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.

 

[mamba]

I'm sorry, but if you get a review copy with some restrictions maybe you should not cross those boundaries

if you had read them, you would have learned that there were no restrictions, at least for some of them (the ones who got a PDF early had some, those who got the printed book later had none), and yet WotC contacted them after the fact and after they made their videos and demanded they blur the PHB pages, even if they only showed maybe 20, and not full pages either

 

[mamba]

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

sure, you can do that, but I don't think that most people would consider showing some pages as part of the review to not be ok, esp. if WotC never mentioned any restrictions

 

[Iosue]

I don't know about you, but I would not expect that I cannot show anything from the preview copy WotC sent me. Not doing a full page through, sure, but basically not showing anything at all and just talking about it?

SlyFlourish showed maybe 30 pages, not even the full page, just different parts of the book he focused on, and then WotC told him that at least 75% of the page has to be blurred in the video. To me that is utter madness, they should be glad that people market their stuff for free

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.

Having seen the video, I can understand why they contacted him and asked him to blur the pages. If this wasn’t a violation of fair use it certainly came close enough to raise concerns. And if WotC made the decision to get the videos taken down that showed more, then they would certainly have to address his video in some way.

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.

 

[Mistwell]

showing the majority of a page or a spread is not copyright infringement. We are not talking about 75%+ of the book here but of individual pages

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

 

[Mistwell]

given that they were taken down, how do you know how much they showed?

I watched them all before they were taken down like a madman! Particularly if they were showing full pages, those were the ones I watched the moment they were uploaded.

 

[Mistwell]

and it also is not what happened in most of these cases, that there are the two you mentioned does not mean the others are anything like it

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

 

[DMinTraining]

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.

As someone who has watched Mike's videos most of the time when he's spotlighting a product it's a PDF or a digital version, so no second camera required. You just have a separate window showing the product in question.

 

[Iosue]

As someone who has watched Mike's videos most of the time when he's spotlighting a product it's a PDF or a digital version, so no second camera required. You just have a separate window showing the product in question.

Makes sense! Thanks!

 

[not-so-newguy]

rat farts! there goes my plan to not buy the book and run games based on 4,000 screenshots meticulously edited and saved on my computer. Now I just won't buy the book.

 

[OakenHart]

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 (and if not, then there must've been a severe amount of overlap among several content creators to cover every page), and while I didn't touch it myself, I know a few people in real life who got ahold of a PDF that consists of every single page of the PHB taken from that video (or videos). It's not high quality, but its readable.

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.