According to a number of sources, including Youtube personalities such as TotalBiscuit and Jim Sterling of Escapist fame, videos for the newly released Shadow of Mordor game are being systematically removed or having their monetisation options blocked. The fault, once again lies, with DMCA copyright claims. Big surprise…

Now game releases like this often have a wave of DMCA claimed videos in the first few weeks as the automatic process is over-vigilant and it’s often soon sorted out to the satisfaction of all (i.e. most companies realise that the videos are great promotion and release the claims). What makes this one so different is that we’re hearing that for some reason or other, videos made by people who entered into a promotional deal with the game’s development company, Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment (WB Games), have not had their videos affected in any way.

There had already previously been a bit of a kerfuffle over the fact that only those Youtubers who would accept the deal would get review copies, and not every reviewer who wanted to play and review the game for their work. If the part about the content creators with deals not being hit by this is true then the waters have just gotten a bit murkier.

It is assumed that the claims are being made on the assumption that WB Games have registered the game’s cutscenes with the Content ID system, and the system is just working as intended (as it always is). The problem is that cutscenes are part of the gameplay in such a genre as Shadow of Mordor belongs to, so cutting them out can lead to a jump between points which doesn’t look terribly professional from a video-making standpoint.

As of time of writing though, WB Games has yet to make a comment about the situation so all speculation and rumor for the moment. Updates will follow when or if the information comes to light.