Blizzard, Ubisoft and Capcom help gaming content creators battle YouTube copyright claims

Gaming content creators have been bombarded with content claims this week

YouTube has been flagging thousands of gaming related videos for copyright violations. Photo: YouTube
Published: December 11, 2013, 6:17 pm
Updated: 2 years ago

YouTube recently launched a new content analysis system that checks to see if videos are violating any copyright claims.

Content featuring copyrighted music and videos were for the most part, all affected by these claims. This means YouTube users who create “Let’s Play” style gameplay, commentary videos, or anything featuring video game footage, have most likely been flagged, causing a storm of controversy on the internet.

Until now, videos like this have been protected under the fair use clause of copyright law. Even though YouTube content creators are using copyrighted material in their videos, their content is also promoting the product featured in their video. Video game publishers and developers are essentially getting free advertising.

Content claims prevent YouTube users from monetizing their content, causing serious issues for people who create YouTube videos for a living or for those who make a little extra cash on the side on YouTube. It seems most game publishers are backing content producers and not YouTube when it comes to this issue. Small scale YouTube video game related content creators and even larger video networks were both affected by these claims.

It’s believed YouTube is trying to cover itself in case video game developers or publishers ever try to take legal action against the company. Another popular theory is YouTube has implemented some sort of algorithm that’s simply auto-detecting potential copyright claims in videos.

The official response from YouTube so far is as follows (via Gamesbeat):

“We recently enabled Content ID scanning on channels identified as affiliates of [multichannel networks]. This has resulted in new copyright claims for some users, based on policies set by the relevant content owners. As ever, channel owners can easily dispute Content ID claims if they believe those claims are invalid.”

It seems like YouTube wants to prevent content creators from putting up their videos through affiliate channel networks like IGN or Machinima, effectively allowing them to bypass the copyright approval process everyone else has to go through to monetize their videos.

Blizzard tweeted the following message earlier today through Diablo III’s official YouTube account.

Other game publishers like Capcom, Deepsilver and Ubisoft, also offered their support to YouTube gaming content creators.

“As you’re probably aware, many YouTubers this week have suddenly been hit with various copyright claims related to in-game audio.  In June last year, Ubisoft set out its policy opening the door for channels to make videos using game content and to monetise bespoke content.


  1. Leave the video live for now.
  3. We’ll get it cleared hopefully same day. 

“Hope this helps, thanks for all your support over the past year and for all the amazing videos! Look forward to working with you in a very exciting 2014!”

Below is a video explaining how YouTube’s copyright flagging works.

Hopefully this whole fiasco gets resolved relatively quickly and gaming video creators can keep using YouTube as their primary content uploading platform.

If things don’t change, YouTube could end up no longer being the biggest place for gaming video content.

Follow me on Twitter: @Patrick_ORourke