Guise of the Wolf Dev Takes Down Negative YouTube Review - Update 2

[Steven Bogos]

Guise of the Wolf Dev Takes Down Negative YouTube Review - Update 2

VP at Maker Studios David Sievers confirms that the copyright strike against TotalBiscuit for his Guise of The Wolf review was from its dev.

Update 2: It looks like this story has a happy ending for the Cynical Brit. TotalBiscuit has reported that his Guise of the Wolf video is now back up on YouTube, and both copyright strikes against his channel have been removed.

Source: Twitter [https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/438803014821117953]

Update: Fun Creator sent TotalBiscuit a "final message", warning him to delete all of his Twitter posts and delete his YouTube channel or else it would get the lawyers involved. They also said not to bother retweeting the email, because they would just claim it was a fake. He retweeted it anyway:

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/434775923490295809]

Original Story: Heard of Fun Creator's Guise of The Wolf? I'm not suprised, as it has been review of the game [http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/guise-of-the-wolf] with a "copyright claim". This lead to a strike on TB's YouTube account, which is a very serious offense that can lead to a loss of his monetization privileges.

Of course, Fun Creator was very quick to deny the strike, which is when TB pulled out the big guns, revealing an e-mail [https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/434471932147556352] from the developer that openly claimed it issued the strike, and demanded to know who "pushed him into" making the video, under threat of legal action.

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/434471932147556352]

Fun Creator then denied TB's "proof", claiming that the e-mail was photoshopped.

VP at Maker Studios David Sievers came out to corroborate TB's story, confirming that the copyright strike was indeed issued by Fun Creator [https://twitter.com/dnsievers/statuses/434476163012890625].

TB and Fun Creator have been going back and forth on Twitter since then, despite it being pretty obvious to everyone involved exactly what went down here (Fun Creator issued the strike in order to try and shut TB down).

We've reached out to YouTube for confirmation on the story, as well as whether or not they plan on reversing the strike, considering that TB's critical video is protected under "Fair Use".

Source: Twitter [https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/434471932147556352]

Permalink

 

[Barbas]

I've heard that thanks to YouTube's lazy copyright strike system, one more strike against TB means his channel goes down[footnote]I could be wrong here, but if it keeps going down and having to be reinstated over things like this, I can imagine him and others giving up on YouTube because of the hassle of the system, which is a concern.[/footnote]. I've no idea whether it would be reinstated because of his popularity. Companies just seem to be doing this whenever they can get away with it now. According to Jim's latest video, seen here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMidHqWGQAM], Square Enix has been throwing strikes out willy-nilly for things like the Final Fantasy games. The video mentions they have taken down a lot of AngryJoe's videos, although I don't know how long ago that happened, since I don't follow his channel.

It's load of shit, really, innit?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is such a weird story. What are these developers trying to accomplish? Commit the ultimate career suicide?

 

[Story]

Ah so it was the Dev huh?

Well, that's a shame because I didn't think the game was *that* bad. At least it was fine for a first project type of thing. Or maybe this is just my love of all things werewolf that's clouding my thoughts. *shrug* Anyway this is only going to hurt you Fun Creator not TB.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

So much wrong here. Youtube is wrong for allowing what is essentially censorship of a critique through a broken copyright system. FUN (as if) are totally wrong for trying to pass off a pre-alpha Big Rigs level piece of shit as a legit $15 Steam game, and double wrong for doing the censorship. Bonus points for deciding to fuck with the one person on Youtube with enough pull to actually fight this, as well as the snark and "come at me bro" attitude in the e-mail.

Might as well send some shame towards Valve's direction for completely opening Greenlight and saying to hell with curation, letting ass garbage like Guise of the Wolf (it deserves no italics) through without any testing. Pressing the fucking ENTER button breaks the resolution and makes it unplayable!

I love watching videos on Youtube, and seeing the rise of personalities and people actually making a living the way they do. But with shit like this being so easy to do...I don't know where you find enough money to compete with Google on the video front but something's gotta give, and soon.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Youtube copyright policies? Videogame developers being assholes? independent little guy getting unfairly targeted?

I can already hear the engine of the internet hate machine warming up.

 

[CriticalMiss]

Maybe they want their company to die but can't bring themselves to just shut it down? They need it to be suicide-by-angry-internet-mob. Are they really unaware of how badly it went for the Day One people or do they think they can actually get away with breaking the law and censoring criticism?

 

[teebeeohh]

This is gonna be amazing, after the Gary's incident incident they will get their ass kicked

 

[Janaschi]

Holy shit. Usually when sleazy companies lie, they are smart about it and play semantics. Just the E-Mail response alone was so unethical and blatantly shameless that it was surreal reading it. They know they can get away with making people go broke in court when they want things to go their way, but they are going to soon find out that this is not going to be a usual case where they are fighting the small guy that cannot do anything in retaliation.

 

[Vaccine]

Oh boy because this went over so well for the last developer trying to do damage control in the most dickheaded way possible. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgoDDh4kE0]

 

[themilo504]

First day one Garry incident and now this game, is youtube simply blind or do they just not care?

Either way this is just sad and if there?s any justice in the world this will bite youtube in the ass.

 

[Furioso]

You missed the part where FUNCreators accused TB of photoshopping the email from FUNCreators, and then TB's... PR Assistant? (Not sure what his actual job title is) posted a video of himself opening and looking at the email to prove that it was real, and then FUNCreators retweeted that video... in essence re-tweeting proof against themselves.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I'm just waiting for TB's video on the whole situation. This shit needs to be highlighted so that people don't keep getting away with it. It's absolutely childish to try to shut down someones career path because they highlighted your shoddy work.

