WotC may have sent the Pinkertons to a magic leakers home. Update: WotC confirms it and has a response.

[doctorbadwolf]

Here you go

Magic 'Raid' Wasn't the First Time Wizards of the Coast Hired Pinkertons [UPDATED]​

"In an email exchange with io9, Cannon confirmed the statements he made on the video and added additional context, stating that “as soon as my wife answered the door they aggressively asked for me by my full name… announced themselves as the Pinkerton Agency (which I am very familiar with their reputation), and said they were there to recover ‘stolen goods’.” After his wife asked them to wait outside, Cannon says that they “forced themselves” at least partially through the door and prevented her from closing the door all the way. When Cannon eventually got to the door he says he “assertively moved everyone outside” and told the agents that they needed to treat the Cannons with more respect. “They did eventually dial it back and become more civil after that,” he says. At some point, Cannon alleges, the treatment by the agents made his wife cry.

Wizards of the Coast says it “strongly refutes this depiction of events, which contradicts both the report from the investigation as well as the conversation between the individual and the Wizards of the Coast representative after the interaction in question.” The company also stated that “under no circumstances would we instruct any employee or contracted agency to intimidate an individual.”

And the quote can be found below Cannon's video in the article.

So yeah, he was apparently able to have a civil conversation with the WoTC rep, but Pinkerton employees were threatening and intimidating this guy and his wife. I'm calling fish sticks.

You mean the clout chaser who realised he had gotten an unreleased product and saw an opportunity, might have exaggerated an interacting with an agency that has a bad rep in order to capitalize on a public willing to believe the worst about both wotc and Pinkerton for more clout?

How could you suggest such an outlandish thing?

 

[Faolyn]

Agreeing to much of the rest, but this probably would have been a bad idea. There is no infringement here. A dispute over possession of the cards is not a copyright issue. No cause to take down the video.
Claiming that there was a copyright violation where there was none seems quite wrong.
(I really, really, wish copyright would drop out of this discussion. It seems rather not a part of the issue.)

Edit: But, can the set information be regarded as a trade secret? If it is, and the cards were obtained through illegal means, then disclosing them could be a crime. However, WotC must take steps to safeguard the secrets. Accidental disclosure seems to destroy trade secret status. See Loss of Trade Secret through Inadvertence.

TomB

I honestly don't know what options are available to companies who want to take down YouTube videos, or what YouTube would put up on a video taken down for other reasons. I've only seen videos that say they've been removed due to copyright violation, not ones that have been removed for any other reason, which is why I used that phrase. Honestly, YouTube could have just demonetized Cannon if he didn't remove the video and it could have had the same effect.

But yest, it's not actually a copyright thing.

I'm going to be honest, I didn't read any of that. I am pretty sure Morrus is going to send Pinkerton to our homes if we keep posting such ridiculously long replies to each other. Pretty sure you and I would be adding another 42 pages to this thread within our next 3 or 4 replies to each other.

Instead, I want to try something else. Can we see if we can agree on some things? We can post some statements, like Cannon is a YouTuber, and the other person can agree or disagree. I'd like to try this so we can start with at least some common ground for our discussion.

So this is what I'm starting with:
1. Cannon is very knowledgeable of Magic The Gathering the card game.
2. Cannon intended to buy March of the Machine, not March of The Machine: The Aftermath.

Do you agree with those two statements?
What statements would you like to present?

See, I'm not sure it really matters if he thought he got the MotM cards and not MotM:tA, or if he knew what he got and thought it was Bank Error In His Favor. What matters is that he seems to have gotten the cards legally and WotC made a Very Stupid Decision on how to handle it, and have tried to rectify it by saying "it's not our fault that the agent used intimidation, honest (even though we know they have a reputation for doing exactly that)! Here, have some different cards to make up for it!" Which... is a lot like when they said "it's not our fault that you guys don't like the new OGL, because it was leaked before it was finished (just ignore that we tried to get certain companies to sign it), so here, have the SRD as Creative Commons instead!" (And then have preceded to make serious changes to One that makes it look like it's not nearly as backwards compatible as they claim, thus likely rendering the original SRD not nearly as useful as it once was.)

