Dragon Ball and Fair Use

[DBZ Macky]

From my understanding, Dragon Ball is definitely one of the biggest Anime in the west, if not the biggest. However, the copyright laws in Japan are quite different from those in the U.S. or other countries. This leads to a fair share of problems regarding "fair use" and copyright. As such, just the general legalities concerning the sharing of copyrighted products don't necessarily apply to Dragon Ball, and it's easy to make mistakes.



I've recently made my own Dragon Ball focused channel on YouTube, and have faced my own share of issues regarding copyright strikes and what-not. It's not just my channel either, even big channels like TeamFourStar have faced copyright strikes multiple times and even had their channel taken down (more than once, IIRC).

So I decided to make this thread to take input from other users of this community who've had past experience with YouTube, etc. like GafferTape,
Ajay and others who might have to deal with these issues sometime (if they haven't, I hope they don't, but can at least tell from their general knowledge of the matter) as well as share my own experiences. I hope everyone can contribute and benefit from this

First of all, using music from the Anime (whether it be Kikuchi, Sumitomo or anyone) pretty much guarantees a copyright notice or sometimes even a strike. But using music from the games (Budokai, Xenoverse, etc.) is completely fine. What's up with that?
Also, I know that using clips from the Anime can be troublesome, but what about screenshots and Manga panels?

[DrakenballP]

From my understanding, Dragon Ball is definitely one of the biggest Anime in the west, if not the biggest. However, the copyright laws in Japan are quite different from those in the U.S. or other countries. This leads to a fair share of problems regarding "fair use" and copyright. As such, just the general legalities concerning the sharing of copyrighted products don't necessarily apply to Dragon Ball, and it's easy to make mistakes.



I've recently made my own Dragon Ball focused channel on YouTube, and have faced my own share of issues regarding copyright strikes and what-not. It's not just my channel either, even big channels like TeamFourStar have faced copyright strikes multiple times and even had their channel taken down (more than once, IIRC).

So I decided to make this thread to take input from other users of this community who've had past experience with YouTube, etc. like GafferTape,
Ajay and others who might have to deal with these issues sometime (if they haven't, I hope they don't, but can at least tell from their general knowledge of the matter) as well as share my own experiences. I hope everyone can contribute and benefit from this

First of all, using music from the Anime (whether it be Kikuchi, Sumitomo or anyone) pretty much guarantees a copyright notice or sometimes even a strike. But using music from the games (Budokai, Xenoverse, etc.) is completely fine. What's up with that?
Also, I know that using clips from the Anime can be troublesome, but what about screenshots and Manga panels?

Team Fourstar has full permission to use audio, and video from both the Japanese, and Western version of Dragon Ball. In-fact, jokes and other bits from Team Fourstar have made it into the Japanese and American versions of the Anime.

This is something that applies to more than just if you're using Dragon Ball Content -- I believe you are not permitted to use entire episodes and certainly have to do cutting, you also can only use very small tidbits of audio from Episodes. Additionally, your videos have to be distinguishable to that of a Dragon Ball Episode.

Screenshots and Manga Panels aren't going to get you in any form of trouble whatsoever.

If Youtubes automatic detection finds that you have any audio from the Anime, or that you have too many tags in your Description relative to the Anime itself, it will automatically send a copyright strike.

Team Fourstar and many of these channels deal with bots instead of actual companies issuing the strikes and it doesn't take much more than disputing your video to get the strike removed and have your video become monetized again.

Edit: To test this out myself, I grabbed a Creative Commons episode 94 Preview for Dragon Ball Super and uploaded it to my channel with the title "Dragon Ball Super Episode 94 Preview", and the INSTANT it was 100% uploaded, I received a copyright strike.

[Scorpio Kardia]

"Fair use is a legal doctrine that says you can reuse copyright-protected material under certain circumstances without getting permission from the copyright owner" That's what YouTube has to say about it.

So essentially different countries, or different corporations can have different views on what those "certain circumstances" are, which means there are a lot of grey areas here, and naturally things will get fuzzy when you use work originally created by someone else.

