PewDiePie - troll, racist, both?

[garbon]

PewDiePie did nothing wrong.

Paying poor people to do awful things is generally considered reprehensible.

[Phillip V]

Glad to see "PewDiePie" downfall.  Annoying name and ugly boy.

[garbon]

So I guess we have an answer.

http://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/news/pewdiepie-streams-racist-slur-prompts-dmca-threat-w502231

Pewdiepie Streams Racist Slur, Prompts DMCA Threat from Gamemaker

Popular YouTuber called another player the n-word while streaming

A gamemaker says it is filing a takedown notice for all videos featuring its current and future creations by popular YouTuber Felix "Pewdiepie" Kjellberg, after the livestreamer was caught using a racist slur during a weekend gameplay session.

One of the founders of independent developer Campo Santo tweeted over the weekend that he will be filing the DMCA takedown notice for any videos Pewdiepie uploaded of its current game, Firewatch, and any future projects the studio releases.

Glixel reached out to Pewdiepie, Campo Santo and the publisher and creator of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds but have not received responses at this time.

Pewdiepie has YouTube's current most popular channel with over 57 million subscribers and more than 14 billion views. Quickly gaining popularity around 2011, a lot of his content is based around "Let's Plays," videos where a personality plays through a game while offering their own commentary. Pewdiepie is known for his over-the-top attitude, irreverent jokes and goofy behavior. However, despite his large platform and popularity with children, Pewdiepie has previously found himself in hot water over making off-color jokes about mental illness, nazism and race.

One of his most contentious issues came when he uploaded a video of two men holding up a sign reading "Death to all Jews." After the video caused massive controversy, Disney cancelled its planned reality show with Pewdiepie, saying "he clearly went too far in this case and the resulting videos are inappropriate."

While streaming PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds over the weekend, Pewdiepie called another player a racial slur saying, "What a fucking n---er." Quickly realizing what he's said, Pewdiepie appears to backpedal, laughing, apologizing and saying instead, "What a fucking asshole. ... I don't mean that in a bad way."

In the wake of these comments, Sean Vanaman, co-founder of Campo Santo, tweeted that the developer would be filing a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown of all current and future videos Pewdiepie uploads of its games.

"There is a bit of leeway you have to have with the internet when u wake up every day and make video games," he wrote. "There's also a breaking point. I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make. He's worse than a closeted racist: he's a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry."

Vanaman goes on to urge other developers to take similar strides, and says he will be contacting "folks much larger than us to cut him off from the content that has made him a millionaire."

The DMCA protects digital copyrighted work from infringement. While technically streaming and monetizing a game for a personality's own gain is copyright infringement, streamers are often allowed to do so as they please by publishers and developers because it's seen as free publicity for a game. In fact, Campo Santo has a page dedicated to information for people interested in streaming their game. On that page, the developer says they welcome livestreaming and that people can make money off of those streams. Something the developer appears to be rescinding in Pewdiepie's case.

Michael Lee, founding partner at law firm Morrison & Lee LLP who specializes in video games and law, reiterated that a DMCA can legitimately be used to shut down streamed video game content for copyright infringement.

"Ideas are not protected under copyright but the expression of an idea is," Lee tells Glixel in an email interview. "Therefore, many parts of a video game are protected under copyright including the look of the game, the dialogue, and the music. The DMCA permits copyright owners to issue takedown requests of people infringing the copyright to a game. Technically, video game companies can issue takedown requests for any gameplay that is posted online and companies like Nintendo have done this in the past. However, companies have gotten a lot of bad feedback from issuing takedown requests and usually don't do so. Besides bad feedback, playthroughs drive a lot of new people to a game and therefore it acts as a promotion for the game. I, like many people, don't buy a video game until I see some of it played online."
While a developer has the right to file a DMCA to prevent the use of their content in ways they don't like, Lee says that means it can also be used in ways that aren't beneficial to consumers.

"A person can do and say whatever they want but it is the copyright owner's decision whether to shut that down," Lee says. "Unfortunately, the DMCA has been used to stop criticism and negative comments about the underlying work but technically this is allowable under the DMCA. Also a major consideration is fair use, using a portion of a video could be considered fair use but fair use is a decision left to a judge and jury and its a long and expensive road to get there."

