Monday, May 12, 2008

So,

Everybody's wondering where PlayItBogart went.

Well, I didn't go anywhere. I'm still gaming, still working 40 hours a week, still interacting with human beings.

I suppose the better question would be "Why did YouTube suspend PlayItBogart's account?".

It was Strike Three. Let me explain.

When you put up Shit You Probably Shouldn't, some bored employee at the company that owns the copyright to it surfs YouTube when he has nothing better to do to see if you uploaded The Gumby Christmas Special or Dr. Phil on The Simpsons. Then he sends YouTube a letter saying "tits or gtfo" and YouTube sends you a nasty letter saying you've committed a crime worse than ravaging the Pope.

In both instances, yes, I was probably in the wrong, and I didn't contest them. And for a time, all was well.

Then Take Two came along.

Yes, you know Take Two. They own 2K Games, Bethesda Softworks, and to some extent, Rockstar, the company behind the Grand Theft Auto series. Perhaps you've heard of them?

Evidently, they feel that the video "GTAIV - "Hostile Negotiation", the Michael Mann Edition" is a blatant, profit-stealing copyright-infringing non-fair use travesty and simply HAD to go. Which is kind of odd, considering my account is littered with clips from Take Two games such as Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, NFL 2K3, ESPN NFL 2K5, All-Pro Football 2K8, 24: The Game, Star Trek Encounters, and Star Trek Conquest, and they never had a problem with any of THOSE clips.

And since YouTube is too lazy to actually investigate claims, they just blindly follow whatever somebody with a company email address says and kicks your clips, and if it's the third time, your account and every other account tied to your email address goes bye bye.

This is of course, a bullshit claim by Take Two Interactive, since the video fell under the perview of fair use, what with it being nonprofit (I don't profit off my videos), entertaining AND factual (many viewers had no idea how GTAIV worked), didn't deprive any revenue from them (quite the opposite, in fact), and is transformative, being that I made it into something more than it was by itself.

So yeah, I'll file a counterclaim. In theory it would reverse the third strike and give me back my account. But by then the damage is already done. Take Two has already sullied their reputation with me, and YouTube being an accessory to it wouldn't make things any better, so I'll certainly be shopping for a new repository for my videos (which are all backed up in soft copies), but it would be nice to have the original account standing with all the original account for posterity. I'd also remove all content promoting Take Two Interactive from my account (As I've already done with my games collection, INCLUDING Grand Theft Auto IV), because if they feel that I can't promote their game using their game which I paid for and use it to encourage OTHER people to purchase their games, then I want none of it.

Not surprisingly, this throws the Star Trek review into jeopardy, seeing as four of the games featured in it WERE Take Two games (SPOILER ALERT: Encounters is clunky, Legacy is dull and broken, Tactical Assault is a dumbed down version of Starfleet Academy and therefore is fail, and I stopped playing Conquest after about two days). So that'll probably have to be backburnered AGAIN because at this point I don't want to go through it and remove the "infringing" content.

Allow me to reiterate - YouTube and Take Two Interactive may go fornicate themselves.
The only question is how hard and with how blunt an instrument.

In any event, the Rollergames video is now on Revver.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

This Sucks.
I hope to see you on another Video platform soon with rise of the robots ;) This ones hilarious.

Greets from germany.

SiD

Trevor said...

Most companies like to see their product being promoted; I guess Take Two just wants to be different. Attacking your fans is an... "unconventional" marketing strategy, to say the least.

NSonic79 said...

I already sent this message to your other social networking site but I'll go ahead with a copy and paste here.
*copy/paste*
Those that know you and/or your work are not happy with the recent situation on youtube, count me as one of them. You were one of the inspirations I found on youtube that made want to try my hand at Vblogging. Your reviews were a riot, witty, comical and at times, truthful to the extent of the particular game (I still crack up over the Metal Gear Solid Fiesta).

First they drive off thatguywiththeglasses and now you. I'm not sure if you particularly care but count me as one of your supporters. This whole copyright thing is just getting to far out of hand here. I just wanted to say my peace and say that those on Youtube miss you.

I hope you come back eventually, I'm still curious as to what Star Trek game you were going to review specifically. Be it on a different site.

From a fan,
Ta-Ta,

"N"

Anonymous said...

Just some advice from an experienced pooper, any time you make a video screw copyright, just don't put anything related to it in the titles, description, or tags. If you do badly mangle it like a 13 year old who thinks 1337 speak is cool.

This works for most things on youtube if you make another account there.

Anonymous said...

Fuck YouTube and Fuck Take Two.

Anonymous said...

Fucking YouTube is falling apart. Instead of promoting its userbase, they're basically driving everyone away. Maybe you should join up with Armake21 and the other reviewers making the new reviewing site.

Anonymous said...

Man, I come back to YouTube, and one of the coolest guys I knew there got screwed worse than I was. I feel for you, dude.

Well, there is always LiveVideo (that's where I went after YouTube fucked my account over), Revver, and a lot of other better sites to put your videos.

Anonymous said...

Something tells me it wasn't TakeTwo, it was just some asstard lawyer. I remember something similar happened last year with Gears of War (I think?) and the company apologized.

Still fucked up.

Anonymous said...

Take Two is full of crap. They treat their customers like they're all potential pirates. Anyone remember the crap about installing Bioshock for PC?

Hope to see your reviews uploaded elsewhere, PiB. You the best.

Anonymous said...

that sucks that youtube canned your account over some video which apparently and allegedly infringed copyrighted material. all the while, youtube's allowing videos of morons doing stupid things such as jumping into Blizzard Beach's wave pool from an area which is supposed to be restricted to lifeguards, as well as allowing them to slander Walt Disney World's hard working employees in the most vulgar ways as possible. i for one am pissed off that a major company would do such a thing. anyway, as far as i'm concerned, i'd wipe my ass with Take Two's legal documents of what's considered infringement.

Ukiby3000 said...

Good thing I used VDownloader to download my favorite videos from you, when they were on TouTube, before your ban. At least, I don't need to hunt them down like crazy. I just need to get the DVD I recorded and, tah dah!

Anyways, I would like to see some new stuff though, so, I'll keep on eyes on this blog here ^^

SEOkik said...

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