I might feel that TeamFourStar is well within their right to parody and even monetize their Dragon Ball content since they make a decent parody (I liked it better before) of the original product, and sure they might not get revenue from the Abridged Episodes directly, but they surely get a lot of revenue from the Abridged Series as a whole, and other projects derived from it. But if TOEI Animation decides to suddenly claim their channel isn't it their right to do so? I mean they own the original footage that TeamFourStar is using, and in their case it's not like they are even using a short clip they use full episodes. Putting a disclaimer at the start of the video might not be enough, in TOEI's view, to justify the use of their footage. Although to be honest I feel whenever they do get a copyright claim it might be an automatic system, and not even necessarily an actual person making that claim, which is frustrating I'm sure.

Same thing goes for power level videos (which is your case right?). It's within TOEIs or a music group right to claim a video of someone using their footage or song on a video which essentially boils down to putting numbers in front of a character. They might not think that's fair use, and if they don't it's not YouTube who's going to stop them.

I think you'll find that using video game music usually causes less issues because over the years YouTube has come to embrace "Gaming" has a huge market, and as such there is more protection towards "gaming related content". Otherwise you wouldn't see full let's plays of games being uploaded on a regular basis, although I think getting music copyright claims in gaming videos is still pretty common.

Like I said it seems pretty fuzzy, but I think that in your case if you used some images, offer a bigger discussion around your videos, and use royalty free music (meaning music that you can use for free) then you should be fine, and I'd be surprised if you got a copyright strike. If your issue is with music there are some pretty epic royalty free songs on YouTube.

[DrakenballP]

"Fair use is a legal doctrine that says you can reuse copyright-protected material under certain circumstances without getting permission from the copyright owner" That's what YouTube has to say about it.

So essentially different countries, or different corporations can have different views on what those "certain circumstances" are, which means there are a lot of grey areas here, and naturally things will get fuzzy when you use work originally created by someone else.

I might feel that TeamFourStar is well within their right to parody and even monetize their Dragon Ball content since they make a decent parody (I liked it better before) of the original product, and sure they might not get revenue from the Abridged Episodes directly, but they surely get a lot of revenue from the Abridged Series as a whole, and other projects derived from it. But if TOEI Animation decides to suddenly claim their channel isn't it their right to do so? I mean they own the original footage that TeamFourStar is using, and in their case it's not like they are even using a short clip they use full episodes. Putting a disclaimer at the start of the video might not be enough, in TOEI's view, to justify the use of their footage. Although to be honest I feel whenever they do get a copyright claim it might be an automatic system, and not even necessarily an actual person making that claim, which is frustrating I'm sure.

Same thing goes for power level videos (which is your case right?). It's within TOEIs or a music group right to claim a video of someone using their footage or song on a video which essentially boils down to putting numbers in front of a character. They might not think that's fair use, and if they don't it's not YouTube who's going to stop them.

I think you'll find that using video game music usually causes less issues because over the years YouTube has come to embrace "Gaming" has a huge market, and as such there is more protection towards "gaming related content". Otherwise you wouldn't see full let's plays of games being uploaded on a regular basis, although I think getting music copyright claims in gaming videos is still pretty common.

Like I said it seems pretty fuzzy, but I think that in your case if you used some images, offer a bigger discussion around your videos, and use royalty free music (meaning music that you can use for free) then you should be fine, and I'd be surprised if you got a copyright strike. If your issue is with music there are some pretty epic royalty free songs on YouTube.

As long as the work is altered to be distinguishable from the real-deal, it's fair use and free to do. The bots on Youtube are destroying this. If you upload a clip that has nothing over top of it and nothing said about something, it's not fair use. e;g; I just tested how fast the bot would interact and delete my video due to nothing being added to it, and it was the second I uploaded the video.

This is why people are free to upload full movies and videos if they're reviews e;g; I Hate Everything uploaded 7 Movies in one video but because he did voiceovers, animations, etc, on top of it, it's fair use. This goes for Nostalgia Critic and Cinema Sins as well. Cinema Sins uses upwards to 40 minutes of clips from movies, some of those movies only being an hour long in themselves.

Music is a huge iffy one though. The music in Dragon Ball is supposed to be free to use and fair use, it's not royalty marketed, same goes for a lot of Western song artists, who give permission for people to use their music, but due to it only being verbal or written permission without them opening the videos on Youtube under Creative Commons licensing, it causes issues.

