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

[Shintoki]

On top of that these "influencers" provide at least thousands of dollars in free advertising to whatever they are featuring on their channels. Toei should probably be paying them.

Do you also think celebrities should get to drop by Coca Cola and say "I drink a bunch of coke and since I'm famous that's free advertisment, so give me ten thousand dollars."

Not at all. I said that to say, Toei is getting free attention whenever these creators make Dragon Ball or One Piece related content. With the amount of influence these creators have, Toei is easily getting a great one-sided deal. For games like Dokkan and Legends, you can be sure that Youtube influencers help keep those games alive.

Bandai Namco, producers of DB games realized this years ago which is why they reached out to these very influencers.

Companies DO pay influencers to talk up their products, by the way.

Right and so Toei should probably do the same ... or just reap the benefits of a mutually beneficial economy based on the rules and regulations of a neutral video hosting platform. They can just sit back and let the passionate fans make their money as they drum up enthusiasm for Toei's products. Basically fans are subsidizing the other fans who advertise Toei's crap to them for free. Just leave it be.

i'd like to add to what the above fella said in that i've been getting some vibes that content creators = influencers which is a whacky overgeneralization. influencers are highly problematic yes, but them and content creators only overlap.

Content creators are influencers, especially when you get to the level of someone like TNM with over 650K followers. Though I do see there's quibbling over the term influencer. Content creators with hundreds of thousands of subscribers and viewers typically have sponsorship deals due to their level of influence. Someone like MaximillianDood can even spark large movements to implement charges in the FGC community or even help resurrect a nearly dead fan favorite game.

just to clarify, i'm not saying mark is not an influencer. what i'm saying was in reference to some people in here mixing up content creators with influencers

for the most part, i agree with what you say. it just baffles me how some people think someone creating DB pixel animation make them an influencer because they have lots of subs? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDx1iZzcYFA&t=583s

a content creator after all is such an over broad term that encompasses animation youtubers, modders, critique channels, science/education and etc with influencers who are E-figures/people with a considerable number of following.

you may say i'm being a pedant about it, but i feel it would better to clear out the difference between the two terms. like i said, it wasn't in reference to mark but for the couple of people in here who kept using them interchangebly

you would think some of the members in here are nintendo bots/ninjas with how the discussion is moving to ''you shouldn't uploads videos of you playing video games, let alone profit from it'', geez.

"Anyone who isn't 100% in lock step with the fans on this deserves to be hyperbolically mocked" isn't going to endear people to your side.

People are trying to understand the perspective of the IP holders to understand why this is happening. That doesn't deserve the ridicule you're dishing out.

I understand it's hard to cope with on the other hand. You as a sole person feel that the rights empower big companies and institutions in their favor and feel threatened and bounded by rules or limited. I definitely understand where this goes from, more so with TNM, because this evil corporation stepped on one of our own and destroyed his work.

But these companies are comprised out of people that make their living the same way as everyone else, earning their money by work.
These aforementioned rules exist for a reason.

Akira Toriyama was a guy, who pursued his dream to an extent, he wanted to draw for living. Long story short, he was basically employed by Shueisha with all the corporate practices that are there, but, would his work be as succesful without that company?
And I don't wanna go into a rant how this partnership was mutually benefitial and not only Toriyama made his living, complete with the draconic social income laws that Japan has, as the more money you earn, the more you pay on tax to basically thwart these social scissors of people being obscenely wealthy compared to other countries.
But now he is backed by companies that licensed his work and he gets paid for it and so they also guard his property as well obviously.
And I don't see a reason, why it should be a public property just because these people "are loaded" and have enough in eyes of some fans.

Look at filmmakers, artists and other creators, they always say in interviews how somebody has influenced them to do what they do succesfuly with a road riddled with obstacles, by hard work and ton of luck.
Masashi Kishimoto went and did Naruto, Eichiro Oda did One Piece, Toyotaro was drawing a fan manga based on Dragon Ball, for no money and had to keep a low profile and it had to be the IP owner to get to him and say, come working with us!

I have and never had anything against fans to contribute to their favorite franchises, but they are not obliged or privileged to make money out of properties that are not their own, unless the property owners decides to step in and either asks for contributing directly and get paid for it.

