It's Time for Real Change

This Video Is No Longer Available - Angel Star Studios' DMCA Debacle

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1381460/Path_of_the_Martyrs/

Been a while since you've heard from me, but our buddies over at Angel Star Studios have caused me to come crawling out of my hidey hole to talk about them some more, and when I didn't think these guys could pull anymore tricks out of the bag anymore, they somehow continue to amaze me.

If you aren't up to date with everything Angel Star Studios has done so far, feel free to catch up in my previous 2 articles on this publisher.

So a Twitch streamer that I've spoken on/off with for a while by the name of HawkZombie[www.twitch.tv] reached out to me on Twitter via DMs[cdn.discordapp.com] to tell me that he had received a DMCA takedown notice on an old first impressions live stream that he uploaded to YouTube over a year ago on a game called Path of the Martyrs. This is mainly what HawkZombie does, he primarily live streams indie RPG maker games and offers up first impressions critique styled live streams.

Just a real quick explanation on the DMCA takedown process for those unaware: a DMCA takedown is a filing that individuals or companies can make to YouTube if they believe a video is infringing on their copyright material, primarily to be used if someone say uploaded a full movie to YouTube without consent from the copyright holder. Other times, it gets abused, and I'll be using this post to explain why this is an example of DMCA abuse. DMCA abuse is very serious, I'm aware last time I talked about the topic people were saying they were getting sick of it and it was "just the norm" but really it still shouldn't be stood for as channels that receive these types of takedowns, especially channels as small as HawkZombie's who may not be able to make as much noise about it can get them into lots of trouble like having community features stripped from their channels, getting priviliges revoked such as the ability to stream among other things.

What we're dealing with here is ASS not being able to handle critique HawkZombie gave, and I have a plethora of evidence to support this as ASS left so much evidence behind that shows this was targeted towards a video because HawkZombie had some not so nice things to say about the game.

Here's everything[imgur.com] that HawkZombie shared with me related to the takedown that was filed including notices from YouTube stating it was ASS that filed the takedown notice and the reason pertaining to be that ASS owned the copyright of the game and had exclusive rights to show the game on YouTube. ASS is lying and I'll show you exactly why and I feel confident saying it's a lie because, like I said, ASS left plenty of evidence just by themselves to show this to be the case.

Exhibit A

The first is HawkZombie's video itself. Now, while the stream is no longer available to view on YouTube, there is still a VOD[www.twitch.tv] available to view over on Twitch as HawkZombie is a smart guy and keeps all of his videos backed up across two websites rather than putting all his eggs in one basket. If you view the video, it is a very clear example of Fair Use, Fair Use being a legal exemption to using copyrighted material for the purpose of critique or parody among other levels of creative input. Throughout the stream HawkZombie provides critical commentary and its safe to say just on this ground alone that HawkZombie would be covered, but it doesn't stop there, there's more! Before that though, I find it interesting to point out that HawkZombie wasn't just bashing on the game, he gave a fair critique, his Twitch description even summarising his thoughts overall.

Originally posted by HawkZombie:

The game has several interesting concepts (combat, story, etc) but it's all so disjointed and weighed down by other negative aspects of the game, that it doesn't really give any positive a chance to shine. I hope the dev goes back and tries to clean up some of the more glaring issues.

Exhibit B

When HawkZombie messaged me about this, I was wondering if this was just a thing that ASS was going around and doing, removing any and all videos on Path of the Martyrs. Low and behold, they hadn't and HawkZombie just seemed to be an isolated case, as I still found 3 videos on the game up on YouTube still available to watch, one by Mini Weav Games, one by FullThrough, and another by Taregon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhfYdzU-YQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TdOS16xeU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2-DQz2tMEo

The thing is here though, each of these 3 videos are probably less strong examples of fair use than HawkZombie's video and yet they're all still available to watch! Both Mini Weav Games and FullThrough's videos are just gameplay videos with no commentary at all and even more laughably Taregon has literally just reuploaded the trailer for the game and I have checked, this channel isn't run by ASS and I'll hop back to this point in exhibit C. So out of the 4 videos that were available online, the only one that was both a clear example of Fair Use and was also the most critical of the game and the only one that offered up any kind of opinion at all about the game is the only one that got removed. It gets better though.

Exhibit C

So for anyone out there that thought "well, maybe ASS didn't see those videos" well then breaking news, they did! Not only did they see the videos, they left positive comments on each one of them. I've compiled an Imgur[imgur.com] album of the comments they made on the videos.

The latter 2 comments put on Taregon's video and Mini Weav Games' video are especially key to this as on Taregon's video, ASS posted:

Originally posted by ASS:

Thanks for showing our game!