If the work you've put in is proportionate or exceeds what the copyrighted material entails, it is free use, which is the case with Team Fourstar. It's heavily altered, and is a complete voiceover, sometimes animations are altered to their liking as well.

Also depends on the nature of your work -- Are you doing a review? Are you doing a parody? Are you simply re-posting? A strike is so that you don't gain profit off of their material without their consent, and it's common even if creating a review, to get a strike. You just dispute it and it's likely to be removed.

[VegettoEX]

There is SO. MUCH. misunderstanding about SO. MUCH. STUFF. in this thread. I'm not a lawyer, and I can't give legal advice... but... oh my god. You guys. Seriously. Wow. I can't. Someone please send help. And beer.

To test this out myself, I grabbed a Creative Commons episode 94 Preview for Dragon Ball Super

I hate to be so blunt, but what does this even mean...? [Unless I'm missing something huge] There is absolutely no official release of a preview for the Dragon Ball Super television series that Toei has distributed under a Creative Commons license. And even then, there are varying degrees or classifications (and combinations thereof) you can use under Creative Commons (attribution / share-alike / no-derivatives / etc.). Just because something is "Creative Commons" doesn't inherently mean it's free to just repost somewhere EVEN WITH no edits and EVEN WITH complete attribution. Creative Commons is just ONE TYPE OF BANNER under which content owners can express and declare their ownership, intent, and wishes.

So let's start with: where did you get it from, and why do you think it has been distributed under this type of license?

OK, moving on to the concept of fair use itself.

There has been one recent case (that I'm aware of?) with a conclusion to the contrary, but in general and leading up to that point, the following statement has been accurate: fair use is not a right; it is a defense.

This doesn't mean you have any kind of right to use anything you want for whatever reason you want. It also doesn't mean that you have the right to use things for reasons you believe actually live up to the spirit of the fair use defense. It means that, IF AND WHEN CHALLENGED IN COURT, "fair use" can be your defense. You can argue that the case should be dropped because it lines up with a certain set of SUGGESTED GUIDELINES (read: NOT cold, hard "facts" and and laws) where all parties could agree that maybe it was retroactively OK to use that stuff in that way that one time.

These SUGGESTED GUIDELINES include things like the amount of the work in question that has been used, the nature of the transformative work (education, parody), etc.

Quite frankly, I have a hard time imagining TeamFourStar's Abridged episodes would ever be held up as truly parodic in nature. It's a transformative work, and it's based in humor... but the extent of the work being used is already a massive pitfall to overcome, nevermind everything else going against it. And that's just THE FOOTAGE; think about all the incidental music, sound effects, and even lines of dialog pulled from various places verbatim that themselves don't contribute to it being a "parody".

Team Fourstar has full permission to use audio, and video from both the Japanese, and Western version of Dragon Ball.

There is NO WAY that TeamFourStar has the express permission of Toei to use what they use and do what they do. Recent shenanigans should validate this beyond the shadow of a doubt. TeamFourStar folks being buddy-buddy with certain FUNimation staff members and some of them becoming legitimate voice actors and getting cast in other shows in no way has any relevance to the legal legitimacy of what they produce on the side.

There also seems to be a total misunderstanding of YouTube's Content ID system and how that relates to actual copyright strikes/accusations. Large rights-holders are invited to join YouTube's Content ID program, which gives them the opportunity to upload their own works which allow "fingerprints" to be detected when SOMEONE ELSE uploads that company's/organization's/rights-holder's work without prior approval/permission. If the content owner is a part of this program, they can do all sorts of things, up through and including issuing DMCA notices, monetizing that work, blocking that work, etc. This stuff can be appealed by the allegedly-infringing party, but it should be known that nothing is actually LEGALLY BINDING at this point... up until you actually appeal the claim, in which case you are saying you are willing to go to court over it.

At this point, cycle back above to "fair use is not a right; it is a defense".

(Just because something GETS THROUGH THE SYSTEM and is allowed to remain doesn't somehow infer inherent legality, either. Like these mentions of complete movies with new narration and commentary. That could be that the rights-holder isn't enrolled with YouTube's Content ID system, they haven't gotten around to claiming it yet, they realize the benefits of allowing illegal content to remain due to the Streisand Effect when you go after your own fans, and so on and so forth.)

