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

[Kefla]

Imagine being the creator of one of the biggest series in the world and wanting to protect your property. I wonder why people are having their videos removed.

Imagine giving a damn about people who merely use short clips and stills from episodes while you still running a multimillion dollar franchise.

What's mine's is mines and if I don't want you to playing with my stuff, I can do what I need to do.

YouTube is not a public place where you can do what you want with whatever. They themselves can determine they don't what your content on it and delete it for any reason they see fit. It's their website. YouTube doesn't have to even share it's ad revenue with anyone. It's a free video hosting platform. They decided to share some revenue to incentive creators to make content that bring visitors to veiw ads or pay for a sub.

On top of that, if you decide to use someone else's owned content in your videos, you will be at the whim of those entities. They are allowed to sometimes ignore you, sometimes, say sure use it, and sometimes say no. This is not just limited to anime, all other forms of media. Just because a movie or TV reviewer isn't getting sacked, doesn't mean they can't ever be.

There's plenty of very sucessful YouTube content that has absolutely nothing to do with licensed and copyrighted stuff. YouTube will always favor it's own wellbeing over that of anyone else, and if that means blocking or deleting videos that they pay for storage on a server somewhere, then so be it. The alternative is that these large companies will take YouTube to court, not the individual uploader.

Also, someone mentioned Disney trying to keep Mickey out of Public Domain. That story is super dumb and super false. There is no way Disney would ever let 100 year go by without using Mickey. Or any of their characters, for that matter.

Exactly! They have a right to protect what is theirs. Funny that the other guy thinks that people shouldn’t be able to keep their own content to themselves.

[PurestEvil]

Imagine being the creator of one of the biggest series in the world and wanting to protect your property. I wonder why people are having their videos removed.

Imagine giving a damn about people who merely use short clips and stills from episodes while you still running a multimillion dollar franchise.

What's mine's is mines and if I don't want you to playing with my stuff, I can do what I need to do.

If that garbage restrictive mentality is what runs this whole system, then it should change. I couldn't care less about these blatantly one-sided "property rights" arguments

[jjgp1112]

Imagine giving a damn about people who merely use short clips and stills from episodes while you still running a multimillion dollar franchise.

What's mine's is mines and if I don't want you to playing with my stuff, I can do what I need to do.

If that garbage restrictive mentality is what runs this whole system, then it should change. I couldn't care less about these blatantly one-sided "property rights" arguments

Nah. If you create something, that's yours - everybody else is just an audience.

[PurestEvil]

Exactly! They have a right to protect what is theirs. Funny that the other guy thinks that people shouldn’t be able to keep their own content to themselves.

And for what effect is TOEI taking down these reviews that feature [mostly silenced] clips? Clearly they are not distracting people from consuming DB products [with legal means]. Why should they care about these relatively inconsequential YTers, beyond the excuse that they can?

[ABED]

Yes, it's restrictive, that's what property rights are meant to do,restrict usage to those who own nit because it is theirs and they should dictate how it's used.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

Ultimately, while I won't debate anyone further given how set we are into our opinions and unlikely to truly change, what I will say is that modern media has definitely outstripped any old definitions of what property rights apply to nowadays, and in what ways.

There are some policies in place, but they're woefully inadequate to deal with the reality and tend to be based in older and non-applicable laws that had more to do with television or even radio broadcasts.

A creator can no longer be expected to never use any of a copyright holder's footage, audio, etc., and expect to be able to make a cohesive and entertaining piece of media for their audience that reaches large enough numbers to be a sustainable living.

There honestly need to be some restrictions on what the applications of copyright protections ought to entail, and that's what I'll say on the matter.

[Anonymous Friend]

Ultimately, while I won't debate anyone further given how set we are into our opinions and unlikely to truly change, what I will say is that modern media has definitely outstripped any old definitions of what property rights apply to nowadays, and in what ways.

