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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, I've never understood the excuse of "piracy". It was stupid when they used it as a reason not to do PDFs, and it's stupid here. A pirate is gonna pirate. Most people are going to buy. I honestly believe, like you say here, that showing it works as advertising for the buyer far MORE than the availability of piracy causes anyone to not buy something and steal it instead.

My evidence is that if you really want to steal it, you can, no matter what WotC does. So why look like the bad guy? I've always found that generosity is repaid - covetousness is not.

Nothing about this makes WotC look good. Sometimes I wonder whether or not (or at least how much) they even want to look good.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

WotC is going to WotC. I suppose we should be thankful they didn't jump straight to Pinkertons this time.

And yes, it's a dumb move. Just seeing how full of art the book is now would be a pretty good selling point.

They're still not quite as bad, when it comes down to it, as TSR was back in the day, going after everyone for everything, but they have forgotten the things that they understood about how to do it, back when they were a smaller, forward-thinking company.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well right now the product is not available legally.

No one who pirates now is doing it instead of buying it when they can. It is in addition to, or they never intended to buy it in the first place. Either way, no lost sales.

 

[Micah Sweet]

WotC is going to WotC. I suppose we should be thankful they didn't jump straight to Pinkertons this time.

You might think that showing people just how full of art the book is would be a pretty cool move. That was my main takeaway from those videos, not the urge to print out fuzzy screenshots.

From what I've heard, art seems to be one of the main things they're trying to hide, which is funny as it's the part that would suffer most from a bad scan.

 

[DarkCrisis]

We forgive you, King.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is so ridiculous. Why does WotC insist on cutting off their nose to spite their face? If someone is going to buy 5.5, they will. If they aren't, they won't. If anything showing most or all of the book would encourage people to buy it if they like what they see.

It is truly incredible. They could literally have reached out to these people and asked them, and at worst threatened a copyright strike, but nope, they go straight for it. Absolutely idiotic behaviour that makes them look like complete twerps and kind of dim-witted when they should be getting a big win from their new book.

Heck, low-medium quality scans will appear as soon as GenCon wraps up, so this seems like negative press for almost no gain.

Exactly! Why even bother? 99% of people will buy the physical book or the Beyond (or other VTT) version or both anyway! And those who are going to steal it will steal it, just like they do every time a physical book comes out!

Absolute nose-cutting.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Nothing about this makes WotC look good. Sometimes I wonder whether or not (or at least how much) they even want to look good.

I think that they probably have someone at (or near) the top that just gets really enraged about things like "Why can that store sell a Magic Card for after market prices and not us!?" and "What if someone - anyone - makes money using MY, uh, OUR product!?"

"All our profitz are belong to uz!"

 

[Morrus]

From what I've heard, art seems to be one of the main things they're trying to hide

From what you've heard? What have you heard?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

No one who pirates now is doing it instead of buying it when they can. It is in addition to, or they never intended to buy it in the first place. Either way, no lost sales.

Have you seen the scalpers selling the GenCon PHB on Ebay? They go for around $175 - the highest I saw being around $300.

 

[Micah Sweet]

From what you've heard? What have you heard?

At least one of the reviewers (or maybe it was just a comment here) suggested they were trying to hide the art from people who hadn't bought it, at least the art they haven't explicitly previewed.

Huge grain of salt on that. Not saying it's true.