...

I didn't mean the n-word in a bad way...

[DGuller]

As loathsome as this streamer is, selectively enforcing copyright claims seems like a really bad precedent, especially retroactively.  If you let him stream without enforcing it, it should be treated as an implicit permission. 

The slippery slope here is that publishers can use their selective copyright enforcement to pressure the streamers to say good things about their games, much like they used ad dollars to buy good reviews in traditional gaming publications.

[Jacob]

I don't see how a takedown notice creates a slippery slope. They're saying, we let you get away with it until now - but now stop. They're not, afaik, suing him from damages or anything like that.

I mean, you can disagree with the idea of takedown notices and what constitutes fair use, but I don't see anything particularly slippery about a situation that's "if you use our copyrighted material to make money in a way that we find harmless or beneficial, we don't mind - but if you use our copyrighted material in a way that tarnishes our brand, damages our industry, or has social consequences we disapprove of, we will mind and thus we will use legal remedies to stop you."

[The Brain]

I could be convinced otherwise by any strong arguments I'm not aware of right now, but I don't see a problem with companies copyright shutting down people who cease to be an asset to the brand. If you require copyright holders to immediately (within a reasonable but still limited time) "speak now or forever hold their peace" then that opens up for all kinds of abuse. Non-enforcement should be viewed as implicit permission (within reason regarding response time etc) but I don't see a problem with permission being revoked. Back in the day you knew that for many games magazines there was a "big release - big score" principle based on ad revenue and similar, without it being a biggie. As long as people don't fuck over their customers too much and you enter fraud territory or similar a light hand seems appropriate. And unlike the poor guys who bought the games magazines streamers' viewers aren't their customers, the viewers typically pay nada just like for normal ads.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Agreed.

Apart from anything else I would want firms to retain flexibility, otherwise they would have to shutdown everyone preemptively.

[Grey Fox]

I mean, you can disagree with the idea of takedown notices and what constitutes fair use, but I don't see anything particularly slippery about a situation that's "if you use our copyrighted material to make money in a way that we find harmless or beneficial, we don't mind - but if you use our copyrighted material in a way that tarnishes our brand, damages our industry, or has social consequences we disapprove of, we will mind and thus we will use legal remedies to stop you."

That's the slope.

[HVC]

Racist pie isn't a  reviewer or critic, as far as i know, he uses someone else product to make money, so i'm ok with companies wanting to distance themselves from him and others who they disagree with.

If they start going after reviewers and critics that's another issue.

[The Brain]

If you rely on using copyrighted material that goes beyond fair use or similar then maybe you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you.

My guess is that many companies won't think it's good for their business to shut down reviewers.

[The Minsky Moment]

The problem with using selective takedowns based on content, is that it can create an expectation that the company is monitoring for content more generally and it opens them up to criticism (and potential liability) for e.g. not taking down something else. 

[mongers]

The problem with using selective takedowns based on content, is that it can create an expectation that the company is monitoring for content more generally and it opens them up to criticism (and potential liability) for e.g. not taking down something else.

Yeah those guys, crunchy, napoleon, ank and VM could be in big trouble.

[Malthus]

Haha! JK LOL! You can't take a joke! Why so serious? <FAT PERSON PICTURE HERE>

I am glad we don't get any of that here on Languish.

Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

I haven't followed the Swede enough to give an in depth opinion, but IMHO, if you keep making racist remarks, at some point it doesn't matter if you joke or not, you'll just come off as a racist.

Alternatively, who cares if he actually holds racist views? We know he sets out to be offensive. Not sure being deliberately offensive about racism is any better than being sincerely racist.

[Jacob]

That's the slope.

How is that a slope? It's a clear binary.

What's the predicted negative outcome that's magnitudes worse than what we initially accept?

[Jacob]

The problem with using selective takedowns based on content, is that it can create an expectation that the company is monitoring for content more generally and it opens them up to criticism (and potential liability) for e.g. not taking down something else.

For sure, but I'd think that's a PR problem for the individual company to manage rather than a legal issue.