K-ON! TV broadcaster Tokyo Broadcasting System has deleted videos of Sega’s upcoming K-ON! game on the grounds of copyright infringement.
The preview videos were deleted at the request of TBS, with YouTube giving the standard copyright response. Sega of course had every right to upload the videos as they were of its officially licensed game.
TBS for its part is not even the copyright holder for K-ON!, being a mere TV station.
The videos were later restored, in what must have been a rather embarrassing incident for those responsible.
The incident of course highlights the fact that apparently neither YouTube nor TBS take any notice of what it is they are actually deleting – it would not have taken a great deal of scrutiny on the part of YouTube to release the claim was baseless.
This has happened many times on youtube, even the European and U.S. youtube had content deleted by requests from people who were not copyright holders. It goes to show you how inattentive the staff at youtube is.
This is why the DMCA is broken. The penalties for false DMCA claims should be extremely harsh. Tons of legit videos have been removed by YouTube without any research into if the claim is even real.
Of course, Google owns YouTube and they hate freedom of speech and the internet, so I guess it’s not surprise.
Maybe SEGA is afraid that if people watch videos about the game they wont buy it.
TBS, “Very Funny”.
What Youtube staff do while on the job: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe6FxXsqN_I