 

[AntiChri5]

I used to think that those who called for false Youtube copyright claims to have a penalty were going a bit too far, but this is ridiculous. Letting them throw these claims about at no expense and with no risk is absurd. Too many groups have abused that privilege.

And goddamnit, the failure of this goddawful game means im not going to get any good werewolf games, doesn't it?

 

[BrotherRool]

I've heard that thanks to YouTube's lazy copyright strike system, one more strike against TB means his channel goes down[footnote]I could be wrong here, but if it keeps going down and having to be reinstated over things like this, I can imagine him and others giving up on YouTube because of the hassle of the system, which is a concern.[/footnote]. I've no idea whether it would be reinstated because of his popularity. Companies just seem to be doing this whenever they can get away with it now. According to Jim's latest video, seen here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMidHqWGQAM], Square Enix has been throwing strikes out willy-nilly for things like the Final Fantasy games. The video mentions they have taken down a lot of AngryJoe's videos, although I don't know how long ago that happened, since I don't follow his channel.

It's load of shit, really, innit?

TB shouldn't get a permanent strike from this. The way the Youtube system works is that it gives you a notice, you contest it, they contest you, Youtube gives you a strike, you contest it again and then Youtube removes the strike and tells the developers to sue you or shut up.

The problem with the system is that it takes forever and if you have 3 strikes before you've escalated it to the point where it gets removed, then your channel gets taken down. It means content produces can only really contest two videos at a time, which prevents them from a lot of income.

This is such a weird story. What are these developers trying to accomplish? Commit the ultimate career suicide?

Oh boy because this went over so well for the last developer trying to do damage control in the most dickheaded way possible. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgoDDh4kE0]

Thought experiment. You've made an incredibly cruddy game, one that no-one in their right mind would ever want to play. Do you think they sold more copies of the game before the news of their takedown claims got posted on every major gaming site on the internet, or after (before it got taken off steam).

Heck Guise of the Wolf is still on Steam.

 

[Skeleon]

This kind of censorship... well... I'd love to say it "never works" but that wouldn't be true. It doesn't work whenever the public gets wind of it, when journalists, bloggers, gamers etc. report on it and spread the message, thus completely undermining the purpose of the censoring... by bringing even more attention to the mess of a product they released.
But I'm afraid I have to say I think this kind of behaviour probably does work on a lot of people who don't have an audience as big as TotalBiscuit. FUN were pretty idiotic for trying it on a high-profile YouTube reviewer like that, but he'll be alright. I'm more worried about smaller groups, review pages, journalists, bloggers, YouTube channels etc. who can't generate this kind of public outrage when they get silenced and/or shut down.
TotalBiscuit is just the visible tip of the iceberg, I guess. It serves us well to remember that YouTube is a business after all, not directly beholden to journalistic principles and freedoms, certainly not as much as we'd like them to be and usually only once pressure via such a public outcry is put on them.

 

[MCerberus]

So you're telling me someone put another strike on a YouTube channel that's had about... 50 of them at this point for BS reasons that will inevitably be removed sparking another copyright controversy on the service.

 

[Vaccine]

Thought experiment. You've made an incredibly cruddy game, one that no-one in their right mind would ever want to play. Do you think they sold more copies of the game before the news of their takedown claims got posted on every major gaming site on the internet, or after (before it got taken off steam).

Heck Guise of the Wolf is still on Steam.

Oh boy, something I can actually answer: http://www.reddit.com/r/Cynicalbrit/comments/1p4bz4/garrys_incident_incident_had_no_positive_impact/

 

[Nihlus2]

I've heard that thanks to YouTube's lazy copyright strike system, one more strike against TB means his channel goes down[footnote]I could be wrong here, but if it keeps going down and having to be reinstated over things like this, I can imagine him and others giving up on YouTube because of the hassle of the system, which is a concern.[/footnote]. I've no idea whether it would be reinstated because of his popularity. Companies just seem to be doing this whenever they can get away with it now. According to Jim's latest video, seen here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMidHqWGQAM], Square Enix has been throwing strikes out willy-nilly for things like the Final Fantasy games. The video mentions they have taken down a lot of AngryJoe's videos, although I don't know how long ago that happened, since I don't follow his channel.

It's load of shit, really, innit?

TB shouldn't get a permanent strike from this. The way the Youtube system works is that it gives you a notice, you contest it, they contest you, Youtube gives you a strike, you contest it again and then Youtube removes the strike and tells the developers to sue you or shut up.

The problem with the system is that it takes forever and if you have 3 strikes before you've escalated it to the point where it gets removed, then your channel gets taken down. It means content produces can only really contest two videos at a time, which prevents them from a lot of income.

Here is the thing though about the strikes after the latest Youtube overhaul: You lose privileges depending on the number of strikes you currently have on your channel:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797387

Several of the features here are removed depending on how many strikes you have, starting at 1 strike, and 3 resulting in permanent deletion of the account in question.

So yeah? just 1 strike puts his entire work at risk and hinders it to a certain degree, because he is losing out on features and they will continue to be disabled until he can prove he is innocent to Youtube/Google.

So it goes beyond the video itself in questions. A single strike on your account has damage to affects a lot of your future work if you are a content creator in the slightest.

It should be noted though, that this treatment is limited to Copyright Strikes/Claims, not Content ID matching, which will be isolated to the video in of itself being the target. Not the entirety of the channel. But since he got hit with a Copyright Claim? then yeah, I can understand the urgency to get this fixed, or he will be running with less features to upload stuff with, than a 1 day old Youtube channel.