Not only is riding on someone else's success financially an illegal thing to do, but morally, it is a shit thing to do.
And it is also understandable, when you own the property with all it's risks and gains, to step in and say that for example, we do appreciate your support, but we don't like that you are sitting half naked in bath tub or saying things we don't agree with, while using our property in the same video because it doesn't sit well with us. Or, we do not agree of your Son Goku portrayal as a sexy nurse or a fascist dictator and we have very right to do so.
Usually, most of these things fly under the radar, but still, these rules are there for a reason and again, TMM had some cool videos and while I agree it's harsh to kill his years of work, I definitely not agree about him profiting out of those videos, because he never had that right to begin with and that is something I don't understand that some people do not understand.

you make it seem as if people think selling T shirts with trademarked/copyrighted icons is right in here...

''But these companies are comprised out of people that make their living the same way as everyone else, earning their money by work.'' EA/blizzard CEO have just wetted their beds reading this. geez, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8-L8LUDPMI just no

your disagreement is an opinion and that's fine. but you shouldn't make it seem as if it's not a right to profit off a transformative work. by that logic, we should adopt japan's copyright system and arrest movie reviewing channels...it's not hard to understand why people would find such a thought not understandable

[WittyUsername]

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.

That’s your opinion. Clearly, there are people who disagree with you. The bottom line is that if someone managed to gain an audience from making video essays, it’s a little messed up for them to have that source of income stripped from them. You don’t have to be a fan of someone’s content to agree that it’s unfair for them to just lose everything on a whim.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

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?

Presumably the latter, but the issue isn't being able to get them back, but just how much time it could take.

A single video getting overturned could take up to a month if Mark isn't lucky, and with so many videos it'd take many MANY years to do this, up to 37 years if the current rate is consistent.

[ABED]

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.

That’s your opinion. Clearly, there are people who disagree with you. The bottom line is that if someone managed to gain an audience from making video essays, it’s a little messed up for them to have that source of income stripped from them. You don’t have to be a fan of someone’s content to agree that it’s unfair for them to just lose everything on a whim.

It all depends, if that source of income is derived from something that violates someone else's intellectual, then that income wasn't rightfully earned. But there needs to be an objective process to deal with these issues.

[Shintoki]

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.

and here it is, i had a good guess that this may be the case. tho it's amazing some intern that toei hired for this broke the entire copyright system for youtube and caused havoc on the entire platform.

btw, a lot of people don't wanna bother looking up more than the title. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P4Zn9MKumI covered by philliph defranco

i'll reiterate for people who missed my earlier message, this is the first time a channel has been mass copyright claimed by a company. each video take (iirc) 3 months to counter claim, keep multiplying that by the amount of videos you have and you will see what's the problem in here is

Youtube has no mass counter claim option. it's effectively not built up for this since it never happened before, there are huge implications if this is allowed to happen. it would mean companies (and their third party services that protect their copyrighted materials) can now kill channels they don't deem it transformative enough for them or they don't like them in general.

[goku the krump dancer]

Ultimately as far as what’s considered quality content or not is up to the person (obviously), everything ain’t for everybody but YouTube is a large enough platform where coupled with the millions of people who consume media from it everyday, even the most bottom tier “content” can garner a large enough audience to warrant at the very least a small supplementary residual income with the right work ethic. I mean we do have entire channels who’s sole content base is some schluck fake “reacting” to trailers and he/she has a couple double digit to even triple digit thousand subscribers eating it up. Speaking of eating even worse off there’s channels where it’s literally nothing but some girl and her ditzy friend babbling about nothing while they eat tacos and fake laugh yet they too have a fan base who love it. It just is what it is but Totally Not Mark is far from the worst of it and I do think it was over kill for the Toei Bot to slash well over a third of the man’s content Jesus Christ especially after reaching out to him for a collab. YouTube is pretty much TV at this point.

Binging with Babish is great YouTube btw.

[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.

and here it is, i had a good guess that this may be the case. tho it's amazing some intern that toei hired for this broke the entire copyright system for youtube and caused havoc on the entire platform.

btw, a lot of people don't wanna bother looking up more than the title. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P4Zn9MKumI covered by philliph defranco

i'll reiterate for people who missed my earlier message, this is the first time a channel has been mass copyright claimed by a company. each video take (iirc) 3 months to counter claim, keep multiplying that by the amount of videos you have and you will see what's the problem in here is

Youtube has no mass counter claim option. it's effectively not built up for this since it never happened before, there are huge implications if this is allowed to happen. it would mean companies (and their third party services that protect their copyrighted materials) can now kill channels they don't deem it transformative enough for them or they don't like them in general.

