UPDATE: YouTube Channel Crash

Over the Memorial Day Weekend, Stan!'s YouTube Channel crashed. Here's what's going on, and what it means for the show.

As many of you have noticed, Stan!’s YouTube channel (which hosts the 50 Years in the Dungeon archive) crashed and became completely inaccessible. Unfortunately, Stan! was at a convention (the amazing MisCon in Missoula, MT) when this happened, and of course it was the Memorial Day Weekend … so we are only now beginning to take actions to resolve (and hopefully reverse) the situation. For the sake of transparency, and to properly set your understanding and expectations about what’s to come next, we offer the following detailed description.

TLDR: Because of copyright infringement charges against postings on a different channel that Stan! hosts, his whole account was pulled. We have strong reasons to believe that YouTube will reverse this action once the proper appeals have been filed.

The Sumo Show

Along with his gaming and cartooning content, for the past two years Stan! has been the host of a livestreaming podcast about the art and sport of Japanese Grand Sumo, called simply enough The Sumo Show. It began as part of his main YouTube channel, but got moved over to a dedicated Sumo Show channel about six months ago.

In the process of commenting on the news, events, and history of the sport, the show often made use of footage from videos posted on other YouTube channels as well as other video serving sites around the Internet. This footage often was copyright NHK (Japan’s national broadcasting network) and usually was used without the network’s knowledge or consent.

Because The Sumo Show was not simply re-airing the original material, but used it in a transformative way for the process of commenting on and educating the English-speaking about the history, rules, and current status of the sport, Stan! and his partners believed that the show was well within the boundaries of fair use. But NHK (the proper and lawful copyright holders) apparently disagreed.

The Take Down

Last Thursday, just before Stan! headed out the door to attend MisCon, he received notice that NHK had filed a copyright claim against three episodes of the The Sumo Show, constituting one “strike.” When a channel gets three copyright “strikes,” it is shut down by YouTube.

By the time he arrived and checked into the hotel, twenty more copyright claims had been filed, and three “strikes” had been assessed. The Sumo Show was taken down. What’s more, there was a notice that when a channel gets shut down, any connected channel or account could ALSO be shut down.

In the hotel room, Stan! used YouTube’s phone app to go into the channel that houses the 50 Years in the Dungeon archive and remove more than 80 videos that had anything to do with sumo (most of which contained absolutely no NHK-owned material), just to be safe and show good faith.

Unfortunately, the next morning Stan! received notification that his entire account had been taken down … resulting in the current state where all of the 50 Years in the Dungeon episodes are no longer viewable on YouTube.

What Comes Next?

Stan! has met with a PR consultant who is familiar with situations like this and has in the past successfully gotten them resolved in way that has the original account and unoffending channel reinstated. According to this consultant, there is a strong case here, and good reason to believe that Stan! will be successful in attempts to file for reinstatement.

The proper paperwork has been filed … so currently all there is to do is wait … and refile the paperwork (or take further requested actions) based on what comes back from YouTube. This situation could be resolved in a week or two … or it could take significantly longer. There’s really no telling. The ball is in YouTube’s court.

If in the end YouTube decides not to reinstate the original account/channel, Stan! will create a new account and launch a new channel where he will upload videos of all 50 Years in the Dungeon episodes. But for now the smart play is just to be patient and let the appeals process play out.

Episode 17 and Beyond

This week’s show (episode 17, featuring an interview with artist and game designer Jeff Dee) was pre-recorded a few weeks ago … but unfortunately, because of its more-than-ninety-minute length, YouTube is about the only place that Stan! can easily upload it. So we will have to wait until this situation is resolved before it can be seen.

If the matter has not been resolved by this time next week, episode 18 will stream live … just not on YouTube. You’ll be able to watch it live on FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Twitch … and the replay should be available on FaceBook (as most episodes are).

Thank You for Your Support

Your support for and encouragement regarding this project has been humbling, and we have every intent of seeing it through to celebrate the WHOLE YEAR of D&D’s 50th anniversary. Exactly what that will look like is currently up in the air … but our dedication to the project as a whole is unflagging.

Look for more update posts as information comes clear … and, of course, more weekly interviews and cartoon homages from the people who brought D&D to life.