little trouble from it. Some goes for most film, music, and book businesses. Just yesterday, four major book publishers, supported by the “Copyright Alliance”, were in court giving arguments against the Internet Archive.
The fans don’t seem inclined to stop rewarding this behavior, nor do the authors, musicians, etc. seem inclined to stop doing business with these companies. There seems to be a real shortage of “free/libre” fandoms, which is unfortunate.
(Perhaps ShoPro will get the hint and stop cutting off their nose to spite their face.)
I kinda doubt they’ll care.
This is typical behavior from a Japanese anime studio. Look up what Toei did to someone who was DragonBall content on YouTube. I’ve heard some of this can be pinned on Japanese copyright law.
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Something like that. Nintendo and other japanese companies are also notorious for abusing the copyright system to take down videos they dont like. I remember back in the old days a youtuber by the name of Chuggaconroy (if that’s how its spelled,) apparently told Nintendo off at some point for abusing the system and taking down videos of their games.
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Absolutely. I’m not supporting Japan’s archaic copyright laws, but the article is kind of wrong about the content being “fair use.”
It can’t be fair use when the copyright holder is from a country where “fair use” does not exist.
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By that reasoning, fair use applies in Japan because that is the law that applies to the uploader.
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Fair use needs to exist in Japan or there will be an exodus of scholars, artists and writers from the country.
The Soviet Union arrested people for what they published because they had no free speech so their most intelligent people defected and left.
Japan arrests people for what they publish because they have no fair use so their most intelligent people might defect and leave.
ShoPro is trying to be the very best to copyright strike everyone like no one ever has.
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Unfortunately, plenty of other companies hold the prior art on that.
Given how they wrote the character journey for their main protagonist, it’s going to take them 25 years before they become a master.
Covering Anything Japanese on the Internet is Hell
It has been made pretty clear that covering anything Japanese on YouTube is risky and may bring you hell one day.
The MPAA looks at Japan’s strict laws and masturbates to them hoping that they get passed here.
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How much more strict are Japan’s copyright laws?
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Basically, anyone who wants to USE their IPs needs to “seek permission” or risk getting scrubbed.
Has happened before in my hobby circles…
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Strict to the point where many manga artists will censor a syllable or completely rename some piece of pop culture in their work. If the US had similar laws to Japan, movie productions would have to seek permission to use things like Mcdonald’s or Coca-Cola in their films rather than such companies paying for being shown as is the case now.
I’ve seen random internet posts out of Japan where people will self-censor the names of major companies to avoid trouble. (I’m not sure how much legal jeopardy they’d actually be in but, if the law encourages that level of self-censorship, it’s already broken.)
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In short, there is no fair use in Japanese copyright law. IANAL, and to my knowledge, most countries don’t have anything remotely comparable to the US’s fair use or the UK’s weaker fair dealing. Japanese copyright law still has a few specific exceptions, but they don’t help here.
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So that means in order to enjoy fair use, someone born in Japan must leave Japan and go somewhere else, where they have fair use. And this will result in pretty much the same situation as what we saw when Russian dissidents fled the Soviet Union in search of free speech.
And no one thinks that the lack of fair use in Japan is a problem, even as anime, manga, and video games are more popular than they’ve ever been.
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Actually, and depressingly, the reverse is true.
I can think of at least two new coporations that thrive despite being slaves to the very corporations that shackle them.
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Japanese law in general is pretty shit, to the point where the UN has human rights concerns about it. Hell, the whole reason why Gyakuten Saiban even exists as a franchise is because the system is genuinely that trash when it comes to the presumption of innocence.
SHOCKED PIKACHU FACE
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I can’t explain why ShoPro only cares about getting money. I might wanna see if one day ShoPro loses their money and I really want to imagine people insulting ShoPro.
Random person: “THAT’S IT! I’M DONE DEALING WITH YOU MINDLESS, PATHETIC MORON! NO ONE WANTS YOUR STUFF ANYMORE. ONE MORE HIT THEN I WILL PRAY THAT YOU WILL LOSE YOUR COMPANY!
BUT IF YOU COME BACK, I’M SURE THAT YOU WILL HAVE NOTHING TO BRING BACK CORRUPTEDNESS ANYMORE!
GO AWAY SHOPRO! NO ONE WANTS YOU!
While terrible, this arguably has strong implications on ShoPro’s part.
Part of the idea of copyright infringement is that the content doing so pulls the potential audience away from the original source by acting as substitute. Given that ShoPro is issuing DMCA takedowns over still images, an extremely small part of the original source is used.
Under that logic ShoPro is saying that if people see a single image from an episode, people won’t watch the episode. Even with an official method of watching the show online, any episode is more than likely going to have a thumbnail from that episode.
So you could argue ShoPro is implying (even if unintentionally) that their own content is worthless.
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They wouldn’t be the first of such content to essentially prove their vapid lack of worth. Consider the attempts by sporting bodies to ban animated GIFs featuring 10 seconds of goal scoring.
If shopro gets banned,ShoPro DON’T COME BACK EVER!
THEY ARE SO CORRUPTED THAT I ALMOST CAN’T DESCRIBE HOW MESSED UP THEY ARE!
And if the people part of ShoPro goes to jail, then they need to be there sooooo long that they need to think about what they did to those innocent youtubers.
I actually agree with you guys that ShoPro is horrendous.
I even care about Pokeferlax all of the other youtubers that is losing their jobs.
I don’t know if I really want to be a youtuber because ShoPro is like preying on these people and all I’m probably going to make when I’m a youtuber is might be making my own Friday Night Funkin’ mods and songs. (I don’t know if that’s possible but some day, SOME DAY I will try my best to get my goal. 😇✌️
I prayed that ShoPro needs to end this chaos;
And ShoPro has to shut down forever.