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]

If I was going to pirate, I wouldn't do it from a Video. It's FAR easier (and Occam's razor would probably indicate it is FAR more likely) that one of those 1000's of copies from Gen Con would be one of the culprits. Far more people with a decent copy to be able to make a decent pirated version if they actually wanted to.

It was from the video however, as you can see the watermark or something like that on it. Also the quality is supposedly pretty bad

There undoubtedly will be a better version scanned from a book eventually, but the one out there now is from a specific video

 

[SteveC]

I find it really odd that we're still talking about "did this PDF come from the video?" I haven't downloaded the thing (I am not interested in any potential issues from doing that) but there have been many people who have and say exactly where it's from.

This situation follows the "Two things can be true at once" rule. Yes, making a screen capture of an entire book and turning it into a hard-to-read PDF is a stupid thing to do. And yes, someone did want to see the game enough and release it into the wild that they spent the time doing it. My mind is boggled that someone did that, but as I think about the gaming community, it's really not that hard to believe.

 

[Maxperson]

They're just testing the boundaries.
1) Is it too much if we revoke the OGL? Okay, we'll apologize and backtrack.
2) Is it too much if we send Pinkertons to a YouTube streamer? Well, next time we'll just copyright strike.
3) Oh, is a copyright strike too much? Next time we'll send clearer guidelines for what you can post.
You'd wish they knew what would be considered "too much" by the fans, but they need the fan/consumer interaction to let them know what can be accepted.
Maybe the next transgression is making Errata available only on DND Beyond with a subscription?
Maybe it's some terrible social faux pas in the DMG - using AI writing, harmful stereotypes, or bad glue binding?
But they'll make mistakes. You'll just need to call them out on it.

So WotC is a toddler and we're its parents?

 

[Retreater]

So WotC is a toddler and we're its parents?

Essentially, yes?
I think they want to see how far they can go without hurting their bottom line.
Will people revolt if they sell magic item "skins" for their VTT? Will people be okay purchasing errata? Will anybody mind if we have DND Beyond exclusive character options? What about whole books exclusive to Beyond?

 

[Corinnguard]

So WotC is a toddler and we're its parents?

Give the number of 'look-at-me' moments from WoTC this year and the year the before alone, the answer definitely seems to be a yes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Essentially, yes?
I think they want to see how far they can go without hurting their bottom line.
Will people revolt if they sell magic item "skins" for their VTT? Will people be okay purchasing errata? Will anybody mind if we have DND Beyond exclusive character options? What about whole books exclusive to Beyond?

I think there's definitely some of this going on with WotC, but never underestimate the power of panicky idiots in upper-middle management (or just upper management).

The OGL thing was de facto absolutely boundary testing. Someone very senior at WotC (or even Hasbro) decided it was time to ditch the OGL, and ordered plans to be drawn up for doing so, and clearly ignored any pushback they got until it went public and really until really one journalist managed to make it a major story of general interest to people who like games or even maybe used to play D&D or whatever (not to diminish anyone else involved, but Lin Codega was pivotal to taking this from "lol D&D players are maldin" to being something WotC actually had to worry about). So I don't think it was designed to test boundaries, it was just assumed they didn't exist - but it still had that actual effect.

The Pinkertons thing was probably smug upper-middle management getting their rocks off taking an unnecessarily heavy-handed approach, and I suspect they'd have got told "Wtf no" if they'd asked whoever their boss was for specific permission, rather than using authority they already (stupidly) had. This is conjecture of course, but I doubt it was intentional boundary-pushing, and I'm not sure it really tested them either.

The copyright-strike thing was utterly bizarre and stupid, and again de facto boundary pushing. What a lot of people on ENworld apparently didn't know, and acted like was implausible (/rolleyes), was that this kind of flip-through is 100% routine. Like, absolutely routine. If an RPG product is interesting, people will do a flip-through, and they simply don't attract copyright strikes. Some people do them of their own books, even (SlyFlourish, for example). WotC, who just fired literally everyone who might have known this, clearly didn't do 10 minutes of research, and just sent these books out, with very few guidelines (which would normally be fine, were WotC sensible), then absolutely crapped their pants about the flipthroughs, despite the fact they were completely normal and to be expected. That they copyright-struck one guy who didn't do anything any different to others suggests disorganisation and incompetence rather than intentional boundary-pushing (they did take it back, at least), but de facto acted as it. That they continued to insist on the blurring though suggests real incompetence, closing the stable door after the horse bolted, being completely unrealistic about the impact of piracy vs the impact of publicity and so on. Which is not uncommon in upper-middle management (nor upper management).

 

[SteveC]

WotC, who just fired literally everyone who might have known this, clearly didn't do 10 minutes of research, and just sent these books out, with very few guidelines (which would normally be fine, were WotC sensible), then absolutely crapped their pants about the flipthroughs, despite the fact they were completely normal and to be expected.

I think this warrants some discussion. It really looks like WotC has gotten rid of a ton of people who know about a product launch ... in the middle of a product launch. I sometimes have harsh things to say about their practices (okay, a lot recently) but they have seemed in the past to be a well-run business.

The 5E launch has suffered from a ton of unforced errors that someone should have been able to catch. I think the new books will be successful, but that's despite what WotC has been doing. The creative people are doing their job, but man has management been making it tougher for them.

There's never going to be another opportunity like this for D&D again, at least not in any of our lifetimes, and it really seems like WotC wants D&D to be that huge juggernaut. They just aren't putting in the work. I know there have been a couple of 50th anniversary events, but I don't even remember what they were. If the books can launch without any other stories coming out, that might be the best case. And that's sad.