Shining Force 3 videos under siege
Sean Cargle November 19, 2012 - 11:13 pmRumor: Youtube uploaders have been finding that many of their Shining Force 3 videos have come under attack over the last several days and it has lead to many videos being taken down for copyright infringement by a mysterious plaintiff who seems to be in some way associated with SEGA.
Over the last three days devoted fans of the RPG series Shining Force have found that their videos, even videos several years old, have been taken down for copyright infringement. It all started out with only a few random videos being taken down from peoples channels, but now entire accounts have been suspended as a result. Even big names like Total Biscuit, he has a Shining Force 3 let’s play playlist, are getting hit by this person. Of course, for Total Biscuit he is no danger of actually losing his videos, but others who are creating videos for merely non-profit, even with no actual gameplay in them, and for love of the series are being harshly dealt with.
This would be incredibly odd if this was actually SEGA taking down these peoples’ videos, especially since it would mean that they are attacking the fanbase for the Shining Force series, which is rather small. SEGA customer support has responded to MarauderEX, who had his channel suspended, about the issue and said, “We never give explicit permission to use our intellectual property. However, in cases like this we tend not to take action unless we or our products are slandered in the derivative works.” So, it does not seem SEGA is truly the culprit and it is more likely someone posing as SEGA who is causing a great many fans to lash out in anger. However, Total Biscuit and many others are appropriately befuddled by the situation since the claimant has a seemingly legitimate SEGA email address.
The whole situation is a bit murky and I cannot possibly comprehend why SEGA would be attacking their loyal fanbase for a series that hasn’t made it out of Japan for a long time. If you wish to follow it all you can check out the Reddit thread about it, which has some further information and speculation, or the Shining Force Central thread about it which is where the whole thing originated. I have reached out to SEGA for an official comment on whether it is their doing or not, but I have yet to hear a reply.
