Konami Gets YouTube To Take Down Video It Doesn't Like; Streisand Effect Ensures Neverending Discussion Of Video

from the well-that-didn't-work dept

Tue, May 12th 2015 4:12am — Timothy Geigner

I tend to be able to undestand when smaller companies, or perhaps younger companies, don't know and understand what the Streisand Effect is and how it works. You can write off this stuff sometimes to inexperience, even if you don't forgive the censorious actions themselves. But I think it's fair to say that Konami should know better than to think it could get away with disappearing a YouTube video it didn't like, yet that's exactly what Konami did.

Two weeks ago, George “Super Bunnyhop” Weidman published a YouTube video alleging he had information about the ongoing tension between Konami and Hideo Kojima. Now, it’s offline. (In case you missed the drama of the last few months, Kojima and Konami appear to be in the midst of a breakup, even as Kojima finishes work on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.)

Now, you can understand why Konami might not want a video about Metal Gear creator Kojima circulating just as the work on the latest iteration of the game series is due to be completed. After all, Kojima is well-known, very popular, and the news that there is some kind of rift between him and Konami might create doubt in customers' minds about just how much effort is going into this latest game. Add to that the notion that a public breakup with a popular game-designer can probably only hurt Konami's reputation and it's easy to get why the company would prefer all of this be buried.

And that's why taking down this video makes no sense. It not only gets a wider audience talking about the contents of the video, which have been put back up on another YouTube video, but it adds credibility to the claims made within it. After all, if this was all far-fetched speculative nonsense, Konami should have laughed the reports off, not used copyright to silence the video entirely. Use of game footage within the video is sparse at most, making all of this seem like a pure attempt at censorship using intellectual property, which, duh.

Based on Kotaku's reporting, it should be noted, this is almost certainly a manual takedown, as opposed to a Content ID grab.

There are two ways for a video to disappear from YouTube that doesn’t involve the creator deleting the video. One, there’s YouTube’s Content ID system, which scans videos for copyrighted material. Content ID, however, typically kicks in as soon as the video is uploaded, and wouldn’t normally bring a video down from the service two weeks later. It’s possible but unlikely, as all my interactions with Content ID have occurred very early in the process.

Two, a company purposely (and manually) issues a takedown notice, knowing YouTube will err on the side of rights holders, at least until the issue is resolved. During that time, the video is offline. Companies have used this tactic in the past to suppress videos they didn’t care for.

If the latter is the case with this takedown, it's quite a misunderstanding of the reaction to censorship of this kind in this day and age. Enjoy all the press that hated video is getting, Konami. You created it all, after all...

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Filed Under: copyright, criticism, dmca, dmca takedown, george weidman, hideo kojima, metal gear solid, streisand effect, super bunny, takedown
Companies: konami, youtube

21 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2015 @ 4:16am

Knowing Kotaku, i wouldnt be surprised if someone paid them off to shittalk about Konami...
Lets wait until we hear more about this instead of jumping at Kotaku's "conclusion" which is always biased.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2015 @ 4:37am

Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 12th, 2015 @ 4:16am
Well there's a pretty big discussion on Reddit too. I don't care for Kotaku but that's not where I heard about this so its bigger than them.
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Sneeje (profile), 12 May 2015 @ 4:50am

This is what really bugs me...
"YouTube will err on the side of rights holders"

No one knows if they hold any rights yet, especially not YouTube!

This should read like, "err on the side of random people with money and influence"
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Just Another Anonymous Troll, 12 May 2015 @ 5:05am

Re: This is what really bugs me...
This. Get a DMCA aimed at you? Take down your crap immediately and then debate the merits. Get your Content ID claim disputed (which requires the pushing of a button to get free money with no consequence)? Yeah, you've got 30 days to respond to that, and another 30 to file a DMCA if it gets disputed again. Absolutely no debate about who gets the most out of ContentID.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2015 @ 5:36am

This could be bad for the Konami, eKonami.
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S. T. Stone (profile), 12 May 2015 @ 5:56am

The twin snakes of bad publicity and archival actions have come back to bite Konami on the ass. Those who protect free speech -- the sons of liberty, if you will -- will make sure Konami won't become a “snake eater” and make this situation disappear. The digital “guns” of such patriots have ensured their revengeance; Konami's phantom pain has now become a reality from which it cannot escape.
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DannyB (profile), 12 May 2015 @ 6:01am

It's another anomaly
One more in a vastly long series of 'anomalies' where copyright proves itself to be a censorship tool.
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DannyB (profile), 12 May 2015 @ 6:04am

Incentives
If Konami did not use the DMCA to censor this video, then what incentive would others have to create new and original forms of censorship?
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DannyB (profile), 12 May 2015 @ 6:05am

New Laws are Needed
This proves that the DMCA is insufficient to protect content owners from embarrassment online and why we need SOPA and stronger forms of censorship to be enacted into law.
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Ninja (profile), 12 May 2015 @ 6:28am

That old discussion that the system should be notice-notice instead of direct takedown comes to mind.

Honestly, it's becoming harder to defend the DMCA as not a inherently censoring tool...
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PaulT (profile), 12 May 2015 @ 6:51am

Re:
Oh, it's easy to pretend, as we see so often from the usual shills around here. You just have to accept the fictions that only employees of a major media conglomerate can create anything worthwhile, and that everyone else is acceptable collateral damage.

Once you create your own reality, it's amazing how many violations of peoples' rights become acceptable.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2015 @ 7:07am

Re:
Konami really grinds my gears lately.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2015 @ 7:26am

Nobody's talking about this.
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CK20XX (profile), 12 May 2015 @ 7:33am

Re:
Super Bunnyhop is an excellent source of quality journalism, and a lot of what George talked about in that video is consistent with information that's come from other leaks, as well as the general suspicions of the public that's been watching Konami suddenly go violently insane as it collapses in on itself.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2015 @ 8:22am

Question!
Is it true that if you enter enter U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,B,A, Enter into the keyboard while your browser is open, you have 30 free tries to stifle a conversation you disapprove of?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2015 @ 11:24am

Re:
That place really is a cesspool of nonsense so who knows...
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2015 @ 11:31am

Re: Re:
You have to understand that it is a Japanese company.

A lot of employees are practically treated like chattel over there.
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Lurker Keith, 12 May 2015 @ 11:50am

Doesn't look like anyone's caught this yet
The original video has been reinstated. The video that you guys linked to now links back to Super Bunnyhop's & the title has been changed to "-GO WATCH THE ORIGINAL VIDEO, IT'S BACK UP-".

About to watch the original now, in fact. Here's its URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMK-kajdgMA
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2015 @ 12:35pm

Re: New Laws are Needed
If the MPAA had its way, anyone with a platinum credit card would be able to murder anyone they like to 'protect their IP'.
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Starke (profile), 13 May 2015 @ 12:54am

Re: Re: Re:
Since it seemed to have gone over your head. You were responding to two pun posts, loaded to the gills with Metal Gear Solid references.
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The More You Knew, 11 Dec 2015 @ 1:53pm

Re:
As it turns out nobody has to be paid to shittalk Konami, because Konami are doing it themselves. With all the plethora of horrifyingly bad things they have done; studios and employees they have harassed and fired, games that got cancelled, people they have blacklisted, and mobile garbage that didn't sell beyond half a year, on and on and on.. They have now unveiled their final and most apocalyptic of company PR suicide moves. They banned Hideo Kojima, the man, Big Boss, from accepting an award for the very game he made himself. No other gaming company I can recall comes even close to making such horrendous decisions, in quick succession, so massively disconnected from the rest of the world.
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