6 ms·

Firewatch review bombed on Steam following DMCA takedown against PewDiePie

26 points by brad0 9y ago

brad0 9y ago
I really hope that the devs actions don't become a common occurrence. If the dev asked YouTube to take down all content that had his games in it I think it would be okay. To target just one user because of a word that he said non maliciously is wrong. If you take a look at the developer website they explicitly say "it's okay for you to stream our game". http://www.firewatchgame.com/about/#streaming http://www.firewatchgame.com/about/#streaming Edit: added link to their site stating their attitude for streamers.
- marak830 9y ago
  I disagree, it isn't the first time he has done something like this, and it isn't something you would want related to your product(even loosely). The argument made by the game company is fairly straightforward too I believe. "I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make. He's worse than a closeted racist: he's a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry."
  - Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago
    So there were no copyright infringement but now there is, and only by that guy, other streamers are OK? That's funny. This is a misuse of the law and a markedly unethical behavior, why nobody sees it?
    - Hasknewbie 9y ago
      A developer, if they so wish, can allow third-parties the use of their property in some use-cases that are beyond "critique or satire". In this case FWD allows this explicitly for youtubers in general, but have withdrawn this permission to PDP in particular because they do not wish to see their product associated with a racist. How is this a "misuse of the law"? Please explain.
      - dogma1138 9y ago
        He isn't a racist he's an idiotic troll. Campo gave everyone a non exclusive permission to stream their game. PDP didn't even stream their game in this incident they've just retroactively decided to DMCA flag him. PDP maybe a cunt but the developers here just decided to be dicks.
      - Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago
        So they did this because PDP is "racist" (which is, btw, too deep a conclusion to draw from a single word said in a heat of a virtual battle) but used a DMCA notice that implies that the copyrighted content is used without the owner's permission, i.e. stolen. Clearly, it is not stolen, so they're lying and falsely accusing PDP of a crime. They're totally free to sue PDP, but on what he actually did with all the due process (a defender, etc.). What they chose to do is an abuse of power. The fact that the person being abused is not, perhaps, all pleasant, and they don't want to associate with him, does not excuse the abuse.
        SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
        They are the owner of the copyrighted content (the game imagery). They revoked permission. Thus it was being used without the owner's permission. The DMCA request is perfectly valid. That said, they still should have provided him with notice before filing the DMCA takedown request.
        DanBC 9y ago
        > That said, they still should have provided him with notice before filing the DMCA takedown request Why?
        dogma1138 9y ago
        They gave permission on the site to anyone, he's actually has a pretty good case here. Retroactive punishment is forbidden by the DMCA.
      - ssijak 9y ago
        Even if they wanted to remove him the rights to use their game, they should have warned him first to remove it himself and if he did not comply then it will be somewhat moral to dmca him. Without warning he did not break dmca because they say on their website that it is ok to stream their game for everyone.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - eighthnate 9y ago
    > "I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make. The only child here is vanaman. > he's a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry." Which is funny because my parents say the same thing about vanaman and video games. They think video game devs/writers like vanaman are the propagator of filth and garbage. There are people who accuse vanaman and game devs for columbine and school shootings. And he has the gall to pretend to have the high ground? What ever happened to free speech and if you don't like it, then don't watch it or play it? Honestly, what's the difference between vanaman and the people protesting violent video games and demanding they be banned?
- eighthnate 9y ago
  > To target just one user because of a word that he said non maliciously is wrong. Not only that, pewdiepie didn't even say the word in a firewatch stream. He said it in a PUBG game. This incident had nothing to do with firewatch. I'll boycott anything by steve vanaman until he apologizes to pewdiepie and the youtube streaming community. Pewdiepie apologized for his gaff. It's time for vanaman to do the same.
Toboe 9y ago
So, according to the article: 1) Developer revokes streaming license of asshole. 2) Developer gets down-vote-brigaded, with most of them (43 out of last 50) having 0 hours played, and called "sjw" by "snowflakes" (to use their parlance) upset about said revocation. Besides the face-palm worthy outrage, what does Steam think about 0-hours-played reviews?
- wetpaws 9y ago
  There is no such thing as a streaming license.
  - Toboe 9y ago
    Mea culpa, mentally replace with whatever phrasing best describes: the dev changes their mind on "fan streaming is cool" to "fan streaming is cool, besides PDP, who sucks and shouldn't use our products in his streams".
anotheryou 9y ago
So what racist thing did he say?
- detaro 9y ago
  stream snippet: https://oddshot.tv/s/g_05U6 https://oddshot.tv/s/g_05U6
- Cenk 9y ago
  He said the N-Word
apostacy 9y ago
I'm confused. It appears that the justification for this DMCA was that they felt that PewDiePie was making their product look bad. Are you really allowed to DMCA anything that makes your product look bad? Because that would surely include criticism of your product. If that is the case, then that is a very bad precedent to set. Companies like Warner Bros were forced to issue refunds for their buggy game Arkham Knight[1] because people uploaded videos to YouTube which made their product look bad. PewDiePie himself, along with many other YouTubers, did severe damage to Warner Bros brand, when he uploaded video of himself trying to play their buggy game. I suppose Warner Bros should have DMCA'd his videos. [1] http://www.pcgamer.com/warner-bros-is-suspending-sales-of-batman-arkham-knight-for-pc/ http://www.pcgamer.com/warner-bros-is-suspending-sales-of-ba...
- detaro 9y ago
  No, you are not allowed to DMCA anything that makes your product look bad, e.g. a game critique/review likely can use game footage under under fair use. For a normal game stream the assumption seems to be that fair use likely won't work, so those can be DMCAd for the simple reason of "using our material and we don't like it/haven't allowed it". In this specific case, they publicly gave permission to streamers though, so it wouldn't be a copyright violation anymore. Question is if they can just go and revoke that for the individual case. Would need to be tested in court, which I suspect is unlikely to happen.
  - apostacy 9y ago
    I still don't see how Warner Bros could not have used exactly the same justification to DMCA streamers to cover up their defective product. That's exactly what Samsung did to people making jokes about their exploding phones. [1] Well, I know that I would certainly think twice about streaming any games now, and risking getting a DMCA strike on my channel. I guess I'd have to watch my mouth and not say anything that would anger the developers, lest they punish me. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/samsung-sets-its-reputation-fire-bogus-dmca-takedown-notices https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/samsung-sets-its-reput...
    - 9y ago

