# Youtube copyright claims over video game footage, legit? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 4, 2012, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666 "2012-10-04T04:56:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/1 "2012-10-04T04:56:24Z")
EA has made third party copyright claims against all my Battlefield 3 videos on youtube. I get the “matched third party content” link on my video page. It says: > [@](#): > > Your video is still available worldwide. In some cases ads may appear next to your video. Please note that the video’s status can change, if the policies chosen by the content owners change. Learn more about copyright on YouTube. > This claim does not affect your account status. Now they don’t seem to want me to take it down. If I read between the lines about the ads, I guess the idea is that they can take my ad-free non-monetize videos and now show ads and give the money to EA, right? Is that their scheme in all of this? Is it legitimate for a company to claim copyright on footage of someone playing their video game? I was under the impression that it wasn’t - in fact I saw summaries of SOPA/PIPA list that one of the nasty new things that could come out of the law was that video game makers could make copyright claims over gameplay footage. But that law didn’t pass - did some other law pass that allowed this, or have video game makers always had copyright claims on gameplay videos? Or the other option is that they have no actual legitimate claim but youtube is just processing their copyright notices. In which case should I file a claim that it isn’t copyrighted material? I don’t want my videos to have ads, and if I did, I certainly don’t want that money going to those shitbags. Do they have a legitimate case, and how do I best go about dealing with this? ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/2 "2012-10-04T05:03:21Z")
Beef, I think you and I both already know that if you want to fight EA and/or YouTube, you’re going to need a copyright lawyer. My own, non lawyer suggestion would be to become the world’s most vocal Adblock activist. You can start by adding some sort of annotation to your videos instructing viewers to get Adblock and use it liberally. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/3 "2012-10-04T05:09:13Z")
By “fight it”, I mean that youtube has an option to either acknowledge their copyright claim or to refute their claim. Specifically one option is: “I believe this copyright claim is not valid.” And then I can give a reason, out of: > [@](#): > > I believe this copyright claim is not valid because: > > I own the CD / DVD or bought the song online. > > I’m not selling the video or making any money from it. > > I gave credit in the video. > > The video is my original content and I own all of the rights to it. > > I have a license or written permission from the proper rights holder to use this material. > > My use of the content meets the legal requirements for fair use or fair dealing under applicable copyright laws. > > The content is in the public domain or is not eligible for copyright protection. Am I better off going with original content or fair use? It seems to me like it is my own original content - it happens in their game, but everything about it is unique to my play. It wasn’t just watching rendered cut scenes or anything. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/4 "2012-10-04T06:12:51Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > By “fight it”, I mean that youtube has an option to either acknowledge their copyright claim or to refute their claim. Specifically one option is: > > “I believe this copyright claim is not valid.” > > And then I can give a reason, out of: > > Am I better off going with original content or fair use? It seems to me like it is my own original content - it happens in their game, but everything about it is unique to my play. It wasn’t just watching rendered cut scenes or anything. There’s not much you can do but delete them yourself or leave them under whatever terms they dictate. You created ‘works’ with the software they licensed to you and they retain full control of those works. You just can’t fight city hall or the mighty EULA. > [@](#): > > ELECTRONIC ARTS > SOFTWARE END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT > BATTLEFIELD 3 > This End User License Agreement (“License”) is an agreement between you and > Electronic Arts Inc., its subsidiaries and affiliates (“EA”). … > > By installing or using the Software, you agree to the terms of this License and > agree to be bound by it. … > > D. Further Restrictions. Your right to use the Software is limited to the > license grant above, and you may not otherwise copy, display, seek to > disable, distribute, perform, publish, modify, create works from, or use the > Software or any component of it, except as expressly authorized by EA. … > > F. Your Contributions. In exchange for use of the Software, and to the > extent that your contributions through use of the Software give rise to any > copyright interest, you hereby grant EA an exclusive, perpetual, > irrevocable, fully transferable and sub-licensable worldwide right and > license to use your contributions in any way and for any purpose in > connection with the Software and related goods and services including the > rights to reproduce, copy, adapt, modify, perform, display, publish, > broadcast, transmit, or otherwise communicate to the public by any means > whether now known or unknown and distribute your contributions without > any further notice or compensation to you of any kind for the whole > duration of protection granted to intellectual property rights by applicable > laws and international conventions. … > > By entering into this Agreement, you and EA expressly waive the right to a > trial by jury or to participate in a class action. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/5 "2012-10-04T06:51:41Z")
