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.

 

[SlyFlourish]

though I am guessing you would have been more cool with it had they told you ahead of time not to do a flip through

That would have been nice.

 

[Hatmatter]

Fair enough. I apologize.

Cool. Accepted.

 

[Minigiant]

Paizo also does this.

Paizo also makes a large percentage of their money off of their adventure paths.

If somebody was posting and flipping through their adventure paths on YouTube they would probably go after that YouTuber as well.

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This only show how uncorporate the marketing department of Wizards of the Coast is.

A "real professional" corporate marketing department would 1000% tell an early reviewer the term of what they can and can't reveal until when.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Wizards should have been clear in what they wanted. Otherwise it just antagonizes people like Shea here.

 

[Parmandur]

Wizards should have been clear in what they wanted. Otherwise it just antagonizes people like Shea here.

Probably assumed they knew better, as many of the reviewers did.

 

[rozgarth]

This sounds like you’re blaming @SlyFlourish, which is kind of ridiculous. His review didn’t even discuss the classes or almost any spells, i.e., the vast majority of the book. He focused on the rules, less than 10% of the book, most of which are unchanged or already available to people through the Basic Rules and the Creative Commons. He did a service for them (I watched, and was inclined to buy against my better judgment even after their OGL greed), but this garbage is exactly why I can’t stand WotC.

It is okay to sometimes, just sometimes, criticize WotC.

 

[Parmandur]

This sounds like you’re blaming @SlyFlourish, which is kind of ridiculous. His review didn’t even discuss the classes or almost any spells, i.e., the vast majority of the book. He focused on the rules, less than 10% of the book, most of which are unchanged or already available to people through the Basic Rules and the Creative Commons. He did a service for them (I watched, and was inclined to buy against my better judgment even after their OGL greed), but this garbage is exactly why I can’t stand WotC.

It is okay to sometimes, just sometimes, criticize WotC.

Treantmonk managed to do the same without running into any problems, or the Dungeon Dudes, or a number of other creators in tge sane position. Because it wasn't their first YouTube rodeo.

 

[TiQuinn]

Nope. I’m done. I wasted two days on this that I didn’t have.

Sorry that you’re going through this and having your work put at risk.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Treantmonk managed to do the same without running into any problems, or the Dungeon Dudes, or a number of other creators in tge sane position. Because it wasn't their first YouTube rodeo.

I think that’s unfair. After the fact changes are normally pretty frowned on, and SlyFlourish is not new at this either.

 

[bedir than]

They did no such thing. The only guidance I received was to wait to post material from inside the book (which I took to mean actually being able to show the book) until August 1st. They gave no other guidance or restrictions until Saturday, days after we already posted our videos and, in my case, had shot and edited another. That video and all the work that went into it is dead.

So no, they did not put on conditions that had anything to do with this.

Alphastream backs this up this statement.
I had the mistaken impression that many here did -- that there was semi-understandable guidance in the NDA that some creators abused. During a discussion I was having on Mastodon he corrected my impression.

There was a second message sent, AFTER. And that's incomprehensible from a PR or media side.

It's impossible to play a game if the rules change in middle of it.