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."

​

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.

 

[Eric V]

Well at this rate, Blocker Boy is going to be talking to himself.

About how nothing is ever WotC's fault.

 

[dbolack]

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!

That seems ridiculous for someone to do and I say that as someone with a hardbound copy of Feast of Legends.

 

[Mistwell]

That is incorrect in Jorphdan’s case. I watched the video. He showed portions of the book as he was reading it but never the entire book and flipped through it in a manner that no one could read the entire book. He did not go page by page. There were whole portions he skipped over.

He had a 3.5 hour video, and did in fact display around 85% of the pages. It was not in order, but it was a huge portion of the book. I know, I watched it all, and I included some screenshots of some rules right here in this forum from his video. Yes he skipped some, but it was only a few pages here and there. There isn't any whole section he skipped in the entire book. I recall being frustrated there was I think only one page of spells he skipped, and it was a page I wanted to see

 

[Minigiant]

Based on their actions in times where they've been (theoretically) fully staffed up, I'd argue it's unlikely that this has to do with senior staff being missing and more an issue of an organization run poorly regardless of their headcount or quality of employees.

Classic Big Government or Big Corporate departments not talking to each other before acting and management not giving those under them clear instructions.

Ask most people who worked for either of the worldwide disaster of a few years ago.

 

[Corinnguard]

About how nothing is ever WotC's fault.

To quote BW Megatron: "I like to have intelligent conversations with myself. Yes..."

 

[MarkB]

I think WotC backed themselves into a corner on this one. Although DnDShorts was the only one who'd violated a specific agreement, if they'd had his video taken down while still allowing other similar page-throughs to stay up, they'd have really looked like they were targeting him specifically, especially with the history of bad blood.

 

[Blue]

Perhaps I am one of only a few who find it odd that anyone would think that being delivered an early version of a book for promotional purposes would entitle that person to systematically reveal many pages of the book in video or photographic format?

I recall Wizards of the Coast making the barebones of fifth edition D&D rules available for free online back in 2014, which seemed extraordinary to me. I also recall that same company making whole cloth adventures available for free in 2020 as gift to the community when many people were shut in. These are extraordinary efforts of community engagement. Perhaps they have set up the community here to be unreasonably expectant of free deliveries and gifts?

Okay, you're wandering away from reality, let's restart. Wizards reached out to certain influencers, gave them early PDF copies of the PHB, and asked them to talk about it.

This isn't some "oh, maybe the community has some wrong expectations", this is "Wizards not just allowed but specifically asked them to, and enabled them to with the early copies so they could create it ahead of time". Let's start their as their base.

We know from our own SlyFlourish that there were not these restrictions on the videos beforehand. So creators put their time into creating videos at the express behest of Wizard's, and then at best find out that there are additional rules they didn't tell you which may require redoing part of your video, and at worst go directly to a copyright strike (luckily since reversed) that can get the entire channel banned without even speaking to the content creator. That's threatening someone's livelihood directly, it's not just a "it would be nice".

Could someone point me to a different publisher who would not respond with a request that copyright material be removed from an Internet platform?

Since the publisher specifically asked these people to do videos, I would say EVERY SINGLE ONE.

It strikes me as common sense that a publisher would not want the contents of its book revealed online.

Again, your "common sense" is directly against wshat the publisher asked them to do, so is not just suspect but proveably completely wrong. Also look at the large number of games that have SRDs out there under OGL, CC, and other licenses, even ENWorld Publishing's Level Up. Sorry, you're accelerating away from the actual situation and trying to call that common sense.

 

[Corinnguard]

I think WotC backed themselves into a corner on this one. Although DnDShorts was the only one who'd violated a specific agreement, if they'd had his video taken down while still allowing other similar page-throughs to stay up, they'd have really looked like they were targeting him specifically, especially with the history of bad blood.

So, he put them in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' position.

 

[MockingBird]

Stephen Glicker had a good video on this subject. Basically he suspects it was a miss communication between everyone. He kinda faults all sides. It's unfortunate really.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think WotC backed themselves into a corner on this one. Although DnDShorts was the only one who'd violated a specific agreement, if they'd had his video taken down while still allowing other similar page-throughs to stay up, they'd have really looked like they were targeting him specifically, especially with the history of bad blood.

i do not think it was anything as thought out as that, this was clearly a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. I listened to most of Slyflourish's Lazy RPG Talk show this evening and he was contacted about the video and then had to wait to for quite a while for clarifications on what to change on his video.
This strikes me that WoTC really did not have all their ducks in a row here.