Naughty Dog and Sony have been criticized heavily in the last week for their copyright system abuse surrounding “The Last of Us: Part II” leaks. While the two companies are trying to take down videos or other media that simply talk about the recent leaks, some creators are still emerging victorious despite the companies’ efforts.
Last week, we reported about how Sony was abusing the DMCA system to strike YouTubers and Twitter users to get their content taken down. In many cases, Sony wasn’t even targeting those videos that contained any visual material from the leaked cutscenes of the upcoming The Last of Us sequel, they were also striking and flagging videos that were just talking about the leaks.
More shockingly, YouTuber Mara Jade of the Jade Shadow channel recently got struck by Sony with a copyright notice for a video in which she discussed Sony’s copyright system abuses.
Jade recently uploaded a video on May 4th where she spoke about the copyright abuse by Sony and Naughty Dog. The video got removed from YouTube on grounds of copyright violations.
While Jade simply read an article about Sony and Naughty Dog abusing the copyright system and crushing any dissent against their doings, her video was taken down by a copyright strike, quite ironically. Jade naturally went on to release another video about the whole fiasco here:
The overreach when it comes to striking and removing videos has led many to believe that Sony and Naughty Dog are no longer just trying to prevent leaks from spreading about the upcoming game, they’re actively trying to suppress any criticism leveled against them.
The leaks of the TLOU2 have revealed an unpopular narrative and agenda for the upcoming sequel to the much-beloved original and the community has not just been talking about the leaks themselves, they’ve been talking about the way Naughty Dog appears to have turned the series into a train-wreck.
Some are now starting to believe that Sony and Naughty Dog want to reduce animosity towards the game in an attempt to still ensure strong sales and pre-orders. The developers are going to want people to have already purchased the game before they find out they’ve driven the franchise off a cliff.
But, as mentioned above, there are some cases where creators, who were unfairly targeted with copyright claims, got their content restored. One such example is Mr H Reviews.
One of his videos was removed from YouTube after being struck with a copyright strike. Nonetheless, he challenged the wrongful claim and emerged victorious temporarily before being struck later with another claim from another representative company.
We also have the channel HeelVsBabyFace, managing to fight the unfair copyright takedown and get a video takedown reversed. However, at the time that he announced this, the video was still claimed by Sony, even though the video was restored.
While at least some of these wrongful claims are eventually getting reversed, it’s not until after Sony has already caused trouble for the creators, affecting their channels, wasting their time, and putting their livelihoods at risk.
It’s clear that Sony and Naughty Dog are in no way interested in restoring any trust with the community.