E-mail us if you'd like to show off any other of our games -- we'll send you a free copy for the help. :)

Firstly, Taregon was the YouTuber that literally just reposted their trailer. This comment shows that its safe to say ASS doesn't run this channel otherwise they wouldn't have left this kind of comment. A blatent example of copyright infringement as no creative work was offered from Taregon onto the video. But yet ASS don't seem to be bothered here, because it doesn't criticise the game. It's a mindless upload that offers itself as promotion. That's what they want, even offering up free games to the guy. Like, you can't offer up much more endorsement than that. You're rewarding a guy for uploading content that you claim to have exclusive rights to, and instead of DMCAing it like HawkZombie's video, they reward him!

And the comment on Mini Weav Games' video is even better and just puts HawkZombie more in the clear if he hadn't been already.

Originally posted by ASS:

Thanks so much. We offer free copies to streamers if you ever need them :) just ask!

So, unlike the comment on Taregon's video, ASS generalises it and doesn't address MWG directly, but says that they're happy to offer free copies to streamers, carrying a heavy inference that they do this because they want streamers to stream the game. Which is exactly what HawkZombie did and he got his video taken down and his channel was placed in bad standing.

But wait, there's more!

Exhibit D

Over on HawkZombie's end, he went ahead and contacted the developer of Path of the Martyrs to see if he could shed any light on the situation since Hawk was very distrusting on ASS in general and figured he might have better luck with the developer. In the e-mail exchange Hawk got back, not only was the developer not even aware that ASS filed a DMCA takedown[cdn.discordapp.com] but pointed out to Hawk that Hawk's live stream was made before ASS was even brought on as a publisher. The version of the game Hawk played on his livestream was the game's Itchio[kazuki-t126.itch.io] version and ASS was brought on board to help bring the game to Steam. Hawk streamed the game on February 26th 2020. ASS was first contacted and asked to be brought on as a publisher, according to Kazuki Takamura (the developer) on July 19th 2020, almost 5 months later. So HawkZombie did his stream before ASS was even involved in Path of the Martyrs. The developer also gave permission to Hawk to keep his coverage of his other games up on YouTube might I add and even said he liked the stream Hawk did on his game.

All of this, to me, shows that ASS's DMCA is complete and total fucking bullshit. However, unfortunately HawkZombie has told me he doesn't wish to counter claim, because the way the YouTube DMCA system works, HawkZombie needs to give up his personal information to ASS, and he told me:

Originally posted by HawkZombie:

I am pretty confident I can counter it, but I don't want that guy to have my personal info, so I'd rather just quietly share what is going on to anyone who is willing to listen because DMCA takedowns for petty, baseless reasons keep people like me from doing what I love doing: streaming games....I know I would win, but I legitimately don't feel SAFE in fighting it.

Giving ASS's history covered in the previous two posts in this group, along with an old Twitter thread that had surfaced in which some thugs seemingly presenting themselves as "friends" of ASS berated people over e-mail with racist harassment littered with threats of violence to people that criticised them and that combined with a Reddit post made on r/GameDev that criticised them and labelled them as scammers based on prior working experience with them, I think it makes clear why HawkZombie doesn't feel safe in giving personally identifiable information to them.

The comments on the Reddit thread paint a very much darker and bleaker picture of this publisher. He claimed in the emails he sent to me that I was disliked in his circles, but he doesn't seem too self aware about how his reputation is growing to be more and more negative:

"Can concur. Don't work with this dude. He was a big disruption to my indie dev community last year and called him out for it. He then doxxed me and then sent me racially charged death threats from a smurf account. Beware!" - AbstractTheOrigin

"He's full of hot air and kept threatening to "call my superiors" at work and would "report me to my publisher," demonstrating repeatedly that he had no idea what he was talking about (Like, I know exactly the power structure above me and that doesn't match at all what he was saying) and was lying through his ass. We banned him from the forums, but he did harass our community manager at their work email repeatedly." - Sputwiler

"I hate that person. He was trying to get free labor out of me and kept harassing me that this was a learning opportunity." - Puzzle666

"Tenkai Star is one of the most toxic people in the entire gaming community. Avoid like the plague and you will lead a happy existence. I wish fewer people had discovered this the hard way." - SSTrihan

The stories are consistent, there are many stories coming out talking about ASS's harassment, his threats, his unprofessionalism, and overall toxic nature and it is continuing to tarnish his reputation and this bogus DMCA Takedown is just another perfect example and another story to add onto the pile of those piling up against them.

Please if you can, share this article wherever possible. Spread the word about this publisher and let their actions be known, as keeping people as informed as possible about what this publisher is doing is ultimately very beneficial to keeping people informed about what this publisher is doing which he is ultimately trying to silence and censor.

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