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.

 

[Hatmatter]

I received word a couple of hours ago from the D&D Creator Relations team. They apologized for all the miscommunication. They say they now have a process in place to ensure that no one receives a take-down notice before WOTC tries to contact them directly.

They also have new guidance:

The blurring on YouTube is permanent so I'd have to repost my original walkthrough if it is indeed considered Fair Use by them. I don't show full chapters. I didn't walk through the whole book. But I plan to submit my new repost to WOTC to see if they consider it fair use. I don't want to have to go through this again.

I also have my "Let's Build a Character with the 2024 D&D Player's Handbook" which I will submit to them to ensure they agree that it falls within Fair Use. I think it does but my opinion doesn't have much weight against a 4 billion dollar company. And again, I don't want to have to do this again.

So tomorrow I'll repost those videos unlisted and send them to WOTC to see if they're cool with them and, if they are, I'll post them this week and next.

It's still a huge mess and a big source of stress for me this week.

Good luck with everything!

 

[Mistwell]

When I saw @Cergorach post a reply to your first question, I didn't think it was necessary to answer. They did a better job of answering it IMO.

As for the second question, I still think he is a fan of what WoTC's designers and artists have come out with for D&D. As for being a partner of WoTC, after seeing @Morrus explain the difference between a reviewer relationship and a promotional relationship, yeah, I now think he was in a promotional partnership with WoTC at the time.

Why don't you ask DnDshorts if he views himself in a "promotional partnership" with WOTC. I mean, he put out an entire video refuting that sort of claim, but I think it's better if you hear it from the horses mouth.

Here is the relevant video. Watch this, and if you come away still thinking he's a promotional partner, ask him as a comment on his video:

 

[Cergorach]

Why don't you ask DnDshorts if he views himself in a "promotional partnership" with WOTC. I mean, he put out an entire video refuting that sort of claim, but I think it's better if you hear it from the horses mouth.

Well, I watched that partly before you mentioned it and that was actually what motivated my post/perspective. And imho there can be a significant difference between what people say and what they do. Or even what people belief they are doing and what they are actually doing. He (and you) can belief whatever he wants, whatever makes him (or you) sleep better at night.

But the reality is different. That signed NDA is a contract, that's a business relationship right there. As for making money off this... Not directly no, but as a business I have to value my promotional aspects and while he doesn't make any money of the videos directly, all the hub-hub (review, controversy) around those videos made his channel bigger (promotional), thus earning more money in the future with videos that are monetized.

Some people say, there's no such thing as bad publicity. I don't completely agree with that, but even bad press creates awareness of a product. And depending on what your business model is, it's benefits can outweigh their disadvantages. So if DnDShorts doesn't want to pursue a future business realtionship with WotC/Hasbro, any burned bridges are of no consequence. But potential other partners might just not want to do business with DnDShorts in the future. If that is also not the business direction he wants to go in, that also does no actual damage (he has/had sponsors). But if he wants to mine that pool of those that hate WotC, that want the 'little guy' fight the big corporate overlords, etc. Then this is an absolute win for his viewership.

Look at his 'views' stats for the last year (see link below) then for the last two months. Those look higher then the rest of the year... Hey when did his first 2024 PHB video go up? Hey... Almost two months ago...

And it's not just videos (sponsorships) these kinds of channels make money on/with, they also use their community as a crowdfunding pool for their own RPG products via KS for example, last year he did a $3.3 million KS. In every conceivable way, YOU are the product, either as a viewer or as a KS backer. He has now ~25% more subscribers then last year (when he did the KS), so if he did another KS now, that might directly translate to ~25% more backers and thus sales ($3.3 million => $4.1 million)...

That is not necessarily bad, making stuff takes time, making good stuff takes more time, and time=money. If you're not paying someone directly for that, then that money needs to come from someplace else. And that shouldn't be from a creators own pockets. But as the consumer, you should have a realistic view of what an influencer (aka Youtuber/streamer) says...

Note: You can absolutely love the product, but hate the company or even the people making it. These are different things for many.

Source:

DnD Shorts - ViewStats

Find more daily YouTube data insights of DnD Shorts using ViewStats with features like detailed charts for video and channel data, projections, similar channels, video performance, and outliers.

www.viewstats.com

 

[Minigiant]

The more I hear about this situation and the more I hear about WOTC's past scandals, the more I think it all the big corporate issues I see all over the economy all the time.

Less that WOTC actively hates the D&D community and more that WOTC is so big it's clumsy and can't wrangle in the independent workers within itself at a moderate speed.

Outside of Executive initiative, almost always someone doing something dumb on their own without telling everyone involved and Wizards taking days to realize this and fix it afterwards.

 

[Corinnguard]

Why don't you ask DnDshorts if he views himself in a "promotional partnership" with WOTC. I mean, he put out an entire video refuting that sort of claim, but I think it's better if you hear it from the horses mouth.

