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.

 

[SteveC]

Again. It's common law to not have a video where you flip though pages of a book.

A reminder would of been nice of course. But not WotC's responsible.

I think you overestimate how "common" this level of understanding is. WotC was responsible for letting everyone who sent the game know their expectations. It may be common sense not to show every page of the game, but if you have a new channel, do you really know that? We are still having a discussion where people disagree on credit for working on a game product, so I am sure there is no universal consensus as to what you can or can't share. And that's why you send documents telling people what your expectations are.

Yes, it makes all the sense in the world that you wouldn't share an entire book, but the reason I know about this issue is because it's happened before. Yes, we've already had people say this is a common expectation, but do you really leave your marketing push to common expectations? I guess WotC did that, and here we are.

 

[mamba]

And D&D will put their stuff in creative commons, so it will be available.

minus the art and most of the subclasses, feats, … there is still value in seeing the books in a video first

 

[Corinnguard]

One of them posted every single page of the book slowly in a clear video.

So, if DnD Shorts had presented his review of the 2024 PHB as Sly Flourish did with his, you would have been okay with that? He certainly could have left out the parts that most 5e players are already familiar with that. We already know how to create a 5e character. He could also left out the material that was covered in the various playtests and had been discussed on the EN World forums for months. That material has been old news for months.

What would have been left for him to review about then? Not much, I am afraid, which would have been okay for most of us here. Those new to D&D otoh would be missing out on the stuff that makes 5e D&D enjoyable.

 

[Yaarel]

For me getting a glimpse of the pages themselves is valuable, because from them I can get a sense of where D&D 2024 is at and where it is heading. It would be more difficult to assess if everything was filtered by the specific viewpoint of one person pulling a few quotes from here and there out of context.

By the way, the more I found out, the happier I am with 2024.

 

[Minigiant]

and they also notified some YTers that showed a lot less than that (< 20%)

According to Sly Flourish, there are those who got the NDA and PDF and those who just got books.

The two groups got different messages.

maybe we should just leave the bear alone and not engage with it at all, if it is that dumb and out of control

Without the bear the entire TTRPG market collapses because again

no one else does millions of dollars of marketing for TTRPGs but WOTC.

If any other company gets that big, they would start acting just like WOTC does.

 

[mellored]

again, that is not what Sly Flourish did (at least not through 20% or more)

You can't stream a video of you watching 20% of a movie.

To be clear, I don't put Sly in the same basket as DnDShorts, who litterally said "pause the video if you want to read" multiple times.

I would still invite Sly to other DnD stuff and send him advanced copies of other new books. He showed too much, WotC said stop, and he stopped. Mistake was corrected, move on.

But I would blacklist DnDShorts from any new events.

of course it is WotC’s responsibility. How come they sent guidelines with the PDFs but not the printed books…

WotC is not responsible for teaching people the law.

Again. I agree it would of been nice to include some. They can also learn from this and do better in the future.

 

[mellored]

It may be common sense not to show every page of the game, but if you have a new channel, do you really know that?

It's not common sense. It's the law.

And yes, we do a really bad job of teaching people what that is. I'd be happy to vote for you if you're going to fix that.

 

[Minigiant]

So, if DnD Shorts had presented his review of the 2024 PHB as Sly Flourish did with his, you would have been okay with that? He certainly could have left out the parts that most 5e players are already familiar with that. We already know how to create a 5e character. He could also left out the material that was covered in the various playtests and had been discussed on the EN World forums for months. That material has been old news for months.

What would have been left for him to review about then? Not much, I am afraid, which would have been okay for most of us here. Those new to D&D otoh would be missing out on the stuff that makes 5e D&D enjoyable.

sly Flourish created a great view without showing every page slowly

Many did.

I am confused.,

 

[stargazer_dragon]

I gotta admit that while I kinda get it, the proposition that somebody is going to screenshot nearly 400 pages from a YouTube video and then painstakingly print them all out and cobble together their own terrible-looking version of the Player's Handbook is actually pretty funny. If somebody were to actually go to all that effort, I'd be more impressed than anything else.

But of course, nobody is going to do that because it's waaaaaay too much effort. And even if one really industrious person did, does that even matter? It's hardly likely that people are going to do it in droves.

Actually, I suppose an intrepid person might cobble together a PDF of the screenshots and sell it online as a complete Player's Handbook.... but then if somebody really wanted to do that, I imagine they'd get hold of a copy of the book and scan the pages. But that will always be the case with books--screenshotting YouTube videos seems like a really bad way to do that!

There is a pirated copy of the ph from screen shots of dnd shorts currently in circulation. Has his name in watermark and you can tell it is screenshot. Likely from the video he took down.

 

[KYRON45]

So it wasnt WOTC that made the mistake it was a content creator?
Fascinating.