Intellectual property guidelines updated

[Marshal Rohr]

 

He’s welcome to file a lawsuit and have his rights enforced.

 

They also removed the strike. The evil corporation strikes again!

Wow.

 

"Yeah, just sue the hundreds of millions of dollars corporation if you want your rights! You will surely prevail on the merits and not get bankrupted by them instead!".

 

"What do you want, they removed their illegal totally-not-intentional manual copyright strike that requires filling out a ton of paperwork and wasn't done by a bot. They're not evil now that they backed off under customer pressure and risk of bad PR!"

 

I hope it's at least tasty. The boot, I mean.

If you don’t like the way youtube enforces IP laws you’re welcome to vote for politicians who will change those laws.

[Lord Marshal]

"Whilst watching one of The Hobby's many talented, creative, well-liked content creators, the employee's wrist slipped on a puddle of spilt Citadel Contrast paint, accidentally moving the cursor over the Flag For Violation key. Coincidentally, a muscle spasm also caused the employee's finger to press down upon the mouse at the same time, resulting in a strike on the content creator's video. 

 

After several hours spent in shock at realising a well-liked and far-reaching content creator's video had been mistakenly demonetised, we of course took steps to rectify the mistake after negative feedback had spread across our social media. As far as I am concerned that is the end of the matter, please keep an eye on Warhammer Community for more hobby news."

 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Lord Marshal

[Marshal Rohr]

Or eventually you will come to the conclusion International Law, Relations, and Commerce is extremely complicated and GW (through no fault of the writers, animators, and designers) has created an IP which we all love but has grown to be an industry larger than a real industry like agriculture or fishing and because of that has to engage in the absolutely insanity that is IP law to protect their ability to keep making the games and toys we all play with. If someone wants to build a career on YouTube they have to abide by laws and play by rules like the rest of have to in normal careers. I can’t just do whatever I want, sell to whoever I want, or hire whoever I want. There’s tons of laws, some of which are dumb, I’d have to follow.

[Doghouse]

And to be fair he'll milk it for all it's worth in terms of getting views so he's not really losing anything here. :D

[phandaal]

 

 

 

Hyperbole doesn't help.

This thread wouldn't exist without it. On either side.

It would, because for the most part it is just people trying to give their opinion on either side of things.

 

It would probably be a shorter thread if people weren't deliberately misinterpreting each other's posts in order to argue over things that nobody actually said, but hey that's the Internet for ya.

[Arkhanist]

Or eventually you will come to the conclusion International Law, Relations, and Commerce is extremely complicated and GW (through no fault of the writers, animators, and designers) has created an IP which we all love but has grown to be an industry larger than a real industry like agriculture or fishing and because of that has to engage in the absolutely insanity that is IP law to protect their ability to keep making the games and toys we all play with. If someone wants to build a career on YouTube they have to abide by laws and play by rules like the rest of have to in normal careers. I can’t just do whatever I want, sell to whoever I want, or hire whoever I want. There’s tons of laws, some of which are dumb, I’d have to follow.

 

Up until very recently, the burden of protecting your copyright fell on the copyright holder, as it should, as they're the ones that benefit. You had to look for infringement, and then decide if it was worth tracking down the person, and the cost of filing a lawsuit. That meant that trivial infringement or fair use was absolutely not worth the effort and expense, which acted as a counterbalance to copyright being massively biased towards corporates. And for what feels like the millionth time, they do NOT need to make copyright strikes or file such suits "to protect their ability to keep making the games and toys we all play" - you are at zero risk of losing your copyright by not going after every single instance, *especially* when it's a legitimate non-infringing fair use like one so well protected it's literally written into copyright law as an example of fair use i.e. reporting and reviews. **

 

Now, with youtube, it's utterly trivial to do a copyright strike with minimal effort and now it's the accused that has to do all the work to prove themselves non-infringing outside of court. It's not criminal law, but even in civil law the burden of proving their case falls on the copyright holder. Except when it's on the internet.

 

Again GW absolutely *does not have to* issue copyright strikes against reviewers for *any reason*. There is no benefit to them when they do not have literally any chance of winning damages, and it will not affect any other future legitimate case.

 

Whether it was an undertrained person that saw and flagged in error, a total mistake because of bot reports being clicked through without paying attention  and if it was reversed once a real lawyer looked at it and realised they didn't have a leg to stand on or GW didn't want the negative press doesn't actually matter, because this sort of thing burns a LOT of goodwill very quickly, and GW need to get their act together or people will *stop reviewing their products* because it's too dangerous in youtube's 'shoot first, maybe let you off later' complete reversion of the burden of proof world.

 

And I can understand Reclusiarch Krieg's POV - there seems to be no point at which GW can ever, ever be in the wrong for some people.

 

edit: I'd also point out that MWM DID comply with the law 100%, and still got dinged anyway.

