Why are so many DB creators becoming subject to Toei's wrath?

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

The ultimate kicker of things is that the current system allows a company to simply shut down the entirety of someone's work at a whim, without any kind of reconciliation or grace period.

Modern media has far surpassed the old standards; no content can ever be wholly original, hence embracing building a platform around existing IPs at large. But modern copyrighting policies haven't caught up. A content creator can't be expected to adhere to such strict guidelines in this day and age, any more so than the average school student or college professor.

And Japan is one of the worst offenders at the moment with how archaic and pro-creator their policies are, which is reflective of a larger Japanese paradigm where the old order can't be questioned lest one be seen as disrespectful and disruptive to societal stability.

I hope TNM's case will act as a wake-up call, a more unified and visible cause through which serious discussion can be enacted by larger and more influential parties to re-examine and change up current copyright/fair use policies to better fit modern media.

I wouldn't expect this to lead to some wide societal change. Copyright law has perpetuated far greater injustices to far more noteworthy and accomplished creators. ONLY NOW are the issues surrounding the creators of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Batman, Superman and so on becoming more widely known, to say nothing about any of them being addressed.

I hope you're right though! These laws do need to be revised... though I would personally prefer them to be revised to benefit the rights of creators, rather than content creators, since I personally value the work of artists more than personalities or even analysts and comedians.

That's an entirely different issue from the one this thread is about.

We're talking copyright and fair use, the ability for a rights holder to exercise near absolute control over the distribution and usage of their IPs in a way that puts a chokehold on the current media landscape and what we should be doing about it.

Remember COPPA scares a few years back? The potential stranglehold that could've stifled creativity big time by way of basically outlawing the ability to make non-child-friendly AND child-friendly content without heavy restrictions? This is the kind of problem we're dealing with now albeit with a different set of boogeymen, and the one I'm focusing on.

[capsulecorp]

The ultimate kicker of things is that the current system allows a company to simply shut down the entirety of someone's work at a whim, without any kind of reconciliation or grace period.

Modern media has far surpassed the old standards; no content can ever be wholly original, hence embracing building a platform around existing IPs at large. But modern copyrighting policies haven't caught up. A content creator can't be expected to adhere to such strict guidelines in this day and age, any more so than the average school student or college professor.

And Japan is one of the worst offenders at the moment with how archaic and pro-creator their policies are, which is reflective of a larger Japanese paradigm where the old order can't be questioned lest one be seen as disrespectful and disruptive to societal stability.

I hope TNM's case will act as a wake-up call, a more unified and visible cause through which serious discussion can be enacted by larger and more influential parties to re-examine and change up current copyright/fair use policies to better fit modern media.

I wouldn't expect this to lead to some wide societal change. Copyright law has perpetuated far greater injustices to far more noteworthy and accomplished creators. ONLY NOW are the issues surrounding the creators of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Batman, Superman and so on becoming more widely known, to say nothing about any of them being addressed.

I hope you're right though! These laws do need to be revised... though I would personally prefer them to be revised to benefit the rights of creators, rather than content creators, since I personally value the work of artists more than personalities or even analysts and comedians.

That's an entirely different issue from the one this thread is about.

We're talking copyright and fair use, the ability for a rights holder to exercise near absolute control over the distribution and usage of their IPs in a way that puts a chokehold on the current media landscape and what we should be doing about it.

Remember COPPA scares a few years back? The potential stranglehold that could've stifled creativity big time by way of basically outlawing the ability to make non-child-friendly AND child-friendly content without heavy restrictions? This is the kind of problem we're dealing with now albeit with a different set of boogeymen, and the one I'm focusing on.

Oh yeah, the specifics of the situations are different, the point of my comparison was just to suggest that this case probably won' t be the one to suddenly make the public and the various governments of the world decide to reshape the current copyright regime.

Personally, I think the best thing people can do is become more educated about the issue and the history of related issues. Starting a petition and riling up anger online is probably not very productive.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

The ultimate kicker of things is that the current system allows a company to simply shut down the entirety of someone's work at a whim, without any kind of reconciliation or grace period.

