Infringement

Why I will be boycotting SEGA games from now on

I am (or rather was) the biggest Sega fanboy out there. I’ve been following and buying their games for well over two decades and never did I believe the day would come when I would eventually turn on my beloved, but sadly that day has come. Sega, for all their past accomplishments have simply become a shadow of their former selves, and it’s after the recent and unprovoked take-down of not only mine, but many other Youtubers’ videos either relating to Shining Force 3 or Shining The Holy Ark (mine being a retrospective) and subsequent strike against my channel, that this has come to the fore.

The strike against my brand new channel

My love and devotion to Sega is now no more. It’s gone, kaput! Bam! however you want to say it. Many of the greats within their various divisions have long since left – Yuji Naka, Yu Suzuki, Tetsuya Mizuguchi the list goes on and on, and they are merely a shell of their former selves. Prior to the release of Sega’s Dreamcast, I campaigned outside Sony Europe’s head office stayed out for hours on end for the midnight launch of the Sega Dreamcast one October morning, got beaten up by a whole host of guys in the school playground over my love of the pathetic Sega who was just totally uncool – you f*cking name it! But after all of this, what has made this decision even easier to make is what many people have now concluded about why Sega initiated this action against a loyal fan base.

Supposedly Sega were going to release a game called ‘Shining Ark‘ and because they didn’t want online searches pointing towards their previous ‘Shining The Holy Ark‘ released on the Sega Saturn in 97, they simply decided to falsely flag any of those videos that contained the words ‘Shining’ and ‘Ark’ as well it seems any Shining Force 3 videos for copyright infringement. A number of channels have now been shut down because of Sega of Japan’s actions.

This however is just part of it because unbelievably, Sega have even gone to the effort of flagging videos where it simply showed fans of the Shining series ‘talking’ about the game; regardless of whether or not the video featured in-game footage/music or not – it was taken down and strikes issued. This in my eyes is simply illegal, and I no longer want to support such a company that goes about conducting such practices.

So I ask everyone to take heed and to boycott all and I mean ALL of Sega’s forthcoming games – the forthcoming Aliens Colonial Marines, any TOTAL War game, any retro games they release – anything! until they realise that they cannot continue to go about doing this and to get away with illegal activities.  Sadly even TotalBiscuit has also been affected though I feel that were it not for such a high profile inclusion, this news story wouldn’t have reached as many people as it has done. Join the anti-Sega bandwagon guys!

There was one time EA laughed at Sega for their misfortune and I bitterly resented their comments, but now I am inclined to agree with them for they deserve everything they get. I just hope the end comes sooner rather than later, so that we can bring an end to this farce that calls itself ‘Sega’.

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Edit: Sega have seemingly reinstated my video as of the 7th of November 2012. I’ll be posting a follow-up soon as more news transpires.

Further Edit as of March 21st 2013:

Sega have apologised. Please refer to the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDUJIgEGWiA

Sega go berserk on Youtube copyright claims (part 2)

Hi everyone. Some nitpicking I know, but I have just had some time to read some details from the following website regarding the issue in which it states:

The legality of video game footage has never really been established – if you pay close attention to what’s written in instruction manuals and along the rim of some game discs…

“Unauthorized copying, reverse engineering, transmission, public performance, rental, pay for play, or circumvention of copy protection is strictly prohibited.”
– Sonic Generations game disc (emphasis mine)

The thing with this is that according to my Shining The Holy Ark disc which happens to be the content I had used for my retrospective video that was taken down by Sega (and yes I continue to attribute these take-downs to Sega as it was done in their name and until they can prove that it was anyone other than themselves), says the following:  “Unauthorised copying, rental and/or transmission is strictly prohibited”, and says nothing about ‘public performance’ as mentioned above.

Here’s some screenshots of my copy of the European version of the game that I used in my video (that once again was taken down by Sega):

What’s your views on this? I know some have had their video(s) taken down for just ‘talking’ (yes you read that correctly) talking about the Shining series. Indeed the Shining series, Sega’s IPs and indeed Sega themselves, are in danger of becoming synonymous with Communist enforcement and totalitarianism!

U.S copy (mobygames) has the ‘public performance’ notice at the bottom.

Sega go berserk on Youtube copyright claims

I recently had my video taken down by someone with a Sega of Japan email address. In fact here’s a screenshot of someone else’s copyright notice for a better idea before we start:

Now you may be thinking to yourself that I was being a very naughty boy to have gotten a copyright notice from Sega, because to get such a thing was a very rare occurrence – or so I thought.

Anyway I began to do some research on this issue without actually ‘reviewing’ my video, and came across some discussions over at the Shining Force Central forums.

Further to this TotalBiscuit became involved – if you’re a fan of Shining on the Sega Saturn you will no doubt have come across TotalBiscuit’s/Totalhalibut’s awesome video coverage. Here were some of his tweets on the subject on November 20th 2012:

Now what was surprising was that Sega had been going about flagging ANY video related to the Shining Force series regardless of its content; whether it was a Let’s Play, Review or just video footage of one of the games, they were flagged and swiftly taken off by Youtube.

Upon noticing this, I went back over to my video and remembered (yes I forget what my videos are about most of the time) that my video was not only about Shining The Holy Ark, but that it had been a retrospective – or a review speaking retrospectively!! Now I have been a lifetime supporter of Sega and have written many an article praising their name (even getting into scraps at school defending their honor when they continued to cock up time and time again – thanks for that).

I think my affections for them will be coming to an end very soon if this isn’t resolved and the strike not only against mine, but other peoples’ channels are not removed.

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Why I will be boycotting SEGA games from now on

Sega go berserk on Youtube copyright claims (part 2)