26 points by brad0 9y ago

I really hope that the devs actions don't become a common occurrence. If the dev asked YouTube to take down all content that had his games in it I think it would be okay. To target just one user because of a word that he said non maliciously is wrong. If you take a look at the developer website they explicitly say "it's okay for you to stream our game". http://www.firewatchgame.com/about/#streaming http://www.firewatchgame.com/about/#streaming Edit: added link to their site stating their attitude for streamers.

marak830 9y ago
I disagree, it isn't the first time he has done something like this, and it isn't something you would want related to your product(even loosely). The argument made by the game company is fairly straightforward too I believe. "I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make. He's worse than a closeted racist: he's a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry."
- Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago
  So there were no copyright infringement but now there is, and only by that guy, other streamers are OK? That's funny. This is a misuse of the law and a markedly unethical behavior, why nobody sees it?
  - Hasknewbie 9y ago
    A developer, if they so wish, can allow third-parties the use of their property in some use-cases that are beyond "critique or satire". In this case FWD allows this explicitly for youtubers in general, but have withdrawn this permission to PDP in particular because they do not wish to see their product associated with a racist. How is this a "misuse of the law"? Please explain.
    - dogma1138 9y ago
      He isn't a racist he's an idiotic troll. Campo gave everyone a non exclusive permission to stream their game. PDP didn't even stream their game in this incident they've just retroactively decided to DMCA flag him. PDP maybe a cunt but the developers here just decided to be dicks.
    - Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago
      So they did this because PDP is "racist" (which is, btw, too deep a conclusion to draw from a single word said in a heat of a virtual battle) but used a DMCA notice that implies that the copyrighted content is used without the owner's permission, i.e. stolen. Clearly, it is not stolen, so they're lying and falsely accusing PDP of a crime. They're totally free to sue PDP, but on what he actually did with all the due process (a defender, etc.). What they chose to do is an abuse of power. The fact that the person being abused is not, perhaps, all pleasant, and they don't want to associate with him, does not excuse the abuse.
      - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
        They are the owner of the copyrighted content (the game imagery). They revoked permission. Thus it was being used without the owner's permission. The DMCA request is perfectly valid. That said, they still should have provided him with notice before filing the DMCA takedown request.
        DanBC 9y ago
        > That said, they still should have provided him with notice before filing the DMCA takedown request Why?
        dogma1138 9y ago
        They gave permission on the site to anyone, he's actually has a pretty good case here. Retroactive punishment is forbidden by the DMCA.
    - ssijak 9y ago
      Even if they wanted to remove him the rights to use their game, they should have warned him first to remove it himself and if he did not comply then it will be somewhat moral to dmca him. Without warning he did not break dmca because they say on their website that it is ok to stream their game for everyone.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- eighthnate 9y ago
  > "I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make. The only child here is vanaman. > he's a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry." Which is funny because my parents say the same thing about vanaman and video games. They think video game devs/writers like vanaman are the propagator of filth and garbage. There are people who accuse vanaman and game devs for columbine and school shootings. And he has the gall to pretend to have the high ground? What ever happened to free speech and if you don't like it, then don't watch it or play it? Honestly, what's the difference between vanaman and the people protesting violent video games and demanding they be banned?
eighthnate 9y ago
> To target just one user because of a word that he said non maliciously is wrong. Not only that, pewdiepie didn't even say the word in a firewatch stream. He said it in a PUBG game. This incident had nothing to do with firewatch. I'll boycott anything by steve vanaman until he apologizes to pewdiepie and the youtube streaming community. Pewdiepie apologized for his gaff. It's time for vanaman to do the same.