And this is partially why Mark's case is so important.

It sets a major precedent, being a huge public case of a well-known YouTuber of a given IP's community suddenly being shut down almost entirely by the IP holder. We've not seen this kind of copyright takedown before of a large channel.

It's either this or some other big channel going the way of the dodo via this method that'll send waves through the YouTube community; Mark's case has already caught the attention of the big names like Pewdiepie and whatnot.

[capsulecorp]

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.

Please don't do this. This is extremely disrespectful to your co-workers and yourself.

[MCDaveG]

Do you also think celebrities should get to drop by Coca Cola and say "I drink a bunch of coke and since I'm famous that's free advertisment, so give me ten thousand dollars."

Not at all. I said that to say, Toei is getting free attention whenever these creators make Dragon Ball or One Piece related content. With the amount of influence these creators have, Toei is easily getting a great one-sided deal. For games like Dokkan and Legends, you can be sure that Youtube influencers help keep those games alive.

Bandai Namco, producers of DB games realized this years ago which is why they reached out to these very influencers.

Companies DO pay influencers to talk up their products, by the way.

Right and so Toei should probably do the same ... or just reap the benefits of a mutually beneficial economy based on the rules and regulations of a neutral video hosting platform. They can just sit back and let the passionate fans make their money as they drum up enthusiasm for Toei's products. Basically fans are subsidizing the other fans who advertise Toei's crap to them for free. Just leave it be.

i'd like to add to what the above fella said in that i've been getting some vibes that content creators = influencers which is a whacky overgeneralization. influencers are highly problematic yes, but them and content creators only overlap.

Content creators are influencers, especially when you get to the level of someone like TNM with over 650K followers. Though I do see there's quibbling over the term influencer. Content creators with hundreds of thousands of subscribers and viewers typically have sponsorship deals due to their level of influence. Someone like MaximillianDood can even spark large movements to implement charges in the FGC community or even help resurrect a nearly dead fan favorite game.

just to clarify, i'm not saying mark is not an influencer. what i'm saying was in reference to some people in here mixing up content creators with influencers

for the most part, i agree with what you say. it just baffles me how some people think someone creating DB pixel animation make them an influencer because they have lots of subs? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDx1iZzcYFA&t=583s

a content creator after all is such an over broad term that encompasses animation youtubers, modders, critique channels, science/education and etc with influencers who are E-figures/people with a considerable number of following.

you may say i'm being a pedant about it, but i feel it would better to clear out the difference between the two terms. like i said, it wasn't in reference to mark but for the couple of people in here who kept using them interchangebly

"Anyone who isn't 100% in lock step with the fans on this deserves to be hyperbolically mocked" isn't going to endear people to your side.

People are trying to understand the perspective of the IP holders to understand why this is happening. That doesn't deserve the ridicule you're dishing out.

I understand it's hard to cope with on the other hand. You as a sole person feel that the rights empower big companies and institutions in their favor and feel threatened and bounded by rules or limited. I definitely understand where this goes from, more so with TNM, because this evil corporation stepped on one of our own and destroyed his work.

But these companies are comprised out of people that make their living the same way as everyone else, earning their money by work.
These aforementioned rules exist for a reason.

Akira Toriyama was a guy, who pursued his dream to an extent, he wanted to draw for living. Long story short, he was basically employed by Shueisha with all the corporate practices that are there, but, would his work be as succesful without that company?
And I don't wanna go into a rant how this partnership was mutually benefitial and not only Toriyama made his living, complete with the draconic social income laws that Japan has, as the more money you earn, the more you pay on tax to basically thwart these social scissors of people being obscenely wealthy compared to other countries.
But now he is backed by companies that licensed his work and he gets paid for it and so they also guard his property as well obviously.
And I don't see a reason, why it should be a public property just because these people "are loaded" and have enough in eyes of some fans.

Look at filmmakers, artists and other creators, they always say in interviews how somebody has influenced them to do what they do succesfuly with a road riddled with obstacles, by hard work and ton of luck.
Masashi Kishimoto went and did Naruto, Eichiro Oda did One Piece, Toyotaro was drawing a fan manga based on Dragon Ball, for no money and had to keep a low profile and it had to be the IP owner to get to him and say, come working with us!