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

See, I'm not sure it really matters if he thought he got the MotM cards and not MotM:tA, or if he knew what he got and thought it was Bank Error In His Favor. What matters is that he seems to have gotten the cards legally and WotC made a Very Stupid Decision on how to handle it, and have tried to rectify it by saying

That's not the question that I asked. I'm asking if you can agree that his intention was to buy the cards for the March of the Machine and not the March of the Machine: Aftermath. The rest doesn't matter. I'm just trying to start with some common ground. So... can we agree that his intention was to buy the March of The Machine cards and not the March of The Machine: the Aftermath? It's a simple question. A yes or no would suffice. Also, can we agree that Cannon is knowledgeable about the Magic The GAthering game?

you can introduce any statements you'd like to ask me to see if we can agree on it as well. This is a two way street. As I said, I want to find some common ground first.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

I honestly don't know what options are available to companies who want to take down YouTube videos, or what YouTube would put up on a video taken down for other reasons. I've only seen videos that say they've been removed due to copyright violation, not ones that have been removed for any other reason, which is why I used that phrase. Honestly, YouTube could have just demonetized Cannon if he didn't remove the video and it could have had the same effect.

But yest, it's not actually a copyright thing.

Several YouTubers I follow have protested copyright strikes against their videos. Apparently Orion Pictures is a bag of weiners, particularly when it comes to videos about Robocop. They file copyright claims for any videos with Robocop content, even if it is a review or a video that is proclaiming the awesomeness of the Original Robocop movie. According to the YouTubers I've seen complain about this, the YouTube process is, Orion files a copyright claim on a video. The video gets demonetized. YouTuber files a claim that it is fair use. YouTube asks Orion if it falls under fair use. Orion says, "Nope." YouTuber loses.

Supposedly three strikes gets your channel deleted. Not sure how true this is, but it's pretty significant if you've built up a good following and are making some money off of the channel. So yeah, even if it isn't an actually legit copyright issue, the YouTuber seems to end up on the losing end.

 

[Count_Zero]

Supposedly three strikes gets your channel deleted. Not sure how true this is, but it's pretty significant if you've built up a good following and are making some money off of the channel. So yeah, even if it isn't an actually legit copyright issue, the YouTuber seems to end up on the losing end.

I believe part of the conditions of Youtube's settlement with the MPAA and RIAA which lead to them instituting the ContentID system is that copyright claimants are assumed to always be correct (even if they very much aren't - several extortion operations are running that use illicit copyright claims against videos).

Also, the three strikes relate to if you continue to protest after the copyright holder says "Nope" after being asked by YouTube if they're sure. By continuing to contest the claim you're saying that you want to go for a DMCA takedown notice on the relevant video. That said, multiple companies use as a discouragement tactic that if you decide to continue to the takedown notice on that video, they'll switch to DMCA notices for multiple videos on your channel, causing you to lose the channel. This happened to me with a European record label. Microsoft and 343 Industries had been okay with people doing Let's Play streams of the Halo games, but the record label that handled distribution of the soundtrack in Europe (and only in Europe), decided that they were going to take monetization on the videos - and explicitly stated that if I persisted in contesting the claims, they'd send DMCA requests for every Halo video I'd done, and stated that "Fair Use does not exist in Europe" (their words, not mine).

YouTube eventually went with the middle ground of rolling out geoblocking for videos in Europe & Japan as a copyright claim solution because of stuff like this.

EDIT: This is why I tend to side with the smaller person with a Youtube channel over the big corporation in a case like this. Wizards is a multi-million dollar corporation that is owned by a multi-billion dollar megacorporation, which can afford to pay people to handle its messaging for it.

Indeed, they're hiring someone for that job right now.

Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast is the world's largest publisher of adventure games, including Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and Avalon Hill, a pioneer of modern war and cooperative strategy games like Betrayal at House on the Hill, Axis & Allies, and Lords of Waterdeep.

boards.greenhouse.io

We don't need to do that job for them for free. Maybe Wizards had the benefit of the doubt before the OGL fiasco. While they took the right steps at the end of that situation, they hadn't earned the benefit of the doubt back yet. So, with all of this happening 3 months later, I feel better trusting Oldschoolmtg (to use his handle) than Wizards, because what Wizards has said doesn't actually dispute his statements. Remember, with the original article from Linda Codega:

When asked for a comment, Wizards of the Coast confirmed that the video, its allegations, and the alleged Pinkerton agents were a “part of their investigation.” When asked for clarification, the company said it had no additional details to share, and did not deny the hiring of Pinkerton to aid in the product retrieval. io9 has reached out to oldschoolmtg for comment.

