Copyright claims on WoW youtube vids from 3rd party, any insight?

[Bigbazz]

So today I logged into my WoW youtube channel where I used to upload gameplay footage, usually a couple per week. Noticed I got a copyright claim on one of my videos, a Heroic Iron Maidens kill video from Warlords of Draenor (uploaded february 2015).



So here is the thing, the video is pure raw gameplay with no added music, and yet this company is claiming copyright for the Blackrock Foundry ambient/background music that is part of the game. This company "Hexacorp LTD" has claimed copyright and monetised my WoW video and claimed WOD music as their property. Has anyone else seen this happening to them? If I file a dispute claiming they are fraudulently doing this can it have a negative strike on my account?

One would assume that music from Blizzards game is owned by Blizzard and I should be free to make WoW gameplay videos with WoW music enabled.

[Deleted]

40 sec only. Look at the time maybe some addon sound?

[Bigbazz]

40 sec only. Look at the time maybe some addon sound?

It's the blackrock foundry music that is being claimed, that part is quite clear from the copyright notice.

https://youtu.be/aY_rt0YXbBY?t=5m28s - The music actually starts to play here as can be heard.

[Trollhammer]

http://mmoforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=414

Same issue found with this guy.. I guess do what the blizzard rep said to do..

[Ripster42]

Notify youtube. File a complaint. If the channel makes you enough money to have it be worth it to file a malicious take down notice suit do so.

[Deleted]

Well I guess it's clear then - this will take a lot of time. And till then I would take videos with the claim down till it gets solved by blizzard or youtube themselves - that is, if they have any interest in solving this.

[zoefschildpad]

These sorts of claims happen quite a bit, it's usually a mistake made by some bot that's searching through youtube. You can dispute it, there's no doubt you're in the right, Blizzard owns their own music and they're not the ones claiming it (and they don't claim videos anyway). From what I've heard, usually companies ignore disputes and when their time to reply runs out the claim goes away.

[Bigbazz]

That's some really dodgy stuff, I don't make money from the channel and it no longer gets any traffic since I stopped playing WoW, but from a point of principle I take issue with random companies claiming my videos and also monetising and putting adverts on videos that had none. But yeah I'm happy to see I'm not alone in this issue, if it's not an isolated case then perhaps it will see some resolution when some much bigger youtuber gets hit.

[Aggrophobic]

Youtube has automated systems for this. Not much you can do.

[zoefschildpad]

That's some really dodgy stuff, I don't make money from the channel and it no longer gets any traffic since I stopped playing WoW, but from a point of principle I take issue with random companies claiming my videos and also monetising and putting adverts on videos that had none. But yeah I'm happy to see I'm not alone in this issue, if it's not an isolated case then perhaps it will see some resolution when some much bigger youtuber gets hit.

I don't think malice was involved. These kinds of claims are made by youtube's automated bot that tries to find actual copyright infringement. Detecting substantially similar sound between videos is a really hard problem in computer science, because the sound is re-encoded for the different videos and on a bit-level they look nothing alike. And if it finds what it thinks is copyright infringement, the copyright owner can choose to ignore it (which rather defeats the purpose), claim it like they have here, or remove the video entirely. This seems like the best way to deal with it to me.

[Blamblam41]

If this is true (And I don't doubt your screenshot), then this is a matter that needs to be addressed by Blizzard, because it's pretty serious when this HEXACORP company is copyright claiming things that clearly do not belong to it.

On the topic of music in video games, though, I've always been -extremely- critical of corporations abusing copyright law when it comes to music being licensed to a game. If it was licensed by the publisher, it's a part of the game and is covered by fair use laws. (Sort of a mini rant, because I've had videos hit for copyright claims before for music that was in the game)

Edit: I think the worst part about this is I'm having some extreme difficulty finding any decent information about HEXACORP.

[Bigbazz]

I don't think malice was involved. These kinds of claims are made by youtube's automated bot that tries to find actual copyright infringement. Detecting substantially similar sound between videos is a really hard problem in computer science, because the sound is re-encoded for the different videos and on a bit-level they look nothing alike. And if it finds what it thinks is copyright infringement, the copyright owner can choose to ignore it (which rather defeats the purpose), claim it like they have here, or remove the video entirely. This seems like the best way to deal with it to me.

From what I can tell the music track title and the composer is correctly displayed, just that the rights to that music is being claimed by Hexacorp when as far as I know it is owned by Blizzard Entertainment. At least this is better than Twitch where I've had a claim before made on a stream while playing Diablo 3 and twitch then completely mutes it so I can't even see what they are claiming is copyrighted material.

The issue I have though is the threat that if I file a dispute and I lose then they can put a copyright strike on my channel. But fuck it I have disputed it now.

[Doctor Amadeus]

So today I logged into my WoW youtube channel where I used to upload gameplay footage, usually a couple per week. Noticed I got a copyright claim on one of my videos, a Heroic Iron Maidens kill video from Warlords of Draenor (uploaded february 2015).

So here is the thing, the video is pure raw gameplay with no added music, and yet this company is claiming copyright for the Blackrock Foundry ambient/background music that is part of the game. This company "Hexacorp LTD" has claimed copyright and monetised my WoW video and claimed WOD music as their property. Has anyone else seen this happening to them? If I file a dispute claiming they are fraudulently doing this can it have a negative strike on my account?

One would assume that music from Blizzards game is owned by Blizzard and I should be free to make WoW gameplay videos with WoW music enabled.

Why would one assume any of that, Blizzard owns all the content in their game, and it is very possible they either license the music meaning pay for it themselves, or they own it.