Modern media has far surpassed the old standards; no content can ever be wholly original, hence embracing building a platform around existing IPs at large. But modern copyrighting policies haven't caught up. A content creator can't be expected to adhere to such strict guidelines in this day and age, any more so than the average school student or college professor.

And Japan is one of the worst offenders at the moment with how archaic and pro-creator their policies are, which is reflective of a larger Japanese paradigm where the old order can't be questioned lest one be seen as disrespectful and disruptive to societal stability.

I hope TNM's case will act as a wake-up call, a more unified and visible cause through which serious discussion can be enacted by larger and more influential parties to re-examine and change up current copyright/fair use policies to better fit modern media.

I wouldn't expect this to lead to some wide societal change. Copyright law has perpetuated far greater injustices to far more noteworthy and accomplished creators. ONLY NOW are the issues surrounding the creators of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Batman, Superman and so on becoming more widely known, to say nothing about any of them being addressed.

I hope you're right though! These laws do need to be revised... though I would personally prefer them to be revised to benefit the rights of creators, rather than content creators, since I personally value the work of artists more than personalities or even analysts and comedians.

This is off the topic of Dragon Ball, but I think it's still relevant to the topic of copyright at hand.
U.S. copyright laws could have changed greatly when Jack Kirby took Marvel Comic's to court. Kirby and his family were losing their case to win back his creations from the company. Marvel argued because Kirby was work for hire, none of his contributions were deserving of royalties, and his original artwork did not have to be returned to him. But, if the case went to the supreme court, the court would have had to review what "work for hire" vs "independent contracting" was. Marvel didn't want to take even the slightest chance of that happening so they settled with the Kirby family out of court.
Some laws and regulations were changed to benefit comic creators, but ultimately the corporations own everything if you wanna stay in business.
Reviewing this case has made wonder how the current state of fair use would be affected had American laws been changed. It probably wouldn't affect Mark's issue because that's Japanese law vs American law and YouTube wants to stay as clean as possible.

[WittyUsername]

I’ll just reiterate what I said earlier; making money from discussing someone else’s work is nothing new. It’s not something that just suddenly popped into existence with the creation of YouTube. It’s been around for a very long time. Saying that people should just make their own art, instead of discussing other people’s art, is an extremely reductive view. Besides, there actually are content creators who make their own works.

[BWri]

I've learned more about DB on this forum for free than I did from any YouTuber.

Folks, remember when people became famous because they were skilled at something.

All due respect to you, but you've entered old person yelling at clouds territory. There are some folks on this forum who have Youtube channels and use that to connect with many more people.

And I wouldn't call the DB Youtubers, famous per se, but they do have influence. And what's more, they got their followers through the knowledge they possess, through their personalities, and by leveraging both in a way that connects with hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. I would say that that does require some skill. At the very least, it's something most of us don't possess.

They are making a living off of suckers.

How so? Their content is free. And if people join a Patreon or Subscribestar or whatever it's because they like a creator and wish to support them.

[JulieYBM]

Old people are weird enough as it is, acting like an old person when you're still young is just weirder. Like, if I'm not as flexible at 62 as I am at 61 and able to learn new things just fucking unalive me.

Anyway, hope this bullshit gets resolved fast.

[MCDaveG]

Art critics and journalism in general - paid profession where you can cover anything. But you are paid for your own work.
Most of these people on youtube cover their tracks with using limited amount of stills from movies and shows as they are not asociated with larger entity mostly, plus free or licensed stock music.
I have nothing against that as I am watching a lot of channels like this, including Star Wars Explained and they operate within the rules and ask for permissions, it's like skating on thin ice when you exclusively cover just one franchise.

Many of them also state exclusively, to support their work of coverage through patreon, exclaiming that it is purely educational work and reviews with patreon having a policy on sending DMCAs and filing complaints in case of infringement.
That way they are out of the Youtube loop.

But hell, god help me if I was against the freedom of speech.

This just strikes me as old-fashioned, out-of-touch, behind-the-times, etc.