When they've disputed the allegations, their response has never been "It didn't happen" - it's been "What happened wasn't illegal." Just because it's legal doesn't make it right, doesn't make it ethical, doesn't make it friendly to the community, and doesn't mean we should suddenly trust Wizards because it's "not illegal".

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

I believe part of the conditions of Youtube's settlement with the MPAA and RIAA which lead to them instituting the ContentID system is that copyright claimants are assumed to always be correct (even if they very much aren't - there are several extortion operations running that use illicit copyright claims against videos).

Also, the three strikes relate to if you continue to protest after the copyright holder says "Nope" after being asked by YouTube if they're sure. By continuing to contest the claim you're saying that you want to go for a DMCA takedown notice on the relevant video. That said, multiple companies use as a discouragement tactic that if you decide to continue to the takedown notice on that video, they'll switch to DMCA notices for multiple videos on your channel, causing you to lose the channel. This happened to me with a European record label. Microsoft and 343 Industries had been okay with people doing Let's Play streams of the Halo games, but the record label that handled distribution of the soundtrack in Europe (and only in Europe), decided that they were going to take monetization on the videos - and explicitly stated that if I persisted in contesting the claims, they'd send DMCA requests for every Halo video I'd done, and stated that "Fair Use does not exist in Europe" (their words, not mine).

YouTube eventually went with the middle ground of rolling out geoblocking for videos in Europe & Japan as a copyright claim solution because of stuff like this.

Oof.. that sounds like it sucked to be in that situation. I guess if WoTC really wanted to, they could have taken this guy's channel down with several copyright claims. It seems it doesn't matter if he had or had not violated the copyright as YouTube would consider it a correct claim.

 

[Count_Zero]

Oof.. that sounds like it sucked to be in that situation. I guess if WoTC really wanted to, they could have taken this guy's channel down with several copyright claims. It seems it doesn't matter if he had or had not violated the copyright as YouTube would consider it a correct claim.

Yeah, not to go too far off on a tangent - I let the label take monetization... and then a little later it became a moot point because Logan Paul decided to go to Japan and mock a corpse in the Suicide Forest, and people kept re-uploading it on other channels, leading to YouTube engaging in a mass demonetization campaign of smaller channels, including mine, in spite of the fact that my channel's monetization came from being a former Blip.TV channel holder who got my YouTube monetization through Maker after they shut down Blip (which they'd bought) and before Maker started culling smaller channels (which still got to keep monetization) after PewDiePie had a "heated gaming moment".

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

Yeah, not to go too far off on a tangent - I let the label take monetization... and then a little later it became a moot point because Logan Paul decided to go to Japan and mock a corpse in the Suicide Forest, and people kept re-uploading it on other channels, leading to YouTube engaging in a mass demonetization campaign of smaller channels, including mine, in spite of the fact that my channel's monetization came from being a former Blip.TV channel holder who got my YouTube monetization through Maker after they shut down Blip (which they'd bought) and before Maker started culling smaller channels (which still got to keep monetization) after PewDiePie had a "heated gaming moment".

Well damn...

 

[Parmandur]

doesn't mean we should suddenly trust Wizards

Why do people go around thinking they should trust Wizards...? This is basically what I've always expected of them. It's just how these things go. The OGL thing was dumb, but also not surprising. Neither have anything yo do with game products.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

You mean the clout chaser who realised he had gotten an unreleased product and saw an opportunity, might have exaggerated an interacting with an agency that has a bad rep in order to capitalize on a public willing to believe the worst about both wotc and Pinkerton for more clout?

How could you suggest such an outlandish thing?

Well, I'm a terrible squirrel. It's what I do. I don't know why anyone wouldn't trust clout chasing YouTubers. They all seem like such honest people.