Bungie "aware" of Destiny fan video takedowns
"These actions are NOT being taken at the request of Bungie."
Bungie has responded to reports of Destiny fan content being removed from YouTube due to copyright claims.
Channels impacted by the claims include those which host music tracks from the series, as well as popular story explanation videos from Destiny loremaster Byf, who uses Destiny soundtracks as background music.
In a statement posted to Twitter last night, Bungie said it was aware of the takedowns - and that some of its own videos had also been impacted.
"We're aware of a series of copyright takedowns on YouTube and we're actively investigating. This includes content on our own Bungie channels," the developer wrote.
"These actions are NOT being taken at the request of Bungie or our partners. Please standby for future updates."
Responding to Bungie, video game industry lawyer Richard Hoeg questioned some of the wording in Bungie's statement.
"Not at your 'request'?" Hoeg asked. "Did you or did you not authorise and/or instruct a third party to police copyright infringement on one or more platforms?"
The suggestion is that Bungie may not have asked for specific, impacted videos to be targeted - but that someone linked to Bungie may still have been behind the takedowns.
Bungie's tweet also points to its legal and intellectual property guidelines, which states an 80/20 policy for fan-made videos.
"Players may create videos using Destiny gameplay, which may be uploaded to third party sharing services like YouTube," the guidelines state. "If a chosen video-on-demand service enables players to monetize content, we will generally not request takedown if at least 20 percent of the content within the video has been created by the player.
"Examples of what 'player created content' may be defined as include custom commentary, animations, graphics, or gameplay. Conversely, please do not upload Bungie trailers or cutscenes with mere advertisement(s) or borders that take up 20 percent of the screen or 20 percent of the runtime. Content creators should use our stuff to make their own stuff, rather than uploading our content to their own channels."
Hoeg stated that this policy left "content creators especially vulnerable to this kind of action" - even if the current strikes are accidental, or a very heavy-handed viewing of the rules by the party which may have enforced them.
We'll update when we hear more from Bungie.