More accusations of copyright abuse are flying following an alleged wave of false notices hitting YouTubers. Studio71_1_2 is apparently behind it.
Another case of alleged false copyright notices are hitting YouTuber’s. This time, accused copyright troll Studio71_1_2 is behind the wave. YouTuber’s are calling out the company for claiming copyright on video’s over content they don’t own. The video’s being targeted are generally “Let’s Play” videos where creators post video’s of themselves playing various games. The problem is that the games in question come from a variety of developers. We first spotted the story on Reclaim the Net which posted the following:
Another copyright abuse controversy has broken out on YouTube as “Studio71_1_2” has been accused of filing multiple false copyright claims against videos they don’t own the copyright to.
“@TeamYouTube #Studio71_1_2 falsely claiming peoples videos. Mine was just released when I disputed it. Please do something about this false claiming mine was totally under fair use and visuals were that of my own.” YouTuber LeeWeeGee tweeted.
This isn’t the first time Studio71_1_2 was involved in false copyright claims. The same account abused the system back in February 2016 in a wave of attacks that lasted through September, also targeting gameplay videos.
A Reddit thread was started in r/youtube by Reddit user Underbuffed trying to figure out how “to get rid of them,” claiming to have written to “YouTube Creator Studio to block their account.” The thread has amassed 64 comments as of the time of this writing with other YouTubers also complaining that their videos have been similarly falsely claimed by the same account.
Hundreds of YouTubers have taken to YouTube in the last 24 hours to voice their complaints making YouTube videos about Studio71_1_2 in English, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Japanese. Other videos and Tweets reference an account called “Studio71_2_5.”
Indeed, there are a number of posts under #Studio71_1_2. Some posts are in English, but others are in a number of different languages.
The Reddit post mentioned appears to be this one. As it turns out, a number of YouTuber’s disputed the claims and the claim was then quickly removed by YouTube. The Let’s Play videos being targeted include Pokemon games, Call of Duty games, Grand Theft Auto games, and Little Misfortune game video’s. Pokemon, of course, is owned by Game Freak and Nintendo. Call of Duty is published by Activision. Grand Theft Auto is published by Rockstar Games. Little Misfortune is published by KillMonday Games. So, all different studio’s.
Over on YouTube, there are a number of different video’s of creator’s talking about how they got hit by the studio’s claim system. A few examples:
Studio71_1_2 Hit My Channel With A False Copyright Claim Please Be On The Look Out For Studio71_1_2:
Studio71_1_2 FALSE COPYRIGHT CLAIMS!! (Over 3 Years of Evidence):
Studio71_1_2 Needs some action against them.:
We did find a second Reddit discussion where some are speculating that this is the result of the company using YouTube’s ContentID system.
We’ve seen a number of waves before. Sometimes, Nintendo goes after content that, technically, they own. Some people go after specific content because they want to censor certain speech. One of the ways this is different from other waves is the fact that the kind of content is generally quite random. The only consistent aspect is the fact that they are all let’s play video’s.
So, the next question is, who is Studio71_1_2? We did some looking around and couldn’t really find anything conclusive. If this company really produced cutscene’s for all of these different games, you’d think they’d have a web presence and advertise how they created the cut-scenes of all these big games in the first place. That would help establish themselves as a major player in the gaming world. Unfortunately, not only could we find nothing about it, but others who had all the motivation in the world couldn’t either.
This is by no means the only case of copyright abuse we’ve seen. We’ve reported on the Chris Knight Adrev case where the alleged copyright troll claimed ownership of public domain material. Then there was the fraudster that took things to such an extreme level that YouTube themselves stepped in and sued the troll for abuse. Who could forget the mysterious case of someone going after Ferry Corsten? That, of course, is just a small sample of abuses of copyright happening on YouTube.
On the one hand, if there are so many false claims being picked up by the company on YouTube, you’d think that this is something that Google would notice. On the other hand, there really are no repercussions for anyone who fraudulently make copyright claims. Really, YouTube suing the one copyright troll is the only instance where we’ve heard of any troll being taken to task for his or her actions.
Of course, major corporate interests are motivating to keep the American DMCA copyright system as open as possible for abuse. So, ultimately, at the best of times, there is no appetite for lawmakers to correct this glaring issue of American copyright laws. So, really, this could be another case to throw onto the pile of reasons why the laws need to have mechanism to punish those who falsely claim copyright over someone else’s material.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