Man, there's so much more to get into... and I'd sorta be happy to answer and elaborate I guess...? But holy cow.

[Scorpio Kardia]

Also depends on the nature of your work -- Are you doing a review? Are you doing a parody? Are you simply re-posting? A strike is so that you don't gain profit off of their material without their consent, and it's common even if creating a review, to get a strike. You just dispute it and it's likely to be removed.

That's not necessarily true. When you receive a copyright claim on YouTube and you dispute it, it's the person or corporation who submitted the copyright claim in the first place that reviews it, and decides if it will mantain it or release it (that's the only time when they have to manually verify a copyright claim). So essentially YouTube gives the power of ruling to the "accuser" for a lack of a better term. So just because you dispute it, it does not mean it will get removed. YouTube itself says that it doesn't moderate copyright claims. If you're a YouTube partner however, like TeamFourStar is, then I'm sure they can contact someone directly affiliated with Partner Support to verify their issue and potentially find a solution, since YouTube offers direct contact with their team if your channel is big enough. But even still I would not claim that it's likely to be removed, I think it might actually be the opposite for smaller channels who don't have the same resources available to them in comparison to a channel like TeamFourStar.

Plus if the claim is reinstated, you only have one more chance to appeal it, after that you might get an account strike. Which means not a lot of people are willing to do it.

[DBZ Macky]

I think you'll find that using video game music usually causes less issues because over the years YouTube has come to embrace "Gaming" has a huge market, and as such there is more protection towards "gaming related content". Otherwise you wouldn't see full let's plays of games being uploaded on a regular basis, although I think getting music copyright claims in gaming videos is still pretty common.

Like I said it seems pretty fuzzy, but I think that in your case if you used some images, offer a bigger discussion around your videos, and use royalty free music (meaning music that you can use for free) then you should be fine, and I'd be surprised if you got a copyright strike. If your issue is with music there are some pretty epic royalty free songs on YouTube.

Yeah, that seems to be the case. I've seen a lot of other power level YouTubers get in trouble because of using clips from the Anime, even if they are heavily edited. Using screenshots hasn't gotten me any warnings/strikes (yet), and seems to be a faster and easier process anyways. I'm not so sure about screenshots of the Manga though. Uploading the entire pages is obviously copyright infringement, but I think using single panels is alright, since I've done that before.

I did get strikes when I used OST from DBS. I thought it wouldn't get any because I pretty much downloaded it from another YouTube video.
"This guy didn't get a strike, so why would I?"
I was wrong and got my previous channel terminated

From my experience, music from the games is alright, but I don't know how it works for tracks that are obviously based on those from the series itself. If using the original would get you a strike, then what about those? I'm pretty sure I will be able to use the other tracks from the game, but not so sure about that one.

There is SO. MUCH. misunderstanding about SO. MUCH. STUFF. in this thread. I'm not a lawyer, and I can't give legal advice... but... oh my god. You guys. Seriously. Wow. I can't. Someone please send help. And beer.

Man, there's so much more to get into... and I'd sorta be happy to answer and elaborate I guess...? But holy cow.

Haha, as I said, there's bound to be misunderstanding. So I'm glad someone like you who knows his stuff stepped in
Could you answer my question regarding the music?

[Super Saiyan Swagger]

VegettoEX pretty much hit the nail on the head. Although TeamFourStar's DBZ Abridged series is indeed a parody, there is no way you could use Fair Use to defend it in court. It uses footage, music and sound effects from the original anime that they do not own at all.

A good example of what could be defended by Fair Use in court and is also a parody is the 'How It Should Have Ended' series on YouTube. They use characters from films but they create their own animations, music and sound effects. Everything you see and hear in those videos are all made by the creators (except the characters of course).

This is why the whole #WTFU movement really went nowhere. A lot of the people complaining about this used footage and sound that they did not own in their videos. You really shouldn't be surprised of being demonitised on YouTube if you were using footage or sound that you did not own, even if it was used briefly.

As for my own YouTube channel, I'm currently using my second one. My previous channel got taken down due to several copyright strikes by Toei on my Dragon Ball videos. I got copyright claimed a crap ton of times but it really isn't a problem if you don't monetise your videos. I believe Toei has a rule where you can upload Dragon Ball footage on YouTube as long as it doesn't go past 5 minutes in length? I had several videos that went past 5 minutes so it makes sense that my channel got taken down. Most of my videos were AMVs and parodies of the series. Now with my current YouTube channel I only make AMVs and none of my videos go past 5 minutes. I haven't had any problems with copyright strikes so far.