Toboe 9y ago

So, according to the article: 1) Developer revokes streaming license of asshole. 2) Developer gets down-vote-brigaded, with most of them (43 out of last 50) having 0 hours played, and called "sjw" by "snowflakes" (to use their parlance) upset about said revocation. Besides the face-palm worthy outrage, what does Steam think about 0-hours-played reviews?

wetpaws 9y ago
There is no such thing as a streaming license.
- Toboe 9y ago
  Mea culpa, mentally replace with whatever phrasing best describes: the dev changes their mind on "fan streaming is cool" to "fan streaming is cool, besides PDP, who sucks and shouldn't use our products in his streams".

anotheryou 9y ago

So what racist thing did he say?

detaro 9y ago
stream snippet: https://oddshot.tv/s/g_05U6 https://oddshot.tv/s/g_05U6
Cenk 9y ago
He said the N-Word

apostacy 9y ago

I'm confused. It appears that the justification for this DMCA was that they felt that PewDiePie was making their product look bad. Are you really allowed to DMCA anything that makes your product look bad? Because that would surely include criticism of your product. If that is the case, then that is a very bad precedent to set. Companies like Warner Bros were forced to issue refunds for their buggy game Arkham Knight[1] because people uploaded videos to YouTube which made their product look bad. PewDiePie himself, along with many other YouTubers, did severe damage to Warner Bros brand, when he uploaded video of himself trying to play their buggy game. I suppose Warner Bros should have DMCA'd his videos. [1] http://www.pcgamer.com/warner-bros-is-suspending-sales-of-batman-arkham-knight-for-pc/ http://www.pcgamer.com/warner-bros-is-suspending-sales-of-ba...

detaro 9y ago
No, you are not allowed to DMCA anything that makes your product look bad, e.g. a game critique/review likely can use game footage under under fair use. For a normal game stream the assumption seems to be that fair use likely won't work, so those can be DMCAd for the simple reason of "using our material and we don't like it/haven't allowed it". In this specific case, they publicly gave permission to streamers though, so it wouldn't be a copyright violation anymore. Question is if they can just go and revoke that for the individual case. Would need to be tested in court, which I suspect is unlikely to happen.
- apostacy 9y ago
  I still don't see how Warner Bros could not have used exactly the same justification to DMCA streamers to cover up their defective product. That's exactly what Samsung did to people making jokes about their exploding phones. [1] Well, I know that I would certainly think twice about streaming any games now, and risking getting a DMCA strike on my channel. I guess I'd have to watch my mouth and not say anything that would anger the developers, lest they punish me. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/samsung-sets-its-reputation-fire-bogus-dmca-takedown-notices https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/samsung-sets-its-reput...
  - 9y ago