There are some policies in place, but they're woefully inadequate to deal with the reality and tend to be based in older and non-applicable laws that had more to do with television or even radio broadcasts.

A creator can no longer be expected to never use any of a copyright holder's footage, audio, etc., and expect to be able to make a cohesive and entertaining piece of media for their audience that reaches large enough numbers to be a sustainable living.

There honestly need to be some restrictions on what the applications of copyright protections ought to entail, and that's what I'll say on the matter.

What needs "to truly change", though? If you're using something that belongs to someone else, they can take it away from you. If you work out terms before hand for using it, license or contract or other legally binding thing, you don't have to worry. This is a concept we figured out thousands of years ago.

And it doesn't matter why they took anything down.

[Jord]

Using someone else's IP is a gamble, especially on Youtube and a slippery slope at that. If you don't want any risk, just create own, original content instead of using someone else's copyrighted characters.
But let's say, for arguments' sake that you should be able to use someone else's content to make money. Where would you draw the line then? What should you be able to do with someone else's IP?

That bum Mark not only used TOEI's IP to profit on his Youtube videos but started selling unauthorized bootleg Goku shirts. Now you're basically competing with the company whose IP you use to make a profit off. That's not a slippery slope, that's just dumb and asking for repercussions.

[LoganForkHands73]

Using someone else's IP is a gamble, especially on Youtube and a slippery slope at that. If you don't want any risk, just create own, original content instead of using someone else's copyrighted characters.
But let's say, for arguments' sake that you should be able to use someone else's content to make money. Where would you draw the line then? What should you be able to do with someone else's IP?

That bum Mark not only used TOEI's IP to profit on his Youtube videos but started selling unauthorized bootleg Goku shirts. Now you're basically competing with the company whose IP you use to make a profit off. That's not a slippery slope, that's just dumb and asking for repercussions.

That was definitely a dodgy move on his part. Like, I'm sure he was proud of that Kakarot design, but was it worth selling T-shirts of it and risking more copyright issues? I think, like a lot of YouTubers whose content is based on other IPs, he got carried away and started to think he owned Dragon Ball in some way, or that Toei would be lenient to him because he was giving them "free advertising" in his mind. Seems to happen in a lot of cases.

As discussed earlier, the culture barrier comes into play when it comes to copyright and the relationships between fans and the rights holders. Mark's frustration was understandable, but I think Adamant or someone else put it best that he made a seriously bad move in making an open video appeal against Toei while also writing a letter to Oda of all people (what did he think he would do about it? lol) with a slightly threatening tone, saying that fans would boycott their products or whatever. There's an old saying, "if you think Godzilla is scary, wait till you meet his lawyers". He shouldn't have tried to poke at the kaiju when he is, at the end of the day, just some YouTuber.

It's not quite fair to call him a bum though. I'd say his videos are transformative enough, most of them are critical analyses and have a fair amount of effort put into them.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

Where I fall along the debate in terms of what the cutoff should be first of all depends on the response:

Is the IP holder abusing their power or not?

In terms of recent YouTube controversies, many of these companies, Toei included, are blatantly abusing the system by way of repeated strikes against a multitude of individuals without warning and without discussion; often times, it also comes at the detriment of their livelihoods, as seen with Mark. The problem right now is that the coin flip is way too black and white; it's either your content goes down, or it doesn't.

And we can't have that given the grey area of international copyright and the changing media landscape that honestly doesn't favour wholly original content anymore, especially when it's not a studio-level production. It's too easy to abuse as we've seen on YouTube. But of course, involving the human side of things, requiring actual human input and open discourse before firing off on these things would be too much work and not of benefit to YouTube's sh*tty automated bot systems.

It's not even so much that they're necessarily wrong for doing so, just that the response is so aggressive and absolute. An easy fix to alleviate a lot of the main problems for the current times until international laws catch up with modern media production would simply be requiring the IP holder in question to actively contact those they accuse of copyright infringement directly and open up discourse to determine if any further action is actually required or not.

