VGTimes fights for the right to talk about games, or is there life after 3 strikes?

Since we published a breakdown of the situation with strikes on our YouTube channel on June 26 from a 3D artist STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl, a week has passed. Time to take stock and evaluate the situation, and predict the consequences.

We will not dwell on all the nuances of the plot of the situation, you can read about it in the analysis article, we will only briefly go through the stages. As of June 20, some YouTube channels received copyright infringement strikes from Russian-language media (including us). Someone under the name of Roman filed complaints about the video, which used official trailers and publicly available material on Stalker 2. The videos are made at the stage of announcements, which means that they have been hanging on our page for quite some time.

After contacting GSC Game World, we asked for a comment and some assistance in clarifying the situation. The developers reacted quickly and confirmed that this was not their initiative. Similar messages were received by everyone who wrote not to Roman’s personal mail, but to GSC’s own business mail.

However, immediately after the publication of the analysis, we had a third and decisive strike. It’s not hard to guess who it belonged to. So, the list of “illegal” videos turned out to be the following:

We have exercised our right to appeal and have filed counterclaims with YouTube for any video alleging that we used the content of the official game trailers in good faith. And they started waiting for the hosting decision.

Note that YouTube clearly states in its letters that the complainant is GSC Game World Global LTD. However, we were confused by the communication email, which belonged to an individual, not a company – [email protected]. We have decided to collect more information before writing a formal request. On Artstation.com, the same e-mail is mentioned in the profile of a certain Dan Connery (Dan Conerry). In his followers, several former and current performers of the second “Stalker” were found.

The situation would be less acute if the video hosting itself was at least a little compliant, but not everything is clear even here.

Many have heard stories about YouTube’s strange, unfair, and regularly tightened rules. Small stations as well as large and well-known ones suffer from it. It is not always easy to understand exactly what the service requires of you. You need to shred finished videos, delete entire material or even go to RUTUBE and VKontakte.

Video hosting in no way explains the essence of the claims, gives a lot to user self-regulation. The maximum you get is the time period in which the violation was recorded, and the name of the fragment used. Situations where timecodes do not match the actual videos used also occur – this was the case with us, for example.

Google provides detailed infringement information, indicating which videos are copyrighted and which are not. However, there is an important nuance here. Despite the fact that the rules are more or less the same for each country and stem from ordinary human logic, YouTube refers too much to legislation, resolving the conflict in different ways.

It would be much more efficient and easier if video hosting had its own rules, which are the same for all users. This is of course a utopia, since copyright is a legal term and must in any case be enshrined in legal acts, which are different for each state.

Our situation also confirms the inefficiency of the existing approach. Have we used the official trailers in good faith? Certainly. Does this fall under media work? Doubtless. But that didn’t stop him from scoring three times.

An appeal or “counter-message” that can be sent in case of disagreement (and we did) for verification proves dubious, but the only way out. It is extremely rare for YouTube to meet halfway, moreover, in such letters you can only state your arguments, nothing more. There is simply nowhere to attach an official response from the SGR studio and their permission to use it for the profession, it is only referenced in words.

The first attempt to demand justice failed miserably. The warnings were not withdrawn, GSC Game World Global LTD apparently did nothing to influence the situation and YouTube rejected all three counter-notifications from our side without any explanation. The message in the creative studio read: your account will be blocked on July 3.

Fortunately, it is possible to resend the objection (counter-message). We reformulated the arguments and went to the second round.

After appealing again for all three videos, two were eventually accepted by YouTube and forwarded to Roman.

This means the agency has sided with us and acknowledged the ambiguity of the situation, but the story is far from over. The complainant was given time to turn to the court. If he misses the designated 10 day period, the videos will be restored.

The last video was harder. In his complaint, Roman indicated that “software” was used. We may be talking frames from those same STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl builds that have been leaked to the public. This is impossible even in theory, as the “Most Anticipated Games of 2022” video was released much earlier than any leaked information. It remains to prove this to YouTube, which stubbornly does not want to hear us.

Re-reading the instructions didn’t help much. It is generally not very informative.

We reformulated the text of the notice of appeal and sent it for the third time.

There is of course an easier way to solve it. It is sufficient for the complainant to simply withdraw it. We remind you that YouTube has indicated the developer company, GSC Game World Global LTD, as a contact person.

If we accept that the service always checks such claims and requires copyright confirmation, it becomes clear that the unknown Roman “off the street” would not be physically able to implement all this. It turns out that the YouTube administration is malfunctioning, or that the GSC is devious and sends replies to all victims, but takes no real action.

The history of this futile battle with the media and bloggers is still evolving. However, we still draw one conclusion: if you are concerned with content, be it articles or videos, do not use anything (especially trailers) for STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. Otherwise, you risk ending up in a similar situation where you will be forced to prove that you have not done anything illegal. We are ready for any outcome and will continue to fight for our channel and for the right to tell you about games.

VGTimes thanks all the media who showed journalistic solidarity and helped us cover the situation with the strikes, including colleagues from iXBT, who were also attacked by Roman.