But is that actually enforceable? If a furniture company made me sign a similar eula, they wouldn’t be able to claim ownership of my home movies of my son sitting on the couch, even if the eula said they could. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/6 "2012-10-04T07:28:00Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > But is that actually enforceable? If a furniture company made me sign a similar eula, they wouldn’t be able to claim ownership of my home movies of my son sitting on the couch, even if the eula said they could. Well technically you are buying a couch and not licensing its use. But I agree that portions of some EULAs are so ridiculous they very possibly could be unenforceable in front of a judge (or especially a jury - which I noticed the EA license explicitly prevents, or hopes to prevent). [Here are a few funny ones](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-ridiculous-eula-clauses-agreed/) including one from Apple for Safari for Windows that required the user to only install it on an Apple branded products. It stayed in their EULA over 6 months before Apple even noticed the error. It’s almost as if nobody even reads these things before clicking “I agree”. IANAL but in this case it seems less outlandish of a restriction and IMHO probably enforceable. It is also complicated by falling under any and all agreement’s with Youtube too, which probably give them the right to do whatever it is they are doing even without a copyright claim, for any reason, or no reason at all, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/7 "2012-10-04T09:10:01Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > Well technically you are buying a couch and not licensing its use. But I agree that portions of some EULAs are so ridiculous they very possibly could be unenforceable in front of a judge (or especially a jury - which I noticed the EA license explicitly prevents, or hopes to prevent). [Here are a few funny ones](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-ridiculous-eula-clauses-agreed/) including one from Apple for Safari for Windows that required the user to only install it on an Apple branded products. It stayed in their EULA over 6 months before Apple even noticed the error. It’s almost as if nobody even reads these things before clicking “I agree”. > > IANAL but in this case it seems less outlandish of a restriction and IMHO probably enforceable. It is also complicated by falling under any and all agreement’s with Youtube too, which probably give them the right to do whatever it is they are doing even without a copyright claim, for any reason, or no reason at all, etc. My favorite EULA note was for one of the more recent versions of iTunes (or the current version, I’m not sure if they changed it), forbiddng the end user from using iTunes to produce weapons of mass destruction. I hadn’t realized that music copyright concerns were _quite_ that heated.:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/8 "2012-10-04T10:00:36Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > My favorite EULA note was for one of the more recent versions of iTunes (or the current version, I’m not sure if they changed it), forbiddng the end user from using iTunes to produce weapons of mass destruction. > > I hadn’t realized that music copyright concerns were _quite_ that heated.:eek: That one was listed in there too. I like the one that hid an offer of $1,000 to whoever read and replied in a line buried in the EULA to prove a point that nobody reads EULA’s. It took 4 months before someone spotted it and claimed the prize. ---
**Author:** ![Freakenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b782af/32.png) [@Freakenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freakenstein)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/9 "2012-10-04T11:43:58Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > it happens in their game, but everything about it is unique to my play. Sounds like a paper maker or a pencil company claiming a copyright of My sketches. I can’t see it valid ( but they can try all they want ). ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/10 "2012-10-04T11:54:37Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > It seems to me like it is my own original content - it happens in their game, but everything about it is unique to my play. Everything about it is unique… apart from the characters and their designs, environments and their designs, scene elements and their designs, backgrounds and their designs, background sound, sound effects, weapons and accessories and their designs, weapon and accessory visual and audio effects and other animation. But running over there now instead of five seconds from now, yeah, all you. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/11 "2012-10-04T11:56:02Z")
> [@Freakenstein](#): > > Sounds like a paper maker or a pencil company claiming a copyright of My sketches. I can’t see it valid ( but they can try all they want ). A better analogy would be you making a recording of you reading a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. They did all the work, you simply choose which branches of their story you are following. That said, while I think the copyright is in their favor, I do think it’s better for their business if they let the fans make these videos and show them off as free PR. I actually got into Mass Effect in a big way partly because of videos people uploaded to YouTube. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/12 "2012-10-04T14:15:15Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Am I better off going with original content or fair use? It seems to me like it is my own original content - it happens in their game, but everything about it is unique to my play. It wasn’t just watching rendered cut scenes or anything. It’s not original content at all. You could claim fair use if yo are doing a review of the game, but otherwise you don’t have much of an argument. > [@](#): > > I don’t want my videos to have ads, and if I did, I certainly don’t want that money going to those shitbags. Do they have a legitimate case, and how do I best go about dealing with this? Absolutely legitimate case. The ads option is a compromise under which they let you post their copyrighted content. You don’t really have any other options. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/13 "2012-10-04T14:25:35Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Everything about it is unique… > > apart from the characters and their designs, environments and their designs, scene elements and their designs, backgrounds and their designs, background sound, sound effects, weapons and accessories and their designs, weapon and accessory visual and audio effects and other animation. > > But running over there now instead of five seconds from now, yeah, all you. This is too simplistic and would vary depending on the game. Some games are basically a glorified series of cut scenes, in which case just recording that would be more akin to showing the content a movie. Some games are more like sandboxes - they give you some tools to play with, but what you do with them will vary wildly from person to person and the creative effort is far more on the shoulders of the user than the game. If someone spent a month building an elaborate recreation of a major city in minecraft, would the owners of minecraft really be the creative driving force behind it? These are closer to the latter - it’s all various whacky stuff going down in multiplayer, not scripted sequences at all. What if what’s most interesting about the video is the voice communications between the people I’m playing with rather than the game content? Does that sort of thing matter? As an extreme example, what if I recorded myself from a camera behind me reciting my own manifesto while absent-mindedly running around in a video game? Would they get a claim on the content of the video, manifesto and all, because it features their game? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/14 "2012-10-04T14:49:54Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Everything about it is unique… > > apart from the characters and their designs, environments and their designs, scene elements and their designs, backgrounds and their designs, background sound, sound effects, weapons and accessories and their designs, weapon and accessory visual and audio effects and other animation. > > But running over there now instead of five seconds from now, yeah, all you. > [@Raguleader](#): > > A better analogy would be you making a recording of you reading a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. They did all the work, you simply choose which branches of their story you are following. > > That said, while I think the copyright is in their favor, I do think it’s better for their business if they let the fans make these videos and show them off as free PR. I actually got into Mass Effect in a big way partly because of videos people uploaded to YouTube. Garfield and Raguleader have it right. It’s not much different than you making a video of yourself watching _Star Wars_. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/15 "2012-10-04T15:51:23Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > in fact I saw summaries of SOPA/PIPA list that one of the nasty new things that could come out of the law was that video game makers could make copyright claims over gameplay footage. But that law didn’t pass - did some other law pass that allowed this, or have video game makers always had copyright claims on gameplay videos? IIRC, it was that the wording of the bill made it possible for a company _that is not the copyright holder of the material in question_ to file an infringement complaint. For example, let’s say I posted a video of my World of Warcraft gameplay. WoW is owned by Blizzard, a company with rather liberal policies that allow its customers to do this. But let’s say NCSoft (ptui!) doesn’t like WoW getting this free publicity. Despite their not being the copyright holder, they could have sent a letter to YouTube saying, “Psst - Mister Rik’s video contains copyrighted material!”, and YouTube would have been obligated to investigate and take action. At least that’s a possible scenario as I saw it presented on a gaming site. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/16 "2012-10-04T20:14:56Z")
Have there been any court cases in the US that decided this issue? ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/17 "2012-10-04T20:51:00Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Have there been any court cases in the US that decided this issue? YouTube’s ContentID system hasn’t been legally-tested yet. YouTube assumes it’s all legit because it’s actually more restrictive than the DMCA takedown system. If you have a claim on your EA game by EA, I’d say that is valid and you’ll either have to just cope with EA’s ad on your video, or move your video to another site. But there are a lot of copyright trolls who abuse the ContentID system to claim copyright for videos they don’t own ([one story related to a Let’s Play I uploaded](http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/p/26575/301235.aspx). Note that in this case, THQ specifically said they do not issue take-downs for Let’s Play style videos. AFAIK, EA has never made a statement on that.) A lot of copyright claims have been “accidentally” incorrect. A common cause of this is a show like G4 reviewing a game, then registering the entire video footage of their show under ContentID. YouTube’s system sees part of a game’s cutscene in both videos, and assumes you took the content from G4 when in fact you both took it from the same source material. I’ve been dinged with this several times. One of the issues I’m having now is that even if the copyright claims are obviously incorrect, they still ding your account, and if you exceed 3 simultaneous unsettled claims, you get busted down to the 15-minute limit. And copyright holders can sit on their claims for a solid month without replying at all. This totally screwed my daily upload schedule, and I ended up having to post some videos to my blog instead of YouTube as a result. Edit: Another issue, BTW, is that the ContentID system is vague, confusing, and everything is worded in a scary fashion-- despite the fact that YouTube KNOWS a high percentage of ContentID matches are invalid. If they decide to stick with this system, I hope they at least make it easier to use. At the bare minimum, it would be nice to know \*what \*exact bit of footage or sound was detected, or give at the very least a timecode in the video. Maybe for 10 minute videos, it was find, but good luck finding the violation in your 2-hour-long multi-game let’s play video. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/18 "2012-10-04T21:18:19Z")
Sorry for two posts in a row, but: 1. There was a typo in that last post; Take2 owns The Darkness II, not THQ. THQ actually did file a claim on one of my Saints Row the Third videos, so their policy might be totally different. 2. It is said that if your video has commentary, even if it’s just let’s play commentary, that you should dispute the claim and say that it is a game review. I haven’t done this yet, because it feels a little dishonest, but there you go. If there’s no commentary, and it’s literally just a video of you playing, then I would say EA has a point and you should just live with their ads on the video. ---
**Author:** ![BunnyTVS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BunnyTVS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BunnyTVS)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/19 "2012-10-04T22:43:10Z")
Is it a DMCA notice, or one of youtubes content ID ones? If it’s a content ID notice then it’s likely an automated response triggered by their algorithms. These are the same auto responses that blocked NASA and Obama’s official videos because some news companies had the fotage in their broadcasts. I would definitely try the fair-use exception. There’s not really any downside if it gets rejected. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666/20 "2012-10-04T22:50:29Z")
Since this involves legal advice, it’s best suited to IMHO. Colibri General Questions Moderator [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-copyright-claims-over-video-game-footage-legit/636666.md?page=2)