D&D (2024) D&D Player's Handbook Video Redactions & Takedowns

There's a lot of YouTube videos looking at the brand new Player's Handbook right now, and some of them include the YouTuber in question flipping through the new book on screen. A couple of those video creators have been asked by WotC to redact some of the content of their videos, with one finding that their video had been taken down entirely due to copyright claims from the company. It appears to be the folks who are flipping through the whole book on-screen who are running into this issue which, it seems, is based on piracy concerns.

Jorphdan posted on Twitter that "Despite fulfilling [WotC's] requests for the flip through video I was issues a copyright strike on my channel. Three strikes TERMINATES your channel. I don't think going over the 2024 PHB is worth losing my channel I've been working on since 2017. I'm pretty upset as none of this was said up front and when notified I did comply with their requirements. And I see other creators still have their videos up. Videos that are not unlike mine. Covering WotC is not worth losing my channel... Meanwhile please subscribe to my D&D free channel the Jocular Junction, where I'll most likely be making the majority of my TTRPG videos."

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Mike Shea, aka Sly Flourish, also posted a walkthrough of the Player's Handbook. While he didn't receive a copyright takedown action, after an email from WotC he has blurred out all the page images. "Note, I blurred out pictures of the book after Hasbro sent me an email saying they worried people would take screenshots of the book and build their own. Yes, it's complete b******t, but we must all do our part to ensure four billion dollar companies maximize shareholder value."

Popular YouTuber DnD Shorts had a video entitled 100% Walkthrough of the New Player's Handbook in D&D. That video is no longer available. However, his full spoilers review is still online.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

I'm definitely no apologist for WotC's blunders the past while, I've been pretty critical, but this did actually result in a low quality copy of their product getting pirated and shared.

High quality copies will be widely available for pirating soon, no matter what WotC does. Some people are going to buy the book anyways, and some people are going to rely on pirating or just using a copy from another party member.

Zero people are going to be like "oh well I was going to buy the book but now that I have a blurry watermarked PDF version, there's no need to buy a physical copy". They're focused on winning a minor legal skirmish at the cost of losing the much more important public relations war.

 

[Iosue]

High quality copies will be widely available for pirating soon, no matter what WotC does. Some people are going to buy the book anyways, and some people are going to rely on pirating or just using a copy from another party member.

Zero people are going to be like "oh well I was going to buy the book but now that I have a blurry watermarked PDF version, there's no need to buy a physical copy". They're focused on winning a minor legal skirmish at the cost of losing the much more important public relations war.

Sure, but just because piracy cannot be stopped totally doesn't mean it should just be allowed in all cases.

Let's say they let it slide this time. That will only encourage people to take greater liberties. Eventually they're going to have to say, "That's too much." Better to do it now, when it's already at a pretty egregious level.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Let's say they let it slide this time. That will only encourage people to take greater liberties. Eventually they're going to have to say, "That's too much." Better to do it now, when it's already at a pretty egregious level.

a) You say this like they're avoiding slippery slope by acting early, when in reality they're more like a lifeguard blowing a whistle at an incoming tsunami. WotC can do or say whatever they want, they are not going to become the first company in existence to magically stop internet piracy

b) They would've been totally fine if they had just gone after the guy egregiously posting a full page-by-page walkthrough. That's entirely reasonable and I feel like that would've been generally supported. But they went WAY beyond what is reasonable, attacking Youtubers that were promoting the book in good faith. For many of the cases, "letting it slide" would mean allowing the Youtubers to give them the free promotion that WotC asked them to do

 

[Iosue]

a) You say this like they're avoiding slippery slope by acting early, when in reality they're more like a lifeguard blowing a whistle at an incoming tsunami. WotC can do or say whatever they want, they are not going to become the first company in existence to magically stop internet piracy

My point about acting early was not about "stopping piracy." It's about not allowing their copyright to be frivolously infringed.

b) They would've been totally fine if they had just gone after the guy egregiously posting a full page-by-page walkthrough. That's entirely reasonable and I feel like that would've been generally supported. But they went WAY beyond what is reasonable, attacking Youtubers that were promoting the book in good faith. For many of the cases, "letting it slide" would mean allowing the Youtubers to give them the free promotion that WotC asked them to do

Even Jorphdan and SlyFlourish, whom I believe were promoting the book in good faith, went beyond the boundaries of fair use.

The strike on Jorphdan's channel was excessive and unjustifiable, inasmuch as he took the video down at their request, and seems to have been caused by miscommunication by parties on WotC's side. That's been rectified. But it was reasonable for WotC to ask them to take down the video (in Jorphdan's case) or add a mask (in SlyFlourish's case). But had they refused (which they could have done--there was no agreement here to abide by any rules or conditions), WotC would have been within their rights to claim infringement.

It's like when people put up clips of a movie or TV show on YouTube with the disclaimer, "No infringement intended." It may not be intended, but it's still happening.

 

[Horwath]

There are PDFs of the new PHB already online.

I wont link them for obvious reasons.

Quality is horrenduous.

If some one wants to buy your product, they will buy it.
If someone wants to pirate it, they will.

This is just harrasment of Youtubers that love the hobby and will do nothing to prevent PDFs of going online.

 

[MarkB]

Treantmonk gave a very detailed breakdown of the rules content without crossing any lines, yes.

Because he was one of the channels who got a preview copy with very clear instructions as to what they could show. People who got review copies without any such instructions had no way of knowing they'd be held to similar restrictions, or even what those restrictions were.

 

[mamba]

Yes 75% of the pages of a book, full pages.

not according to SlyFlourish, he certainly showed way less than that

 

[mamba]

Which other ones. I think third time I've asked that? It's SlyFlourish and who else aside from those two?

At least Alphastream, didn’t we have Jorphan in this thread as well, or are they your 75%+?

 

[mamba]

SlyFlourish absolutely showed more than 30 pages. I lost count at 50. And he definitely showed the whole page. His camera was set up to show a full two page spread. He may have stopped and talked about 30 pages, but he was showing a lot more.

fine, make it 60, that is less than 20% of the book, still a far cry from a nearly full page-through

I’m also confused, because on this forum he said he’d done flip-throughs like this for other products, but in his latest video on the takedowns, he says he’d set his camera up like this for the first time.

the two are not mutually exclusive

 

[mamba]

I'm not sure that this is nearly as bad a move as people are making it out to be really. At least one of these people showed every page from the PHB on their video

well, they didn’t, so there is that… I have no problem with taking down a full page through, not that this in any way prevents piracy or boosts sales. At best it slightly delays piracy

I'm definitely no apologist for WotC's blunders the past while, I've been pretty critical, but this did actually result in a low quality copy of their product getting pirated and shared.

give it a little and there will be better versions of that. If anything the low quality version is doing WotC a favor by showing up in Google searches a few weeks from now