 

**Trademarks, yes, maybe eventually, but this is all copyright, nothing to do with trademarks.

Edited September 4, 2021 by Arkhanist

[Uprising]

Everyone it is very simple, GW wants everyone to go only warhammer plus to get your 40k content.  They are creating a wall garden.  Soon they will go after painting tutorial, lore, battle reports, conversion guides, forums, etc.  They are taking every thing away, and giving you the honor to pay for the treatment. 

 

I would suggest start downloading any tutorial or videos you like before they are gone. 

[Noserenda]

Yes i think people are missing the malice here, GW abused a flawed system to hurt Midwinter here. They did not have a legitimate case here and they knew it, but youtube systems are set up to me abused and they chose to do it. People can stick their head in the sand and say it was done in good faith, but it wasnt, and as i understand it that strike is still a black mark on Midwinter's record even if they did withdraw it. 

So yeah, there is harm done and its almost certainly done maliciously. There being worse offenders out there does not let GW off.

(And yes, whinging on the internet probably fixed it ultimately...) 

[Marshal Rohr]

And I can understand Reclusiarch Krieg's POV - there seems to be no point at which GW can ever, ever be in the wrong for some people.

 

I am extremely critical of Games Workshop. I just don’t think people monetizing their hobby is sacrosanct and has always been on a shaky trial and error ground. Duncan is doing well, hosting his own site, has membership subs for a regular income and it’s pretty obvious it’s a third party GW painting channel. 2+ Tough reached out directly to GW and got a ‘red light, green light’ brief.

[sairence]

I find it amusing that people seriously think social media pressure would have influenced GW in a legal question. If the complete non-reaction after the change in guidelines showed us anything it's that the legal department isn't going to make changes due to public outrage.

 

I don't know the channel myself, but without any further evidence (which we are not likely to get) I'm leaning towards someone messing up while they're trying you get to grips with tools they haven't really used before. It was realised after a short while, corrected and the YTer contacted.

 

It shouldn't have happened in the first place, but at least GW owned up to it and corrected the error. It's not much, but better than you can expect from other companies.

[Dam13n]

Try to keep this friendly and as free from political commentary as possible going forward. Thank you.

[Matcap86]

Yes i think people are missing the malice here, GW abused a flawed system to hurt Midwinter here. They did not have a legitimate case here and they knew it, but youtube systems are set up to me abused and they chose to do it. People can stick their head in the sand and say it was done in good faith, but it wasnt, and as i understand it that strike is still a black mark on Midwinter's record even if they did withdraw it. 

So yeah, there is harm done and its almost certainly done maliciously. There being worse offenders out there does not let GW off.

(And yes, whinging on the internet probably fixed it ultimately...)

 

This is completely false. It wasn't a strike, it was a claim. Which means midwinter was unable to monetise that specific video. After that was undone, there is no lingering black mark or whatever on his channel. You're also making some big leaps assuming everything was done very calculated to hurt him... there are WAY better ways to do that, if they actually wanted to do that.

[Dark Shepherd]

Everyone it is very simple, GW wants everyone to go only warhammer plus to get your 40k content. They are creating a wall garden. Soon they will go after painting tutorial, lore, battle reports, conversion guides, forums, etc. They are taking every thing away, and giving you the honor to pay for the treatment.

 

I would suggest start downloading any tutorial or videos you like before they are gone.

Cant see them having a leg to stand on or bothering with any of that except maybe lore if people are just reading whole supplements out

 

Re demonetising that video, sucks but youtube pay what these days, $350 per million views? So if he does 50k per vid he cant order a pizza that night but thats it

[Joe]

This is completely false. It wasn't a strike, it was a claim. Which means midwinter was unable to monetise that specific video. After that was undone, there is no lingering black mark or whatever on his channel. You're also making some big leaps assuming everything was done very calculated to hurt him... there are WAY better ways to do that, if they actually wanted to do that.

 

To add to what matcap86 said; as far as I was taught any revenue that would have been made is held in limbo until the claim has been resolved - at which point, it's passed to the appropriate party. In this circumstance, MWM should have received the revenue from the video once the claim was dropped. A claim won't adversely affect the channel either, whereas a strike will - with a strike preventing any future monetisation on all videos you produce, amongst other things.

 

And again, speaking from experience and poking the Youtube waters for what has been an on-going issue for years, a manual claim isn't necessarily manual (despite it stating as much) - it can still be an automated process, i.e. a bot. At this point all we can do is speculate one way or another given none of us have any inside experience within Games Workshop's legal department to be able to confirm whether or not this is something they employ.

[phandaal]

 

Everyone it is very simple, GW wants everyone to go only warhammer plus to get your 40k content. They are creating a wall garden. Soon they will go after painting tutorial, lore, battle reports, conversion guides, forums, etc. They are taking every thing away, and giving you the honor to pay for the treatment.

 

I would suggest start downloading any tutorial or videos you like before they are gone.

Cant see them having a leg to stand on or bothering with any of that except maybe lore if people are just reading whole supplements out

 

Re demonetising that video, sucks but youtube pay what these days, $350 per million views? So if he does 50k per vid he cant order a pizza that night but thats it

Well it's his money, not GW's. $350 or $3.50, doesn't change that.

