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#WTFU 2: Team Four Star Youtube channel killed by DCMA takedown

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Naaaaaaaaaaail… Gather the Dragon Balls! Earlier today the parody group known as Team Four Star, the minds behind the hit YouTube parody series Dragon Ball Abridged, is the latest victim of the terrible copyright abuse system known as YouTube’s Content Claims System.

It’s not even been a month since Doug Walker and Channel Awesome began the campaign #WTFU (Where’s the fair use?) with a great video that we here at The Outerhaven not only reported on, but also endorse with the fury of 100 Genki Damas. Now through a series of tweets as they found out, Team Four Star have announced the take down, and also made mention of the fact that it was NOT FUNimation, the owners of the Dragon Ball franchise in North America, that have made the content claims. (It should be noted that the TFSGaming YouTube channel remains online and untouched.)

What this does is lead to a LONG list of suspects; ranging from Madman Entertainment (The Australian distributers), to Manga Entertainment (The UK distributers), to Toei Animation (highly possible as they have done this before) and just about any TV company worldwide that broadcasts the show.

This has led to a mountain of posts from the people involved with Team Four Star: Takahata101, LittleKuriboh, MasakoX, KaiserNeko & Lanipator

Takahata101 brings up an interesting point. If Team Four Star was a prank channel, YouTube would go to town defending them. However, because there is copyrighted content involved, YouTube stands firmly in support of the companies instead of the creators right of Fair Use.

LittleKuriboh also makes a good point. Team Four Star are a great example of people coming together from all over the world to help create something fun and entertaining. They put months of work into each episode from animation alteration to scripting and recording and editing of their ORIGINAL MATERIAL, but again, YouTube doesn’t care.

MasakoX standing as the voice of reason here. We shouldn’t act out of rage or malice, but in a controlled voice that fights for the rights of every man (Queue WWE’s Real American here)

https://twitter.com/KaiserNeko/status/702304783282012160

https://twitter.com/KaiserNeko/status/702328502570225665

This is probably one of the worst ones… YouTube have messed up KaiserNeko’s enjoyment of seeing the hit movie Deadpool for the second time!

DBcember, for people who didn’t see it, was a series of Top 24 videos dedicated to Team Four Star’s love of the 24 Dragon Ball movies in the countdown to Christmas in 2015. It was just them talking about what they love about the movies and how they as a group rank them. This is no different to all the other Top 10 or whatever videos that populate YouTube on a weekly basis and is also protected under FAIR USE by being a critique of the movies themselves.

In reaction to all of this, not only have the Team Four Star members lent their voices to the #WTFU movement, but also have their own moment #BringBackTFS; which is done in hopes of YouTube reversing the strikes against their channel much like when Doug Walker and Channel Awesome went public with their struggles with the corrupt YouTube Content Claims System. Also, there has been a lot of support coming through Twitter by a lot of notable YouTube personalities from all YouTube mediums from video games, to other critic shows and so forth:

https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/702367028905115649

It should be noted that Jim Sterling is one of the few YouTube personalities that is actually covered by the Fair Use Protection Program that was put in place to protect YouTubers from being abused by the same system that is currently causing the #WTFU movement

https://twitter.com/DanNerdCubed/status/702316749467873281

And of course, it wouldn’t be a part of #WTFU if Channel Awesome didn’t throw their support in too.

The saddest thing is that second tweet from Channel Awesome. I personally have stopped producing content for my own YouTube channel out of fear of having these abusive strikes thrown at my channel one day even though I should be protected under Fair Use. I saw this coming and decided to but my own head off before anyone else could… And take the $25 that currently sits in my Google Adsense account that I can’t claim.

So unless YouTube sends an actual human in to fix up this take down of Team Four Star, they miss out on the money they make from YouTube. Sure, their content is still available via the Team Four Star Website, but Youtube also gives them a good source of income that allows them to do these parodies that we enjoy so much. Anyone reading this, please show your support by tweeting this article or any YouTube videos about #WTFU and join the revolution… Or they might come for your channel next… And we see more of this:

Screenshot 2016-02-24 17.01.56

 

Karl

The main "Australian arm" of The Outerhaven. Karl primarily spends time playing and reviewing video games while taking time to occasionally review the latest movie or piece of gaming technology.

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