One of the biggest stories to happen in the online gaming community in the last few days has been the debacle of the 'Content ID claim wave' currently going down right now on Youtube. Hundreds of videos have already been flagged, mainly it seems for music and sound matching third-party claims, blocking them in many countries and having a massive effect on content creators, some even belonging to one of Youtube's many partner programs who are meant to stop this sort of thing happening to the people they sign up.
User AngryJoeShow, a content creator who belongs to prominent gaming network Polaris, itself a sub-network of partner giant Maker Studios is among the people who have been hit with the new sweep and true to his name... he wasn't happy.
To summarise, in the video Joe accuses Youtube and Google of literally 'screwing' the content creators now that they have made the company an awful lot of money. Given that he is one of many people who are literally making their living by uploading videos reviewing the content that is now being claimed, and that he is within Polaris who should be offering him protection from this sort of event his anger seems justified. He also makes the point that if this system is as heavy-hitting as it's seeming to be, it could be very hard for new, smaller gaming channels to get a foothold on Youtube anymore.
However, another Polaris creator, MaskedGamer lays the blame at a different door.
In this video MaskedGamer accuses the same networks that are meant to have protected the people they signed up of being lazy and not managing those they sign up and of greed by signing up loads of small channels just to make money from them. He says that they, Polaris included, have lied to many of the people they've signed up and now are refusing to release the channels because these channels are now locked into contracts that were re-signed mid-2013 and that this is why Youtube have put in place the new system: to force the partner networks into actually doing what they were set up to do in the first place and manage their users' content first and foremost.
Another theory as to why there's been a sudden wave of claims is that the legal troubles between National Music Publishers’ Association and Youtube network Fullscreen has caused Youtube to actually really crack down on this sort of thing.
Outside of Youtube many of the companies supposedly making these claims have come out and replied that they are just as confused as the Youtube users as to why all these claims are being issued, saying that they themselves are not responsible for submitting the claims. A few of them, Blizzard, Ubisoft and Capcom prominently among them, have even posted on their official websites and social network accounts that if one of your videos with a claim contains content from them that you can contact the companies with a link to the video and they will do their best to remove the claims. However although admitting they didn't issue the claims themselves, Nintendo has reportedly been denying claims made on videos containing content from them.
As always the centre of this issue is once again the question of copyright and fair-use laws, and where the line is drawn between the two. It's widely accepted that some of the current law surrounding copyright is in need of revision given the grown of new media and new ways to distribute content. Gaming reviews can be seen as giving promotion to companies and games which are a benefit to the people who make the content, but the question is whether the people doing the reviewing should be able to make money from that. The game reviewing scene right now is quite big and as seen with popular reviewers like TotalBiscuit can make or break a game, and some reviewers have made a career from gaming reviews. Game reviewing like any other business has costs to be covered. What this entire episode demonstrates more than anything else is the need for a safe mid-ground to be agreed which benefits both the companies and the reviewers.