[Scorpio Kardia]

Yeah, that seems to be the case. I've seen a lot of other power level YouTubers get in trouble because of using clips from the Anime, even if they are heavily edited. Using screenshots hasn't gotten me any warnings/strikes (yet), and seems to be a faster and easier process anyways. I'm not so sure about screenshots of the Manga though. Uploading the entire pages is obviously copyright infringement, but I think using single panels is alright, since I've done that before.

It's also due to the fact that companies who hold rights over certain content copyright certain segments of footage, and if you use that footage it will automatically be picked up by YouTube's copyright system. That's why when you get a copyright strike for visual content you will see that it says from "03:00 to 04:00" for example. So naturally using screenshots would make it "safer", you might still get picked up by the system but I would find it much less likely, and honestly you'd probably have a better case presenting a counter claim in that situation.

From my experience, music from the games is alright, but I don't know how it works for tracks that are obviously based on those from the series itself. If using the original would get you a strike, then what about those? I'm pretty sure I will be able to use the other tracks from the game, but not so sure about that one.

It works in the same way, if someone makes a remix of a dragon ball theme song, and that song has been entered in YouTube's system, then even a remix can be matched and receive a copyright strike if a certain segment of that song is picked up by YouTube's copyright system. Obviously there are flaws to this system, there are cases of copyright matches being made when the audio doesn't match at all. But in the case of a remix of a Dragon Ball song I'd say you won't get much luck. Also just because it seems like someone hasn't received a copyright strike, it doesn't mean they won't in the future, their video might have not been picked up yet, or that particular song hasn't been entered in the system yet.

If I were you I would simply avoid using that type of music period. There are so many websites that offer royalty free music that you can use. Even YouTube has it's own Audio Library, and they have some pretty epic and powerful music there. Plus there's websites like Epidemic Sound where you can pay 15.00 USD per month or less and have access to a huge library of SFX and music catered for YouTube videos like yours. It might be worth checking those out, instead of getting yourself in trouble down the road.

[DBZAOTA482]

Dragon Ball is Toei's biggest IP besides One Piece and is arguably the most popular/successful anime on a worldwide scale. Of course they won't let a bunch of nobodies mess with their property.

That's more than enough reason for them to be stingy.

[DrakenballP]

And even then, there are varying degrees or classifications (and combinations thereof) you can use under Creative Commons (attribution / share-alike / no-derivatives / etc.). Just because something is "Creative Commons" doesn't inherently mean it's free to just repost somewhere EVEN WITH no edits and EVEN WITH complete attribution. Creative Commons is just ONE TYPE OF BANNER under which content owners can express and declare their ownership, intent, and wishes.

I'm far too lazy to respond to anything else, but Youtube has rightin the Creative Commons Licensing this:

"A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. A CC license is used when an author wants to give people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that they have created."

Meaning even if copyrighted work, you have free use of it to do as you please. So I can take any video with CC, and use it as I want, edit it, etc.

People do this commonly with Flash videos, DBZ videos, Epic Rap Battle, Top 5s, etc.

They can't copyright strike you if it's CC.

[TheGreatness25]

VegettoEX is absolutely right about his analysis of Fair Use.

Fair Use is an affirmative defense -- which means that if you're being taken to court for copyright infringement, it is your obligation to bring up Fair Use to show the court why you should not have to shell over money for the infringement. The party holding the copyright does not have to prove that you're in violation of Fair Use. So Toei -- as definitely holding a copyright on all of the video footage and most of the music used for Abridged -- has full rights to yank the stuff off of YouTube. Actually, they can even take Team Four Star to court (which they have not done) and in that process, Team Four Star would have to show that their content was done in Fair Use so that they wouldn't have to pay. So let's not confuse what Fair Use actually is. It's not a loophole to let you put up whatever content you want, but it's rather your pretty slim shot at not paying the copyright holder if they decide to drag you to court.