 

Another problem is people will just make less content if they think they have to put up with a hassle over their videos getting claimed.

 

Even Valrak, who is a self-described Games Workshop fanboy, has said that he'd just stop making videos if he had to deal with that too often.

[Rik Lightstar]

Everyone it is very simple, GW wants everyone to go only warhammer plus to get your 40k content. They are creating a wall garden. Soon they will go after painting tutorial, lore, battle reports, conversion guides, forums, etc. They are taking every thing away, and giving you the honor to pay for the treatment.

 

I would suggest start downloading any tutorial or videos you like before they are gone.

Suuuuuuuuure,

 

That's why they're still sending out preview copies of stuff. So they can sicker people into reviewing it.

 

Rik

[Black Knight]

They send out the previews because the cost of a box ~£30(Cost GW) is a hell of a lot cheaper than going to the same creator and paying thousands for an advert. Even if more than half of them don't even make a video they get almost a free advertising campaign worth hundreds of thousands.

[Rik Lightstar]

They send out the previews because the cost of a box ~£30(Cost GW) is a hell of a lot cheaper than going to the same creator and paying thousands for an advert. Even if more than half of them don't even make a video they get almost a free advertising campaign worth hundreds of thousands.

I'm not disputing that, it's a clear and well established marketing strategy.

 

But what's also clear is that you don't send preview copies out for influencers to review purely so that you can then flag all of their content to YouTube.

 

Rik

[phandaal]

 

They send out the previews because the cost of a box ~£30(Cost GW) is a hell of a lot cheaper than going to the same creator and paying thousands for an advert. Even if more than half of them don't even make a video they get almost a free advertising campaign worth hundreds of thousands.

I'm not disputing that, it's a clear and well established marketing strategy.

 

But what's also clear is that you don't send preview copies out for influencers to review purely so that you can then flag all of their content to YouTube.

 

Rik

That would be bonkers, but is anyone actually saying that would happen or did happen?

 

I've seen a few people say that video content based on GW material might get struck, but none of that seemed like it was referring to people who were sent copies of stuff to review.

 

Midwinter Minis didn't get a copy of anything for his Warhammer+ review, did he?

[Rik Lightstar]

 

 

They send out the previews because the cost of a box ~£30(Cost GW) is a hell of a lot cheaper than going to the same creator and paying thousands for an advert. Even if more than half of them don't even make a video they get almost a free advertising campaign worth hundreds of thousands.

I'm not disputing that, it's a clear and well established marketing strategy.

 

But what's also clear is that you don't send preview copies out for influencers to review purely so that you can then flag all of their content to YouTube.

 

Rik

That would be bonkers, but is anyone actually saying that would happen or did happen?

 

I've seen a few people say that video content based on GW material might get struck, but none of that seemed like it was referring to people who were sent copies of stuff to review.

 

Midwinter Minis didn't get a copy of anything for his Warhammer+ review, did he?

I was referring to:

 

"Soon they will go after painting tutorial, lore, battle reports, conversion guides, forums, etc. They are taking every thing away, and giving you the honor to pay for the treatment."

 

Lots of the people who get preview copies do painting tutorials and guides for miniatures, lore reviews and reviews of their first few games of a new product.

 

Rik

[Dark Shepherd]

 

 

Everyone it is very simple, GW wants everyone to go only warhammer plus to get your 40k content. They are creating a wall garden. Soon they will go after painting tutorial, lore, battle reports, conversion guides, forums, etc. They are taking every thing away, and giving you the honor to pay for the treatment.

 

I would suggest start downloading any tutorial or videos you like before they are gone.

Cant see them having a leg to stand on or bothering with any of that except maybe lore if people are just reading whole supplements out

 

Re demonetising that video, sucks but youtube pay what these days, $350 per million views? So if he does 50k per vid he cant order a pizza that night but thats it

Well it's his money, not GW's. $350 or $3.50, doesn't change that.

 

Another problem is people will just make less content if they think they have to put up with a hassle over their videos getting claimed.

 

Even Valrak, who is a self-described Games Workshop fanboy, has said that he'd just stop making videos if he had to deal with that too often.

Would agree with the principal. Hes hopefully made it back with subsequent views/videos/infamy/notoriety

 

And yeah hopefully this doesnt become a recurring problem

[phandaal]

Yep. Nobody wants to see a return to the time when people couldn't even talk about points values on 40k forums.

 

Best thing is to just keep giving the feedback. GW has a history of pushing the limits but I do believe they actually want to make their customers happy.

[alfred_the_great]

Artel W is “discontinuing and redesigning” some of their models for a reason they won’t disclose…

[Arkhanist]

It wouldn't be the first time Artel W has received a 'cease and desist' from GW for making better aspect warriors and inquisition models than they do alas...

[Redcomet]

Artel W is “discontinuing and redesigning” some of their models for a reason they won’t disclose…

The models are full of iconography. Fists, imperial eagles, night lords icons etc etc. i bet that it is those that GW are objecting too.