BBE/IE: Shout! Factory

[BlameThe1st]

Shout! Factory has been pestering YouTube Brony reviewers such as TheMysteriousMrEnter, Henmo24, PaleoSteno, and JoshScorcher, filing copyright claims against their My Little Pony reviews, blocking their videos, and in many cases, forcing them to take down their own channels.

This would be bad enough, and another example of intellectual property gone arry, but what makes this especially bogus is that Shout! Factory is only the DVD distributor for MLP:FiM. It does not actually hold the copyright to the series. Hasbro does. It only holds the right to distribute its DVDs.

As TheMysteriousMrEnter explains in his video, "It's like if I made a review of The Godfather, and Netflix or Blockbuster Video was claiming copyright infringement."

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This wouldn't be the first time Hasbro has taken a complete dump over its fanbase. It had also previously filed cease-and-desist letters against the fan fighting game "Fighting is Magic" and removed the fan series "Friendship is Witchcraft" from YouTube.

Don't these schmucks realize that these video reviews help promote the show, thus encouraging people to become interested in it and, oh, I don't know, BUY THEIR MERCHANDISE?!?!

Even uploading full episodes of the series help promote it and allow people who would have no other way to watch it to become interested in it. That's how most Bronies came to be. That's how I became a Brony: by watching full episodes on YouTube. I wouldn't be a fan of the show if it weren't for the ever maligned practice of pirating.

[AnCap Dave]

If you're going to give Shout! Factory a BBE or IE award over this, you may as well add Youtube as well considering they don't recognize fair use whatsoever in order to save their own asses.

Are these reviewers using actual clips of the show to review them?

I only ask because last year Sega was taking down videos that even so much as mentioned the Shining Force series, let alone used actual gameplay footage.

[MrBogosity]

If you're going to give Shout! Factory a BBE or IE award over this, you may as well add Youtube as well considering they don't recognize fair use whatsoever in order to save their own asses.

They're effectively not allowed to. The way the copyright laws are written, only a court can determine if something is fair use.