I have and never had anything against fans to contribute to their favorite franchises, but they are not obliged or privileged to make money out of properties that are not their own, unless the property owners decides to step in and either asks for contributing directly and get paid for it.

Not only is riding on someone else's success financially an illegal thing to do, but morally, it is a shit thing to do.
And it is also understandable, when you own the property with all it's risks and gains, to step in and say that for example, we do appreciate your support, but we don't like that you are sitting half naked in bath tub or saying things we don't agree with, while using our property in the same video because it doesn't sit well with us. Or, we do not agree of your Son Goku portrayal as a sexy nurse or a fascist dictator and we have very right to do so.
Usually, most of these things fly under the radar, but still, these rules are there for a reason and again, TMM had some cool videos and while I agree it's harsh to kill his years of work, I definitely not agree about him profiting out of those videos, because he never had that right to begin with and that is something I don't understand that some people do not understand.

you make it seem as if people think selling T shirts with trademarked/copyrighted icons is right in here...

''But these companies are comprised out of people that make their living the same way as everyone else, earning their money by work.'' EA/blizzard CEO have just wetted their beds reading this. geez, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8-L8LUDPMI just no

your disagreement is an opinion and that's fine. but you shouldn't make it seem as if it's not a right to profit off a transformative work. by that logic, we should adopt japan's copyright system and arrest movie reviewing channels...it's not hard to understand why people would find such a thought not understandable

Not at all actually, if you follow my thread in here.
I have no problem with reviews and journalism.
I have only problem with making bucks with unlicensed fanarts, stories and other work based heavily on copyrighted characters.

Actually I don’t care if someone sells fan manga in limited amount to a close group of people to cover for the print and material, but profiting from it is not really right.
And that’s the thing, but doing reviews, talks and basically what youtube reviewers do, I have no problem with.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

I suppose the question becomes how YouTube will respond.

Changes don't happen overnight when it comes to systemic injustices like what happened to Mark's channel.

In all honesty, it seems like someone on Toei's end just f**ked up and went guns blazing with the bots when they shouldn't have. But the point of matter is that this shouldn't have been possible to begin with, and it shows that there's a real issue of how the system's response measures what is and isn't a valid target.

This is the same system that ended up having automatic copyright strikes of some game trailers, despite said trailers being uploaded by the official channels of the companies that made said games.

[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.

Please don't do this. This is extremely disrespectful to your co-workers and yourself.

I don't do it but I also don't blame anyone who does because, again, work being dogshit is an issue with management and society. People deal with their health issues related to the work culture we live in in different ways and sometimes that means doing everything you can to escape the things that ail you. If you can get away with it without any negative repercussions good on you.

[Shintoki]

snip

snip

snip

snip

Not at all actually, if you follow my thread in here.
I have no problem with reviews and journalism.
I have only problem with making bucks with unlicensed fanarts, stories and other work based heavily on copyrighted characters.

Actually I don’t care if someone sells fan manga in limited amount to a close group of people to cover for the print and material, but profiting from it is not really right.
And that’s the thing, but doing reviews, talks and basically what youtube reviewers do, I have no problem with.

if the emphasised part is your take, then i agree with that. selling fan arts is a big no no after all.

[VegettoEX]

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.

Please don't do this. This is extremely disrespectful to your co-workers and yourself.

I don't do it but I also don't blame anyone who does because, again, work being dogshit is an issue with management and society. People deal with their health issues related to the work culture we live in in different ways and sometimes that means doing everything you can to escape the things that ail you. If you can get away with it without any negative repercussions good on you.

While this is all well and good, it's not actually that directly related/relevant to this particular situation, and as such, please bring it back around to something on topic.

Anyway, after continuing to review both this thread and (more specifically) larger discussions external to this forum, it (shouldn't but still does) flabbergasts me what little understanding there is out there in fandom regarding copyright law. People literally have no idea what things are or mean. I was reading one particular tweet thread where someone genuinely believed that Dragon Ball was "public domain" because it was... I guess a released product...? As in the public could read it so that must mean it's "public domain" and you can do whatever you want with it...?!