Newspapers, magazines, radio, TV... there's a direct throughline of technological advances and the way we both create our critiques and distribute our critiques. What makes "YouTube" (let's just say "online video distribution" to separate it from the corporate entity) any different? The fact that it's often independent, unsupported by a larger company bankrolling the actual critic? But so what?

Again, strikes me as old-fashioned, out-of-touch, behind-the-times, etc. (I say this myself as someone who really doesn't watch YouTube, really doesn't like YouTube, and doesn't see myself really changing my position on this.)

Another crux of your argument seems to be "focusing on a single intellectual property", and I agree that all eggs in one basket certainly makes it all more difficult, but I think that's a separate issue from "wholly independent art critiques should be allowed to exist as a paid industry on new methods of technological distribution".

On that I agree wholeheartedly, that it is old fashioned and doesn't keep up with the times and even critical thinking. As the restriction is the most effective, cheapest and easiest way to control in all accounts and being unfair in most cases.
I was mostly in counter argument to opinions about that art is free etc.

But in general it sucks. Someone mentioned Kirby and his famous case of acquiring the rights on his work from Marvel, where he worked for hire. Imagine that the same practice is in effect still in majority of European countries, you basically work for hire with the company stating and claiming your work from art to data. So in this way, US is definitely more advanced in this matter, as here, unless you are freelance and/or your own entity, tough luck to even start with such a motion.

And further with copyright and licensing crap, it involves even the end customers. Because of that, you might get inferior version of product to the original one from US or Japan, mostly for the same or bigger price. For example, Netflix. European version is barebones of what the US or some other versions are, because of country exclusive licensing. And same with these laws.
Japanese laws on the matter of copyright are brutally strict in comparison to many others. On one hand, I understand that they employ the Japanese way on material that got created in Japan, because yes, they cover and guard for the Japanese creators.
But this doesn't really keep up with the times when everything is globalized, hence I would welcome a change for a revision of the sets of rules to take in account these facts.

These DMCA strikes are easy, within the rights of companies (well lot of them are misfires on youtube), but what I miss here is some kind of dialogue from the side of TOEI at least, the same way that Lucasfilm works for example, which I think TNM would deserve. You are free to reach them and as a matter of fair behaviour, Lucasfilm reaches to people and fans as well in matters of copyright and tries to come with agreements that are good for both parties unless someone really violates the rules hard. But, this is a practice that has to yet arrive to Japan and I believe or hope, it will in time.

[ABED]

I've learned more about DB on this forum for free than I did from any YouTuber.

Folks, remember when people became famous because they were skilled at something.

All due respect to you, but you've entered old person yelling at clouds territory. There are some folks on this forum who have Youtube channels and use that to connect with many more people.

And I wouldn't call the DB Youtubers, famous per se, but they do have influence. And what's more, they got their followers through the knowledge they possess, through their personalities, and by leveraging both in a way that connects with hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. I would say that that does require some skill. At the very least, it's something most of us don't possess.

They are making a living off of suckers.

How so? Their content is free. And if people join a Patreon or Subscribestar or whatever it's because they like a creator and wish to support them.

Stop with that old man yelling at clouds nonsense.

I know how Patreon works. I''m saying none of those people have any knowledge that's worth paying for. In case you're thinking "well, their viewers think they do" I understand it, I just don't agree.

Saying that people should just make their own art, instead of discussing other people’s art, is an extremely reductive view.

Okay, what's the more nuanced take? Because videos from "Totally Not Mark" are not insightful enough that they should be garnering an audience big enough to sustain a living.

[Yuji]

Whether you think making a living on YouTube by being a professional fan is actually cringe or not, that doesn't mean that person should be stripped of their income.

