Copyright Strike

“These videos are doing well,” I said as I checked the view counts for Lena’s Pilemen and Last Isekai videos.

“Hey Crowboy, why’d you make the videos separate?” Leona asked.

“It’s easier for people to view each specific playthrough separately rather than in one giant video. Plus, we’ll be creating playlists for these series.”

“I get it.”

While that was the truth, there was another reason I wanted Last Isekai of all things to be its own separate video. A reason I hoped, we wouldn’t have to deal with.

“Hey! What’s with this message on my Wich account!?”

I groaned as my fears came to light.

Leona had received a copyright strike on the Wich vod of her Last Isekai playthrough.

“It says, “Portions of your video have been muted due to containing copyrighted music.” What the hell?” Leona scowled.

I checked the affected portion. Luckily, it was just a portion of the opening cutscene.

“We shouldn’t have to worry about this too much. Apparently, everyone that’s streamed the game has been hit with this exact claim,” I stated.

“How is it OK!? Isn’t a strike bad!?”

“Yes, though this one is purely due to Wich’s lousy automated system. While Rhombus Inc, the publishing company of Last Isekai, is notorious for issuing unfair strikes, this one seems to just be the flawed automated system. It also just muted a portion of the vod. Luckily, Wich won’t ban your channel over stuff like this, though this is a sad reminder that they still need to fix their copyright system.”

Truth be told I was trying to calm her nerves. While what I stated was true, I was more worried about Mewtube’s copyright system. If Leona got a strike on that video, we’d have no choice but to remove the video. Though, I did try my best to mute out the music on that video.

“Wich sucks! Though they’re the only major streaming site out there. Ugh! It’s just a game! It’s not like I’m selling the damn song,” Leona ranted.

After Leona calmed down, we discussed what to stream.

“You could do the same thing as yesterday, or you could do a new game and one from yesterday. You could also just stream just one game," I suggested.

“I kind of want to do more Last Isekai. I really enjoyed it, but I’m worried about another strike.”

“I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that until the end of the game. If you want to play it, play it.”

Leona decided to dedicate today to just Last Isekai.

“YO! It’s your girl Leona! First, I got some announcements. I now have a sub-greennit and and art Gooroo, so feel free to join and submit fanart. I’ll be sure to shout you out in the stream. Now the other news is apparently I got a strike on my Last Isekai vod.”

Chat was unanimously sympathetic to Leona. That was expected. A vast majority of people that stream and watch streamers tend to despise the strict and broken copyright systems on both Wich and Mewtube. This particular strike has also affected literally everyone that’s streamed it, to the point where Rhombus Inc is getting bad press over it. Sadly, I don’t expect any change to come from it.

On a more positive note, her viewer numbers are in the 50s and she now has places to submit fanart. If anyone submits any, I’ll make sure she does a showcase before ending the stream.

                                                                            ...

The stream itself went well. As Leona was wrapping up, I checked for fanart. Before informing her about it, I made sure the artwork was appropriate to show on stream. If any artwork that violated Wich’s TOS got on, she could face a temporary ban. While in the worst case we could appeal the ban, I doubt we’d successfully overturn it, or even get a non-automated reply from Wich due to how small Leona currently is. Thus, the best course of action was to avoid getting in that situation as much as possible. Luckily, this batch of artwork looked good, so I sent the OK.

“Looks like we got some art, let’s check it out,” Leona said as she pulled up the art.

“From 809trailtrek, we’ve got “No Gourdberries allowed.” Love it! The last one by Gregvine is Beaufort getting smacked by the train. *giggle*” What a lame way for him to go out. Though, I still think the devs deliberately messed with the hit boxes instead of it being a glitch," Leona smirked.

Since Astrid was live, Leona decided to raid her. Coincidentally, she was also playing Last Isekai.

“Be careful about this cutscene, I got struck because of it,” Leona typed.

“Wait!? Rhombus is striking because of this?” Astrid asked as her chat affirmed that it was true.

“Welp, guess my editor’s gonna be busy. Though Rhombus really should stop being assholes; or is this because of Wich’s dumb system? Either way, this is free promotion for their game. Considering its not even broken half a million worldwide, they should be doing everything they can not to piss people off,” Astrid ranted.

“Spitting facts girl,” Leona typed.

While Leona watched Astrid, I decided to check on her Mewtube channel.

I groaned as I noticed one of her videos was gone.

“What’s wrong?”

“The clip of your Gourdberry encounter has been removed.”

“What!?”

Leona immediately logged into her Mewtube account.

““This video contains copyrighted material and has been removed by request of the copyright holder?” BULLSHIT! That’s just the Goardberry encounter! What the hell is wrong with them!?”

That clip in particular, had quickly risen to be her most viewed video. There was no copyrighted music in that clip, however there were still two likely reasons the video got struck. The first reason was that a copyright troll might be trying to cause havoc, though I doubt Leona is at the point where she’d be targeted by them. The second and sadly the most likely reason, is Rhombus striking because they don’t want that portion of the game to go viral. My fears were confirmed when it was verified that the real Rhombus Inc issued the claim. The worst part was that this was likely the work of Rhombus themselves rather than Mewtube’s lousy system, meaning that they’d come at us with full legal force if we tried to appeal.

“Shit!” I screamed as I slammed my fist in frustration.

We had no choice but to remove the video; we couldn’t risk Leona’s channel getting three strikes.

“What a load of bullshit! It’s in the first area of the game! No wonder this shit isn’t selling well, Rhombus are being complete assholes to everyone about it!” Leona tearfully ranted.

Based on her reaction, I assumed this was the first time she ever got a strike. Sadly, there was nothing we could do. Even some big streamers would have to go through many hurdles just to get the video reinstated. We tried watching Astrid’s stream to calm our moods; however, she then reached the Gourdberry fight.

“This quest was easy, so why were you all-Oh no.”

Unlike Leona, she knew the infamy of the Gourdberry beforehand.

“Yeah, I may not be beating this quest tonight,” she groaned.

“Be careful, Rhombus might strike for this too,” Leona typed.

Some of the other chat members affirmed Leona’s statement.

“They’re striking for this!? How low can they go!? Gourdberry reactions are some of the best, especially if they’re from those that have never seen one before.”

“This girl really gets it. Now I really want to try doing a collab with her,” Leona stated.

I'm positive the two would hit it off well, though would Astrid actually agree to collab?

"Try sending her a private message asking if she wants to collab," I suggested.

                                                                             ...

Astrid ended her stream and sighed.

"Ugh, why are Rhombus such assholes!? I wanted to see some Gourdberry reactions. It sounded like that poor girl Leona got struck just for streaming the game. Why do they even strike? Their intellectual properties are fully protected, and we're using legal copies of the games. Ugh!"

She then noticed she had a PM and read it.

"Collab with Leona? Hmm. She does enjoy doing dares, wonder if she's hardcore enough to attempt THAT."