If you don't already know what's meant by things like "DMCA" and "safe harbor", you're already... I dunno how to phrase it... something like "operating at a conversational deficiency"...?! You don't even have the correct tools for the job here. You didn't bring a knife to a gun fight (...or a spoon to a knife fight...)... you brought an empty soda can. It's the kind of ignorance that leads to YouTube descriptions saying things like "no copyright intended". Like you heard the term "copyright" once, know it's a thing, think it probably applies in some way here somehow, but literally don't know a single shred more than that.

I'm not sure what it will take to not only get people to a point where they have this better understanding, but even convince them in the first place that they need it... but I suppose a situation like this is a starting point. Unfortunately, I just don't think enough people realize they know so little, and instead just immediately double-down with preconceptions and assumed knowledge. I'm certainly trying to do my part, but I'm just one dude and no-one cares what I say!

[BWri]

I suppose the question becomes how YouTube will respond.

Changes don't happen overnight when it comes to systemic injustices like what happened to Mark's channel.

I think that ultimately, TNM's channel will be okay. As far as I know, he has abided by fair use guidelines. What makes the difference is how much reach and support someone has and not only does TNM have 650K subscribers but he has a lot of support from other popular Youtube content creators. I think as long as these people continue to rally behind him and reach out to YT about his situation, then most of his vids will be reinstated relatively soon (as in not in 30 somethings odd years).

I feel much worse for the smaller channels that don't have this reach. It sucks to follow the guidelines provided and still be targeted by a vicious, greedy, and shortsighted company.

Unfortunately, I just don't think enough people realize they know so little, and instead just immediately double-down with preconceptions and assumed knowledge. I'm certainly trying to do my part, but I'm just one dude and no-one cares what I say!

Thanks! This is very helpful, the link I mean.

[VegettoEX]

Woof. OK, so, again:

Fair use is (effectively) a defense, not a right. It’s also an AMERICAN defense. (Relevant because while YouTube is a subsidiary of an American company, Mark is not American, and neither is Toei.)

(In extreme layman terms:) “Fair use” is a series of (four) suggested guidelines that a judge considers during an actual trial, in actual court, to retroactively legally approve the allegedly-infringing use.

This is SO ESSENTIAL to understand, and I rarely see accurate takes on it.

[WittyUsername]

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.

That’s your opinion. Clearly, there are people who disagree with you. The bottom line is that if someone managed to gain an audience from making video essays, it’s a little messed up for them to have that source of income stripped from them. You don’t have to be a fan of someone’s content to agree that it’s unfair for them to just lose everything on a whim.

It all depends, if that source of income is derived from something that violates someone else's intellectual, then that income wasn't rightfully earned. But there needs to be an objective process to deal with these issues.

Obviously, if someone is just straight up uploading episodes of a show onto their YouTube channel, then that would be piracy, but that isn’t what people like TNM did.

[jjgp1112]

Woof. OK, so, again:

Fair use is (effectively) a defense, not a right. It’s also an AMERICAN defense. (Relevant because while YouTube is a subsidiary of an American company, Mark is not American, and neither is Toei.)

(In extreme layman terms:) “Fair use” is a series of (four) suggested guidelines that a judge considers during an actual trial, in actual court, to retroactively legally approve the allegedly-infringing use.

This is SO ESSENTIAL to understand, and I rarely see accurate takes on it.

Shit, I vacillate between knowing this is the case and NOT knowing that

[FPSSJ4_Goku]

Updates from Totally Not Mark: 19 of his videos got relinquished by Toei, got in touch with some people at YouTube, and wrote a letter to both Toei Animation and to Eiichiro Oda himself, in Japanese. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAuWk8POxSQ

[Yuji]

Dragon Ball isn't public domain but it damn well should be.

Also the melodrama is getting to me at this point. He should have been aware of potential repercussions when choosing this job. An issue I always felt when watching his videos is that he always felt too self-important and these videos are proving it. He's gained more notoriety from this and he's still free to make videos without using images or footage, as well as making videos on other properties.

[FPSSJ4_Goku]

Dragon Ball isn't public domain but it damn well should be.

Yes, but it can only be accessed by certain people. After all, you wouldn't want Ultimate Super Saiyan Instinct Ego Evolved Limit Breaker Kaioken times 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Goku fighting Zeno's true form to become an official thing, would you?