I'm not a licensed attorney from your area and this is not legal advice, but rather information and opinion, but of course, Fair Use isn't as easy as "Well, I'm not making money off of it!" There are different factors to it:
1. Purpose and character of the use: Is it a commercial? Is it educational? Is it non-profit? Not really... so they'd probably fail under that factor. Was there "transformativeness" where it was altered to give a new meaning or message? Sure, there were alterations, but the story is generally the same, so they'd probably fail under that factor. Was it a parody? Well, it's a "parody" in their own words, but the real definition of a parody includes using the work to comment on it and make it transformative -- which was not the case. Was it satired? No. So this factor would probably not be met for Team Four Star.

2. What was the nature of the work?: Was it unpublished? Was it not tangible (sold DVDs, etc. but rather just code on someone's computer)? Outdated media (like a VHS version only)? No. So that would also probably fail to meet Fair Use.

3. Amount: They used a lot of content. This factor would very likely fail.

4. Effect on the potential market value: Did this impact the copyright holder's sales? I'd say definitely not, but I'm sure that they'd find a way to claim that it did.

By the way, the actual law has these subsections attached with an "and," which means that in order for Team Four Star to walk away untouched had Toei actually filed a lawsuit, they would have to prove that they fall within all of the factors of Fair Use, which is probably not likely.

But here's the deal: I like their work, I think that it's opening up DB to a wider audience, but it's naive to believe that Toei should have no say in what happens to their copyrighted material as someone else uses it to make money. If Toei gave them the right to use it to get their work out there, that's fine (as you mentioned with Creative Commons), but if not... You know...

Saying that it's a "non-profit parody" does not excuse anything. Saying that Toei holds copyright over it also does not excuse anything. If I took Dark Knight Rises and said "Oh, Warner Brothers and DC holds the copyright and I'm just parodying it!" and dub over the movie, I'd still be in violation of copyright laws.

[VegettoEX]

I'm far too lazy to respond to anything else, but Youtube has rightin the Creative Commons Licensing this:

You're not closely reading what I'm explaining, and you didn't properly read what YouTube explains.

Creative Commons has CERTAIN TYPES of licenses that provide CERTAIN TYPES of permissions. There's no blanket "Creative Commons" license; there are specific TYPES of licenses under the Creative Commons banner.

I can define something I make under Creative Commons as "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International" meaning you CAN'T share it. Creative Commons does not inherently mean "share and remix", but some of their definitions are often used to help define a work that way.

[LuckyCat]

By the way, the actual law has these subsections attached with an "and," which means that in order for Team Four Star to walk away untouched had Toei actually filed a lawsuit, they would have to prove that they fall within all of the factors of Fair Use, which is probably not likely.

No, what the law is saying here is that the court looks to all four of those factors and looks on balance to determine whether something is considered fair use. For example, a professor may print out a substantial portion of a rare unobtainable book for his students to read which would be a factor in violation of fair use, but the fact that the use is non-profit educational and the book is not available for purchase may swing the professor's publication in favor of it being fair use.

Also, just wanted to point out YouTube is engaging in decisions and appeals that are based on their own terms of service. YouTube is not making any legal decisions deciding copyright infringement, but rather business decisions based on its own policies. These policies protect YouTube against legal action.

[TheGreatness25]

By the way, the actual law has these subsections attached with an "and," which means that in order for Team Four Star to walk away untouched had Toei actually filed a lawsuit, they would have to prove that they fall within all of the factors of Fair Use, which is probably not likely.

No, what the law is saying here is that the court looks to all four of those factors and looks on balance to determine whether something is considered fair use. For example, a professor may print out a substantial portion of a rare unobtainable book for his students to read which would be a factor in violation of fair use, but the fact that the use is non-profit educational and the book is not available for purchase may swing the professor's publication in favor of it being fair use.

Also, just wanted to point out YouTube is engaging in decisions and appeals that are based on their own terms of service. YouTube is not making any legal decisions deciding copyright infringement, but rather business decisions based on its own policies. These policies protect YouTube against legal action.

True, but if a professor would be doing that, it's very likely that such an instance would pass each factor of Fair Use.