TL;DR
Copyright strikes and takedowns are far too aggressive and absolute, and a basic human interaction requirement before a creator's content is potentially blacklisted would go a long way to ensure both sides are satisfied.

[Kefla]

Where I fall along the debate in terms of what the cutoff should be first of all depends on the response:

Is the IP holder abusing their power or not?

In terms of recent YouTube controversies, many of these companies, Toei included, are blatantly abusing the system by way of repeated strikes against a multitude of individuals without warning and without discussion; often times, it also comes at the detriment of their livelihoods, as seen with Mark. The problem right now is that the coin flip is way too black and white; it's either your content goes down, or it doesn't.

And we can't have that given the grey area of international copyright and the changing media landscape that honestly doesn't favour wholly original content anymore, especially when it's not a studio-level production. It's too easy to abuse as we've seen on YouTube. But of course, involving the human side of things, requiring actual human input and open discourse before firing off on these things would be too much work and not of benefit to YouTube's sh*tty automated bot systems.

It's not even so much that they're necessarily wrong for doing so, just that the response is so aggressive and absolute. An easy fix to alleviate a lot of the main problems for the current times until international laws catch up with modern media production would simply be requiring the IP holder in question to actively contact those they accuse of copyright infringement directly and open up discourse to determine if any further action is actually required or not.

TL;DR
Copyright strikes and takedowns are far too aggressive and absolute, and a basic human interaction requirement before a creator's content is potentially blacklisted would go a long way to ensure both sides are satisfied.

Nope. They are not abusing their power, it’s their IP, they can put a stop to whomever they please. That’s just how things work.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

With the abuse of YouTube's copyright strike system in Mark's case, the response from the platform is supposed to be that Toei would be barred from carrying out such strikes for a set period of time due to requesting too many in quick succession; companies have quotas, so to speak, for how many videos they're allowed to request be taken down before they're disallowed from being able to do so for awhile.

At least, that's what the current policies are supposed to be doing in theory. It's supposed to prevent these IP holders from exercising total monopolistic control over YouTube's content creator/general userbase population to ensure that they're taking down true violations rather than simply attempting to steal revenue from creators.

I don't know if this has panned out or not, but there's definitely something to be said about international laws needing to change to prevent such cases where these companies are exercising monopolistic control over their IPs to an unreasonable degree. At the very least, these companies can be prevented from getting any revenue from these claimed videos via the "multiple copyright infringing clips" method.

[BWri]

Ultimately, while I won't debate anyone further given how set we are into our opinions and unlikely to truly change, what I will say is that modern media has definitely outstripped any old definitions of what property rights apply to nowadays, and in what ways.

There are some policies in place, but they're woefully inadequate to deal with the reality and tend to be based in older and non-applicable laws that had more to do with television or even radio broadcasts.

A creator can no longer be expected to never use any of a copyright holder's footage, audio, etc., and expect to be able to make a cohesive and entertaining piece of media for their audience that reaches large enough numbers to be a sustainable living.

There honestly need to be some restrictions on what the applications of copyright protections ought to entail, and that's what I'll say on the matter.

As long as I've been alive, reviewers have been able to use snippets of the media they're reviewing to critique it whether that be video clips, audio clips, or a quoted passage of a text. Transformative snippets shouldn't count against fair use and in a world that made sense Toei shouldn't be able to make the claims they're making.

[WittyUsername]

I’m gonna be honest; these forums are the only place on the entire Internet where I’ve ever seen anyone seemingly make the argument that it’s wrong to use clips from copyrighted material.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

I’m gonna be honest; these forums are the only place on the entire Internet where I’ve ever seen anyone seemingly make the argument that it’s wrong to use clips from copyrighted material.

I've noticed that too. It's an unusually high concentration of these opinions.

