Looks like YouTube terminated both the Cinemassacre and JamesNintendoNerd accounts just now.

Wow...

lol

Why?

Anybody know what happened?

Welp.

For what?

Damn. Wonder what happened

That guy did very good work and was quite knowledgeable about those old shitty games.

This is vaguely upsetting news.

Geez. I bet that's going to be a long day trying to get that all sorted out.

Was the guy like well regarded or something...?

Was the guy like well regarded or something...?

As of January 7, 2013, his Youtube account had been closed due to "repeated or severe violations of YouTube Terms of Service".

What the fuck.

@Humanity said:

That guy did very good work and was quite knowledgeable about those old shitty games.

i've always liked the nerd

Well, it states "repeated violations" and since the primary violation would be copyright infringement, that's probably it.

Mind you, there doesn't have to be any actual infringement involved. Even content used entirely as fair-use (news, commentary, review, educational, covers, etc) is fair-game, if someone wants to file a claim against you. It's used as a way to regularly harass people online -- including youtube. So, that would be my guess. There's little you can do to fight it traditionally (at youtube, at least), because they didn't involve actual DMCA complaints which you could then file a response to and eventually take to court. Unfortunately, even if the process is followed through (as I think it is now?), following through to counter a DMCA complaint (if you counter-file and then that person pushes it) can become an expensive and complex battle. Fair-use is an actual right, but it is incredibly fucking hard to defend.

In other words, your online content (especially on sites like youtube) exist entirely at the whim and discretion of copyright holders. Or, for that matter, people who aren't copyright holders and just want to harass you. Welcome to modern day copyright, kids! :D

YouTube is completely ridiculous about those rules anyway. If you upload a clip to your personal account with gameplay footage you are not eligible to monetize that footage by putting up ads on it. If you take, same exactly video, and add a voice over even if it has nothing to do with anything then everything is absolutely ok. It's a little ridiculous that someone who edits a video for hours and put in a ton of effort cannot make money of it but someone who streams raw footage with a narration about his latest trip to the supermarket is in the right. This probably has something to do with intricate copyright laws that I'm not familiar with but it's still pretty dumb.

I'm thinking..
1) Sega ShiningForce'd the account based on other Sega titles
2) Random third party claims triggered auto-termination
3) They did not read the monetization fine print properly - I'm not touching that unless I make a new account and do nothing but my own music on it

Well that sucks and his movie was just about to come out. Was one of the original "quick lookers" on Youtube.

Despite not being a fan, I find this a bit ridiculous on YouTubes part.

Copyright laws need a fucking rewrite.

Well that's just completely stupid but then I have gametrailers.com whenever I want to watch more AVGN.

It's ironic that YouTube will probably cause it's own downfall. From the sickening amount of ads that have infested it over the past few years to some bizarre actions against well known YouTubers, it's amazing it hasn't already fallen apart.

@SomeJerk said:

3) They did not read the monetization fine print properly - I'm not touching that unless I make a new account and do nothing but my own music on it

What's fucked up is that even if you did that, you could still get taken down by copyright infringement. Although small chance, but it happens.

That's depressing, James Rolfe is a really cool and nice dude. I wish someone like pewdiepie had been randomly hit with copyright violations instead.

Youtube.com keyword quality.

People can make false claims against accounts all day long and it's a real bitch to appeal.

@Cold_Wolven said:

Well that's just completely stupid but then I have gametrailers.com whenever I want to watch more AVGN.

You could also go to his very own website at www.cinemassacre.com. He's got lots of other cool stuff on that website too.

This sure does suck though.. I was a subscriber of his on youtube for a while.

@SomeJerk said:

3) They did not read the monetization fine print properly - I'm not touching that unless I make a new account and do nothing but my own music on it

What's fucked up is that even if you did that, you could still get taken down by copyright infringement. Although small chance, but it happens.

I seem to remember something like this happening a few years ago with him? So maybe that's what it means by 'repeated', super dumb either way if its anything to do with copyright violation.