And of course YouTube is using its own standards -- which is why it's even more preposterous to try to justify a series like Abridged being on there. People don't have the right to put whatever they want up on YouTube. YouTube can use its discretion and take down anything it wants to, so everyone who's trying to challenge it is just being a little silly. I feel that sometimes people's judgment gets clouded when they're a fan of something. "How dare they take down something that I enjoy?" Well... because legally they can. And as LuckyCat mentioned, forget "legally." It's almost without question that DBA is a copyright infringement, but even if it wasn't, YouTube can take down anything at all. YouTube isn't a government agency that has to allow free speech. So I understand people getting upset that something that they're a fan of got taken down, but let's not let that cloud reality.

[FortuneSSJ]

Team Fourstar has full permission to use audio, and video from both the Japanese, and Western version of Dragon Ball.

Never.
The fact that their DBZA episodes keep being taken down it's the proof they don't have anything. Otherwise they didn't have to put a disclaimer in the beginning of every episode.

[VegettoEX]

TeamFourStar's disclaimer before each DBZA episode has no legal basis, meaning, or implication (even with the inclusion of the word "parody" in there). It's simply a courtesy that they include because they are fans of the property and want to acknowledge who actually owns it.

Furthermore, there seems to be some additional misunderstanding about YouTube, content management/removal, and legal responsibility:

Part of the reason the Content ID system arose in the first place was YouTube invoked safe harbor: that is to say, they claimed to simply be a platform, and did no editorial management with regard to what was uploaded. Due to a variety of lawsuits (and threats of further lawsuits) against them from rights holders (and particularly in light of YouTube's acquisition by Google), they developed the Content ID system to place the onus on said rights holders to then help them identify if and when their protected works were being violated. ONLY WHEN RIGHTS HOLDERS MAKE A CLAIM does YouTube take action; this is part of the safe harbor rule, which (in very general terms) allows a platform to be the open platform it claims to be, but they have to take action when they are explicitly notified about illegal activity.

This "action" by rights holders can be manual claims, and this action can also be flags by the Content ID system (valid or otherwise). To keep their safe harbor arrangement, YouTube MUST take action. For what it's worth in relation to all this, account strikes have no legal basis, and are YouTube's way of placating rights holders. Legal process only comes into play if you actively appeal a copyright claim and sign on that digital dotted line that you're willing to go to court to defend it.

Yes, this can be particularly shitty when false positives are made (or overreaching action is taken), and this is a small part of why certain folks want massive copyright reform in America.

[successoroffate]

There is only one thing that really catches my eye as to this whole Fair Use/TFS Debate. They say at the beginning of each video that they're not making profit, right? But how can they get around with having a Patreon page to help them "create content"?
$11,000 a month for "editing" somebody else's content sounds like profit to me.

[MozillaVulpix]

There is only one thing that really catches my eye as to this whole Fair Use/TFS Debate. They say at the beginning of each video that they're not making profit, right? But how can they get around with having a Patreon page to help them "create content"?
$11,000 a month for "editing" somebody else's content sounds like profit to me.

The Patreon money isn't officially able to go into the making of DBZA. I'm pretty sure it's mostly used to pay the voice actors (who, up until that point, were still satisfied with doing it for free, so it's more of a thanks than a requirement for the series to keep going), to pay editors and staff working on the TFSGaming content, and to help pay for the studio they now have. Plus, they removed the 'non-for-profit' part from their disclaimer a while ago, because they could no longer say from all the other revenue streams, they weren't making any profit.

[successoroffate]

There is only one thing that really catches my eye as to this whole Fair Use/TFS Debate. They say at the beginning of each video that they're not making profit, right? But how can they get around with having a Patreon page to help them "create content"?
$11,000 a month for "editing" somebody else's content sounds like profit to me.

The Patreon money isn't officially able to go into the making of DBZA. I'm pretty sure it's mostly used to pay the voice actors (who, up until that point, were still satisfied with doing it for free, so it's more of a thanks than a requirement for the series to keep going), to pay editors and staff working on the TFSGaming content, and to help pay for the studio they now have. Plus, they removed the 'non-for-profit' part from their disclaimer a while ago, because they could no longer say from all the other revenue streams, they weren't making any profit.

I see your point but I'm sorry, it sounds like they are indeed profiting from DB directly, so them getting shut down is just TOEI using its remedies. It's like they're shielding themselves with loopholes to keep on going. They wouldn't be where they are if it wasn't for DB. Calling $11,000 a month as "Thanks" sounds like a stretch.