[BlueChi]

I do appreciate the blissful irony of someone making an argument seeping with condescending elitism such as Mark being a moron, redundant or pathetic for making content based on a brand, while that same person is posting on a forum dedicated to that very same children's manga, where a sleuth of content much in the same vein is produced. It's all just very transparent bad faith.
As far as the actual issue goes, while making merchandise based on the brand with the exact characters being used is, very obviously, a dumb idea, his videos are very much a non-issue. They're textbook cases of transformative media. Nuke them and you might as well nuke every single person who talks about movies, songs, plays, what have you.

[ZeroIsOurHero]

I do appreciate the blissful irony of someone making an argument seeping with condescending elitism such as Mark being a moron, redundant or pathetic for making content based on a brand, while that same person is posting on a forum dedicated to that very same children's manga, where a sleuth of content much in the same vein is produced. It's all just very transparent bad faith.
As far as the actual issue goes, while making merchandise based on the brand with the exact characters being used is, very obviously, a dumb idea, his videos are very much a non-issue. They're textbook cases of transformative media. Nuke them and you might as well nuke every single person who talks about movies, songs, plays, what have you.

Exactly. What Mark was doing is in no way different from what literally every other person who talks about fictional works is doing, including us. The Goku T-shirts were out of line, but I don't see how any of his other content was wrong.

And weirdly enough, "Nuke every single person who talks about fictional works" is exactly what some people on this site seem to be suggesting. Like, does it not occur to these people that giving companies the ability to shut down literally anyone who talks about them is a bad idea? Criticism and analysis of fictional works needs to continue existing, "Just don't talk about other people's works" is a horrible suggestion.

[VegettoEX]

I... really think a couple of you aren't actually reading the words some folks are saying? And extrapolating it into complete strawmen?

I'm reading some incredibly nuanced discussion coming from a wide swath of viewpoints. I too don't personally agree with all of it, but some of the stuff y'all are coming back with really proves to me that you're not actually reading it, instead coming back with gut reactions based on assumptions. The "well if you're saying this, YOU'RE ACTUALLY SAYING *THIS* huh?!" analogies are beyond strange.

[ZeroIsOurHero]

I... really think a couple of you aren't actually reading the words some folks are saying? And extrapolating it into complete strawmen?

I'm reading some incredibly nuanced discussion coming from a wide swath of viewpoints. I too don't personally agree with all of it, but some of the stuff y'all are coming back with really proves to me that you're not actually reading it, instead coming back with gut reactions based on assumptions. The "well if you're saying this, YOU'RE ACTUALLY SAYING *THIS* huh?!" analogies are beyond strange.

I understand what you're saying, and I know I was exaggerating a bit too much. But at the same time, it does genuinely seem like certain people on this site oppose discussion of copyrighted material in general. Here's some quotes along those lines from just this last page:

"They have a right to protect what is theirs. Funny that the other guy thinks that people shouldn’t be able to keep their own content to themselves."

"What's mine's is mines and if I don't want you to playing with my stuff, I can do what I need to do."

"If you create something, that's yours - everybody else is just an audience."

"If you don't want any risk, just create own, original content instead of using someone else's copyrighted characters."

"They are not abusing their power, it’s their IP, they can put a stop to whomever they please. That’s just how things work."

That second-to-last quote in particular really set me off. Like I said earlier, do these people not realize how important it is to have discussion about fictional works? The idea people here are suggesting about copyright holders being allowed to shut down anyone who talks about their property sounds like an absolute nightmare to me.

[capsulecorp]

That second-to-last quote in particular really set me off. Like I said earlier, do these people not realize how important it is to have discussion about fictional works? The idea people here are suggesting about copyright holders being allowed to shut down anyone who talks about their property sounds like an absolute nightmare to me.

I broadly agree with you. It can be important to discuss fictional works... or, at least it can be interesting. I think where it gets complicated is that Youtubers are usually HIGHLY profit-motivated, to the point where it affects the quality of their discussion, dramatically.