YouTube Briefly Shuts Down Blizzard's Own YouTube Channel For Copyright Infringement

from the three-strikes dept

Wed, Nov 26th 2014 12:38pm — Mike Masnick

YouTube's ContentID system gets mocked quite frequently for bogus takedowns, which happen with unfortunate frequency. The latest, as pointed out by YouTube star Total Biscuit is that Blizzard's own damn YouTube channel for World Championship Series StarCraft, WCSStarCraft, was down for at least 40 minutes earlier today. If you visited the page during that time, you saw the following:

A YouTuber who follows Totalbiscuit, Ryan Wyatt, quickly noted that the company was "working on it", but it still looks bad -- and again raises questions about why YouTube has given in to pressures from copyright holders to do excessive things like shutting down accounts based on accusations and matches, all too often leading to these kinds of results. Yes, the DMCA requires a process for removing accounts of repeat infringers, but that should require them to be actual infringers.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: content id, contentid, copyright, dmca, starcraft, takedown, wcs
Companies: blizzard, google, youtube

17 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

silverscarcat (profile), 26 Nov 2014 @ 12:24pm

It's obviously working!
Look at Blizzard, illegally uploading streams of their own content. How dare they?! They should have to pay the movie, music and television studios billions of dollars in damages because... Because... Because copyright, that's why!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2014 @ 12:50pm

The gamers are the reason people watch it so maybe they own the copyright?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
David (profile), 26 Nov 2014 @ 12:58pm

PERFECT!
If this happened more often, the content creators who pressured YouTube to do this in the first place might start pressuring them to stop!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
JoeCool (profile), 26 Nov 2014 @ 1:17pm

Re: PERFECT!
Unfortunately, instead they'd demand the ability to bypass the automatic system that everyone else would still be subject too. If there's anything Hollywood/Music/Big Game love, it's a double-standard... as long as they get the good end of the deal. You get the raw end.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

Armstrong (profile), 26 Nov 2014 @ 2:29pm

Better
Thats a big shame for Blizzard...

Start advertising/publishing your products or iterms freely online at: CynMart.com: Free classified ads in Ghana and beyond . attract more costumers to your company or products.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2014 @ 2:48pm

Well, 2 things I ask, one, what law was exactly broken and two, how many millions of folks have done the exact same thing? Oh yes, was it Blizzard or was it someone NOT working for Blizzard who wanted to share the championships?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2014 @ 5:44pm

Re:
Clearly Blizzard doesn't want to share their tournament footage.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Atkray (profile), 26 Nov 2014 @ 6:00pm

The correct thing would be for the account to be forever banned as well as any ad-sense accounts even remotely connected to this account like they do to the unwashed masses.

No review no one to contact.

Tiering is great for storage, not so much for justice.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard Jianos, 26 Nov 2014 @ 7:02pm

sound -- audio
I am not getting sound when I watch utube videos.

I do get sound when I watch other things on my computers.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2014 @ 7:46pm

Mike Masnick just hates copyright law enforcement.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ken Mitchell, 26 Nov 2014 @ 8:40pm

How To Prevent This
If there were a mandatory penalty of $100,000 per bogus DMCA takedown claim, there would be a LOT less of this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 26 Nov 2014 @ 11:52pm

Re:
You may have changed the wording that you cut and paste into these threads, but that doesn't make them any more true or any less tiresome.

I've never seen such an obsession with an invented fiction be so lazy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 27 Nov 2014 @ 12:02am

Re: How To Prevent This
The problem is, YouTube have been pressured into putting in this kind of system to circumvent the DMCA. The people who should be sued have outsourced the enforcement so they collect royalties without any effort and can blame a 3rd party when things inevitably go wrong. They have enough morons who either swallow their lies or paid off by lobbyists that it's going to be difficult for YouTube whichever path they take - and those responsible won't face any real comeback.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Howard (profile), 27 Nov 2014 @ 12:41am

Re:
Please point out any actual law that were enforced here.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 27 Nov 2014 @ 12:42am

Re:
"Mike Masnick just hates copyright law abuse."

T,FTFY. Or would you prefer this more honest fix:

"Mike Masnick just hates copyright law abuse, but I'll keep lying and implying he's against enforcement because I'm unscrupulous."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 27 Nov 2014 @ 3:27am

Re:
average_joe just hates it when due process is enforced.

Did you tell your wife you were busy mancrushing for Mark Cuban?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Techverx (profile), 28 Nov 2014 @ 2:52am

Who cares?
such cases become a daily routine gossip now not a big deal Moreover, youtube lost its fame due to such bogus takedowns but who cares, lot of other forums like it now are available in market.
[ link to this | view in thread ]