Think you guys may be blowing it out of proportion. Probably a misunderstanding. Another person got their account "terminated" before...a guy that is very well-known and runs a highly respectable non-profit foundation. His account is back up (this was a while ago tho).

Regardless the James guy barely posts anything on the AVGN channel. His friend, Mike, is the one that posts stuff. He put a video up yesterday... was a review of Dark Souls. Guess that triggered it perhaps. Or maybe his account got reported a bunch because of all the whiny children. Everyone hates on Mike since he is the main person running the channel and not James.

I'm sure it will be fixed in no time. Everything on the youtube channel plus more is on Cinemassacre.com anyway.

@SomeJerk: Good Luck with even that I've heard of people who upload original tracks only to be harassed by companies by universal claiming they were in copyright violation. Its a lose lose scenario for YouTube people.

I blame SEGA Japan.

LJN came back to terminate him.

Well that's sad to hear, he had quite a few enjoyable video's.

@SomeJerk said:

I just looked into things and the main AVGN account made a real nice amount of cash every day

I should really get around to quitting my job and becoming an internet celebrity.

Should really wait for the facts to be released before starting a witch hunt.

So much apathy in here. If youtube keeps this channel down on TOS/Copyright violations, a channel which does critical reviews on video games, the internet truly has gone to shit. Or perhaps "critical reviews" is something only big companies like CBS should be allowed to do and perhaps they should pay in order to do them? or hey here's a good idea, maybe only companies themselves should be allowed to review their own products, because otherwise it's copyright infringement right? Will have to keep an eye on this... Hopefully the channel will return shortly.

@alternate said:

Should really wait for the facts to be released before starting a witch hunt.

^this

@SomeJerk: Good Luck with even that I've heard of people who upload original tracks only to be harassed by companies by universal claiming they were in copyright violation. Its a lose lose scenario for YouTube people.

@Branthog said:

Mind you, there doesn't have to be any actual infringement involved.

And it doesn't even have to be filed by the party infringed upon; a lot of these complaints are filed by bots set to trigger on certain terms, even if they have nothing to do with the material they're supposed to be protecting.

False DMCA claims are everywhere on YouTube. Generally not even made by actual corporations, but by people who disagree or dislike the author and abuse automated systems.

Stole this from NeoGAF:

Mike Matei

JANUARY 8, 2013 AT 4:21 AM

Okay, I just saw that this happened. I am contacting the appropriate people and will have the account restored asap. Not sure what happened yet.

@Video_Game_King said:

@Branthog said:

Mind you, there doesn't have to be any actual infringement involved.

And it doesn't even have to be filed by the party infringed upon; a lot of these complaints are filed by bots set to trigger on certain terms, even if they have nothing to do with the material they're supposed to be protecting.

I'm not sure if that's the case with Youtube or not. With torrents and many other things (even just files sitting on FTP servers) that happens all the time. I know what happens with Youtube a ridiculous amount of the time is that the digital fingerprint of copyrighted content is detected within other people's videos, when it's used in an ENTIRELY FAIR USE context.

And, of course, people just being a nuisance. To file a DMCA complaint, you have to be the person infringed upon or someone legally authorized to represent them, but very often it's used by strangers to harass someone (or competitors to harass someone).

All these years later, the DMCA continues to be one of the shittiest pieces of legislation, ever.

It's back up.

Yep... what a surprise.... not... this was nothing.

Not enough drama.

I think AVGN is pretty bad, but James Rolfe is an intelligent guy, who puts a lot of heart into his videos. It's so gross that youtube takes some of the most popular individuals on their site, people who were basically the reason that the site ever thrived in the first place, and takes a giant shit on them in favor of giant corporations' whims. It's just sad what that site has turned into, plastered in ads, all the most popular videos released by companies instead of spirited individuals, strict control over content, seriously, just what the fuck? That being said, I'm sure this situation will resolve itself before long.