Either way what exactly would give you the right to take footage of their product and then seek to make money off it in the first place. You didn't design the engine, you didn't develop the game, and unless you composed or authored the music, then basically count yourself fortunate this happens later rather than sooner.

I mean personally if they knew I might be worried if they thought I made money or they lost money them maybe coming after me for damages.

As to the more specifics why now, uh probably MY guess is that it is either A. Something someone complained about and got their attentiong, B. Something That Blizzard their parent company or vendor decided to make a stink about not only you, but maybe going after YouTube over something internal

[Tziva]

Disputes are fairly low risk as long as the content isn't actually rehosted copyright content or whatever. Which in this case it is not. If you'd rather not deal with the hassle you can also try using the Remove Song feature. Personally, I'd probably dispute it if it was my video.

It's worth noting that Blizzard themselves is generally really supportive of YouTube content.

If you have an MCN they can probably walk you through the process and advise you if needed.

[Bigbazz]

Why would one assume any of that, Blizzard owns all the content in their game, and it is very possible they either license the music meaning pay for it themselves, or they own it.

Either way what exactly would give you the right to take footage of their product and then seek to make money off it in the first place. You didn't design the engine, you didn't develop the game, and unless you composed or authored the music, then basically count yourself fortunate this happens later rather than sooner.

I mean personally if they knew I might be worried if they thought I made money or they lost money them maybe coming after me for damages.

As to the more specifics why now, uh probably MY guess is that it is either A. Something someone complained about and got their attentiong, B. Something That Blizzard their parent company or vendor decided to make a stink about not only you, but maybe going after YouTube over something internal

Why are you asking what gives me the right to take footage of their game? It's in the terms of service that I can do just that, you're kinda trying to argue a hypothetical situation here in a world where it's not widely known that Blizzard allows people to post and monetise footage of their game. And the issue here is that the copyright claim isn't from Blizzard.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Why are you asking what gives me the right to take footage of their game? It's in the terms of service that I can do just that, you're kinda trying to argue a hypothetical situation here in a world where it's not widely known that Blizzard allows people to post and monetise footage of their game. And the issue here is that the copyright claim isn't from Blizzard.

Well Tzivia explained it, I am not sure what their policy is, but I would assume that since it isn't explicit one way or another I wouldn't count on it forever.

As to your question I did answer it, if it wasn't A, well then it was B. Unless it's C and you are being trolled, but there is no information to conclude that.

As I said for B sometimes vendors other parties associated in their works with other company's can throw a fit. Kind of like when service providers like for Dish or Cable and what not sometimes networks will pull their content, or providers will simply refuse to pay for whatever fees.

Basically I am saying maybe look into who specifically might have that issue with your video, other than that, I don't know.

[Daedius]

What fraudulent scumbags... you should bring this up with a Blizzard rep.

[Ripster42]

If this is true (And I don't doubt your screenshot), then this is a matter that needs to be addressed by Blizzard, because it's pretty serious when this HEXACORP company is copyright claiming things that clearly do not belong to it.

On the topic of music in video games, though, I've always been -extremely- critical of corporations abusing copyright law when it comes to music being licensed to a game. If it was licensed by the publisher, it's a part of the game and is covered by fair use laws. (Sort of a mini rant, because I've had videos hit for copyright claims before for music that was in the game)

Edit: I think the worst part about this is I'm having some extreme difficulty finding any decent information about HEXACORP.

They seem to be running through music companies.

Possible contact info for hexacorp. Though that might be the defunct orphium they disbanded and not the new orphium they incorporated.

And upon further investigation they seem like a shady company.

Edit: If I had to guess, they're using orpheum's ToS to claim they have a copyright of that song because someone uploaded it to their service. If that is the case, orpheum does not have the right to make a claim against you because the uploader did not have the legal right to cede control of the music.

[Tziva]

Well Tzivia explained it, I am not sure what their policy is, but I would assume that since it isn't explicit one way or another I wouldn't count on it forever.

I don't really understand what you're getting at, but his claim was filed by a third party not Blizzard.

As I mentioned, Blizzard allows YouTube content in almost every capacity. Unless you're breaking NDAs or venturing into a more sketchy copyright territory (hosting straight soundtracks, rehosting official trailers with nothing added, etc), you should be fine. But again, not entirely relevant since the claim was made by a third party and not by Blizzard.

Personally I would dispute it. Yes, there is always a risk for a strike, but I think that's probably very unlikely in this situation. Additionally, the OP implied he isn't really active on the channel anymore anyway, which means even if theoretically he did get a strike it probably wouldn't cause any problems that would impact him. Not on an inactive channel.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I don't really understand what you're getting at, but his claim was filed by a third party not Blizzard.

As I mentioned, Blizzard allows YouTube content in almost every capacity. Unless you're breaking NDAs or venturing into a more sketchy copyright territory (hosting straight soundtracks, rehosting official trailers with nothing added, etc), you should be fine. But again, not entirely relevant since the claim was made by a third party and not by Blizzard.

Personally I would dispute it. Yes, there is always a risk for a strike, but I think that's probably very unlikely in this situation. Additionally, the OP implied he isn't really active on the channel anymore anyway, which means even if theoretically he did get a strike it probably wouldn't cause any problems that would impact him. Not on an inactive channel.

Well I will give you an example some older series that were once on television sometimes used specific songs in their intros, and of course people would make fan made videos in tribute.

Some of them never got hit with anything until some time later, and some would assume it might be on behalf of. But later on some of those same videos come to find out whatever song that was used wasn't owned by who they thought.

Could be something, like wen Warner Bros went through and tagged a bunch of videos that had parts or fragments from something from their libraries. Blizzard might own the footage and not care but maybe whoever composed the score feels differently.

But since you have obviously more experience with this then you are the one to listen to.