Here is the relevant video. Watch this, and if you come away still thinking he's a promotional partner, ask him as a comment on his video:

I have watched a portion of the video that you sent me, and it pretty much affirms my belief that you can still like a particular company's product while not liking the company itself.

I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish here. What are you expecting to get from me by having me ask him how he views his promotional partnership with WoTC? I don't care one way or the other if he is or not at this moment. He did what WoTC wanted him and the other content creators to do, to promote the 2024 PHB, and then things went pear shaped because of miscommunication between both parties.

Once again, @Cergorach does an excellent job of answering the question @Mistwell posted originally to me.

 

[Cergorach]

The more I hear about this situation and the more I hear about WOTC's past scandals, the more I think it all the big corporate issues I see all over the economy all the time.

Less that WOTC actively hates the D&D community and more that WOTC is so big it's clumsy and can't wrangle in the independent workers within itself at a moderate speed.

Outside of Executive initiative, almost always someone doing something dumb on their own without telling everyone involved and Wizards taking days to realize this and fix it afterwards.

I don't disagree, but your last paragraph is making way too light of the situation or the underlying issue.

IF it's an individual that does something on it's own that doesn't have the authority to do so, internal processes need to be adjusted. Hasbro owns WotC now for 25+ years, if this isn't solved by now, this is totally on WotC/Hasbro. IF it is someone that has this authority, then WotC/Hasbro gave this authority, so the corporation (people in higher authority) is again responsible for it. That person needs to loose the authority to do such an action by themselves, there needs to be a process in place where all the involved stakeholders have a say before something like this happens. That is of course not ideal, as it often takes a while before everyone can meet/approve, but if you don't have the required insights, people that do need to be involved.

But in my experience it's the whole corporate mentality, not just of managers, but also of the average people working there. There are so many customers and that they are treated as numbers instead of people. That is fine when you do calculations, that is not fine when you do public relations or support. But that is the nature of working for (big) companies, especially when you work there for a longer time. People start to loose flexibility and a certain part of their empathy. When you work as a butcher and kill a lot of cows per day, do that for a couple of years and there's bound to be not much empathy left for cows... That's not everone, but that is how most people work.

WotC doesn't hate or love the D&D community. You're talking about a group of people (WotC) loving or hating another group of people (D&D community). I would say that as a whole that WotC is indifferent to the D&D players, they honestly don't care if you live or die, they don't know you. The D&D community is an ever shifting group of people, people leave and people join. Pleasing everyone is impossible. WotC cares that the group buys enough D&D branded products, if you don't they don't care. There are always more D&D players... And them not caring about you, that's not that weird. The addage about "The customer is always right!" isn't true, that's something you just tell the customer to make them and you look good.

I don't like WotC, I don't have to, to use their products. But I don't hate them either, I just don't really care about WotC. I just know that when I look at their 25 year track record, I can expect certain things from them and certain other things not. But I'm still open to be pleasantly (or horribly) surprised...

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I received word a couple of hours ago from the D&D Creator Relations team. They apologized for all the miscommunication. They say they now have a process in place to ensure that no one receives a take-down notice before WOTC tries to contact them directly.

They also have new guidance:

The blurring on YouTube is permanent so I'd have to repost my original walkthrough if it is indeed considered Fair Use by them. I don't show full chapters. I didn't walk through the whole book. But I plan to submit my new repost to WOTC to see if they consider it fair use. I don't want to have to go through this again.

I also have my "Let's Build a Character with the 2024 D&D Player's Handbook" which I will submit to them to ensure they agree that it falls within Fair Use. I think it does but my opinion doesn't have much weight against a 4 billion dollar company. And again, I don't want to have to do this again.

So tomorrow I'll repost those videos unlisted and send them to WOTC to see if they're cool with them and, if they are, I'll post them this week and next.

It's still a huge mess and a big source of stress for me this week.

That list sounds like what you did in the first place and they could have just left you alone. Too bad they were in panic-mode. A shame.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't disagree, but your last paragraph is making way too light of the situation or the underlying issue

It's less making light of the situation but understanding why it happened and not expecting a large corporation to do something large corporations don't do.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If we don't keep setting expectations for large corps to do the things they should but won't do, we're just stuck with them doing the stuff they shouldn't but constantly do.

 

[SlyFlourish]

So – just for a final update on my mess. WOTC contacted me today saying they had reviewed my videos and they were good to be posted without being blurred. They said there was one area where I came close to showing a whole chapter (which I didn't know was a problem at the time!!) but the rest looked fine.

So I posted my "Let's Make a Character with the 2024 PHB" video this afternoon and I've queued up an unblurred version of my Deep Dive for next week.


Also, Kobold Press posted this on their Discord server:

"Just incase y'all were wondering, we at Kobold Press take the controversial opinion that you are not required to blur pages or restrict the content you show when making videos about our books. Just an fyi since we've gotten the question a billion or so times across the social media stratosphere within the past few days."