Throughout the history of YouTube as an online platform, copyright claims and DMCA takedowns have been one of the most controversial and hot button issues for many of the site’s biggest creators. Channels like well-knownNintendo music channel GilvaSunnerand even official game and company channels like PlayStation have fallen victim to YouTube’s automated copyright system with the system being criticized by the YouTube community as faulty and often predatory towards smaller creators. Now, following recent copyright claims on several videos, popular game reviewer Angry Joe has come forward with major criticisms of one of YouTube’s copyright offenders.
Fair use laws have long been a concern for many of YouTube’s video game and general pop culture content-focused creators with copyright claims causing YouTubers to not only lose ad revenue, but sometimes even see their channels blocked or terminated entirely. Recent developments withJapanese publisher Shogakukan-Shueisha Productionshave raised flags for similar issues to soon arrive to YouTube’s massive community of anime-based creators. Now, following recent copyright claims from television company CBS, Angry Joe has threatened to take legal action against the media conglomerate.
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In an incensed rant uploaded to Joe’s YouTube channel Wednesday, the popular reviewer railed against CBS after the company had issued multiple claims against his initial review and subsequent edits of thefourth episode of theHaloParamount Plus series. During the video, Angry Joe expressed his frustrations with CBS after editing the review multiple times to conform to CBS’s guidelines and warned the company that he would take it to court if the re-upload sees a copyright claim. Joe went on to accuse CBS of abusing YouTube’s fair use policy and stated that he wasn’t intending to let CBS “push around” himself or other channels anymore.
YouTube’s automated copyright strikes have frequently been at odds with the YouTube gaming community as many of the biggest companies have been involved with scandals related to the system in the past. Nintendo has frequently made use of the system to take down videos of both its games and music from them, andBungie was recently the subject of a series of fraudulent claimswith an unknown party issuing copyright claims against uploads of music fromDestiny, even seeing its own channel hit.
While many have criticized the heavy-handed nature of copyright claims on YouTube from major companies, its main competitor Twitch has also seen plenty of takedowns related to its copyright system introduced last year. Copyrighted music had long been a hot topic on the platform with companies like Riot Games and Twitch itself starting initiatives for copyright-free music for streamers andseveralMaddenstreamers saw erroneous bansfor livestreaming the game during the Super Bowl. Angry Joe’s threats of legal action against CBS will just mark the most recent chapter in a long and rocky history of copyrighted content on YouTube.