[Soppa Saia People]

Okay, what's the more nuanced take? Because videos from "Totally Not Mark" are not insightful enough that they should be garnering an audience big enough to sustain a living.

i don't really get why you think you should be the judge of this, i think most youtubers suck and i feel like the world is against me when i remember if i was born a decade earlier and made youtube videos as soon as i found the site i could've made 10 dollars per 100 view, but they give people entertainment which actually has value. you can think the videos suck you can think it's cringe, but if someone is entertaining 100k people then yeah they should probably be able to make money off of that, and it's ridiculous to be mad that they are making money off of it. sure it's kinda bullshit, sure becoming a youtuber requires much less talent then being a music producer, a writer, a director, etc etc, but of all the shitty things about our work culture and labor laws, it's ridiculous to me to be mad that some 23 year old is making rent cus of their bad video game reviews.

i don't know, i don't like André3000, and i don't think he's very talented in fact i think he's the opposite, but i'm also not claiming that he shouldn't be making money because i think that. that's just silly.

[Skar]

Okay, what's the more nuanced take? Because videos from "Totally Not Mark" are not insightful enough that they should be garnering an audience big enough to sustain a living.

I haven't seen any of his videos to be honest but I don't have anything against him. Some youtubers try to sound like professional critics but many are just fans giving their opinions and happen to attract enough of an audience to earn some money. I saw one estimate that only 0.5% of Youtubers make any money and even more miniscule percentage can sustain a living from it. It's free for the audience so up to them what types of videos they choose to spend their time on.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

After seeing Geekdom101's video on the TNM matter, I do really hope that Toei Japan has hit their "quota", so to speak, on their ability to block/strike videos after the latest buzz case.

Apparently, there comes a point where if a company does this kinda thing too frequently, the company can be barred from doing so anymore for a period of time.

It's not perfect, but until either these companies or YouTube wise up and start implementing major changes to the content identification and counter-proposal systems, it's the best we got. I'm happy to see that Geekdom101 is trying to help Mark out BTS, trying to get him into his manager's group and whatnot.

[ABED]

It's likely that changes need to be made to copyright laws because I see a number of examples of people getting strikes that don't deserve it.

That said, I'm not upset. I'm simply annoyed, and it's not directed at even the youtubers themselves, it's their audience. So many times I hear about these "content creators" gaining a good sized audience. And their keen insight is "The Last Jedi ruined Luke and my childhood" or "You likely didn't notice that when Marty returns from 1955, Twin Pine Mall has become Lone Pine Mall."

[Gridlock]

It's likely that changes need to be made to copyright laws because I see a number of examples of people getting strikes that don't deserve it.

That said, I'm not upset. I'm simply annoyed, and it's not directed at even the youtubers themselves, it's their audience. So many times I hear about these "content creators" gaining a good sized audience. And their keen insight is "The Last Jedi ruined Luke and my childhood" or "You likely didn't notice that when Marty returns from 1955, Twin Pine Mall has become Lone Pine Mall."

Then stop watching those obvious clickbait videos, that are clearly not worth a damn, and instead try youtubers who actually do more than just rant about everything. Like EckhartsLadder, who makes videos about stuff in Star Wars or Halo, that more casual fans might not know about (because they don't read EU novels/comics/guides), making it more easly accessible.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp6F1m ... j5otWBmIjg

[JulieYBM]

If you can make a buck in this fucked-up work culture you should take it and run. If you can get away with clocking on and hiding in the bathroom all day at work do it.

[ABED]

It's likely that changes need to be made to copyright laws because I see a number of examples of people getting strikes that don't deserve it.

That said, I'm not upset. I'm simply annoyed, and it's not directed at even the youtubers themselves, it's their audience. So many times I hear about these "content creators" gaining a good sized audience. And their keen insight is "The Last Jedi ruined Luke and my childhood" or "You likely didn't notice that when Marty returns from 1955, Twin Pine Mall has become Lone Pine Mall."

Then stop watching those obvious clickbait videos, that are clearly not worth a damn, and instead try youtubers who actually do more than just rant about everything. Like EckhartsLadder, who makes videos about stuff in Star Wars or Halo, that more casual fans might not know about (because they don't read EU novels/comics/guides), making it more easly accessible.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp6F1m ... j5otWBmIjg

I don't watch those videos after watching a few of them. I like Lindsey Ellis and Film Critic Hulk and others like them. They have insight.

Regarding hiding in the bathroom instead of working, that's awful advice. There's dignity in even retail. And there's a lot of valuable experience to be gained. It was a pain and I don't want to return to it, but in retrospect the experience was important and I learned a lot, especially working at a movie theater.

[Mr_CINDER]

It's likely that changes need to be made to copyright laws because I see a number of examples of people getting strikes that don't deserve it.

That said, I'm not upset. I'm simply annoyed, and it's not directed at even the youtubers themselves, it's their audience. So many times I hear about these "content creators" gaining a good sized audience. And their keen insight is "The Last Jedi ruined Luke and my childhood" or "You likely didn't notice that when Marty returns from 1955, Twin Pine Mall has become Lone Pine Mall."

Then stop watching those obvious clickbait videos, that are clearly not worth a damn, and instead try youtubers who actually do more than just rant about everything. Like EckhartsLadder, who makes videos about stuff in Star Wars or Halo, that more casual fans might not know about (because they don't read EU novels/comics/guides), making it more easly accessible.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp6F1m ... j5otWBmIjg

I don't watch those videos after watching a few of them. I like Lindsey Ellis and Film Critic Hulk and others like them. They have insight.

Regarding hiding in the bathroom instead of working, that's awful advice. There's dignity in even retail. And there's a lot of valuable experience to be gained. It was a pain and I don't want to return to it, but in retrospect the experience was important and I learned a lot, especially working at a movie theater.

Meanwhile look at this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21QACAFWmlk, I wonder what TOEI's thought process is.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

Geekdom101's video gave some interesting insight in the matter of the circumstances surrounding Totally Not Mark's videos.

Over 160 videos can't be taken down if anyone at Toei Japan was serious about their infringing content, because as Mark tells us, it happened within a single day, and just a few hours of that day.

There's no way for that to have been a high-up executive mandate, and instead Geekdom speculates it was likely an intern who just saw that the content had some copyrighted material and then just started requesting blocks (not copyright strikes, but video blocks) without actually reviewing each video's content in-depth.

Honestly, a simple fix (that YouTube likely isn't gonna go for anytime soon due to how it'd require not having a bot do the dirty work) would be that if a copyright holder wants to strike or block a video, they need to have a human person actually meticulously watch a given video fully and individually rate its infringement quality. It'd be more fair to the people actually making the content for the platform, and it'd force trigger-happy trolls and corpos to actually pay attention to what they're trying to take down.

[JulieYBM]

It's likely that changes need to be made to copyright laws because I see a number of examples of people getting strikes that don't deserve it.

That said, I'm not upset. I'm simply annoyed, and it's not directed at even the youtubers themselves, it's their audience. So many times I hear about these "content creators" gaining a good sized audience. And their keen insight is "The Last Jedi ruined Luke and my childhood" or "You likely didn't notice that when Marty returns from 1955, Twin Pine Mall has become Lone Pine Mall."

Then stop watching those obvious clickbait videos, that are clearly not worth a damn, and instead try youtubers who actually do more than just rant about everything. Like EckhartsLadder, who makes videos about stuff in Star Wars or Halo, that more casual fans might not know about (because they don't read EU novels/comics/guides), making it more easly accessible.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp6F1m ... j5otWBmIjg

I don't watch those videos after watching a few of them. I like Lindsey Ellis and Film Critic Hulk and others like them. They have insight.

Regarding hiding in the bathroom instead of working, that's awful advice. There's dignity in even retail. And there's a lot of valuable experience to be gained. It was a pain and I don't want to return to it, but in retrospect the experience was important and I learned a lot, especially working at a movie theater.

There's no dignity in being treated like shit by customers, co-workers and management and having to stand on concrete all day. Doubley-so when said customers are misgendering you all day. Or maybe you're out of spoons and out of PTO so you can't just go home for the day.

We don't live in a world where 'first jobs' or 'retail jobs' mean shit because not everyone can get a comfortable job that doesn't make them break down crying and wishing they had the courage to kill themselves every time they finished parking in the parking lot.

[Koitsukai]

All the 160 videos that have been deleted, they no longer exist? not even in YT's archives or something? they are gone forever, or they could come back if everything goes in TNM's favour?