Anime reaction YouTubers are at war with copyright enforcers
Anime reaction YouTubers are at war with copyright enforcers
动漫反应类 YouTuber 正与版权执法机构陷入“战争”
On September 6th, YouTuber Nicholas Light posted a video to one of his channels that made it seem like all of his content was about to be removed from the platform. In the video — ominously titled “My Channel will be Deleted Today” — Light alleges that he was on the receiving end of some of the “thousands upon thousands of false copyright strikes” recently initiated by a company called Remove Your Media. Light spends much of the 13-minute video accusing Remove Your Media CEO Eric Green of being a troll who systematically targets creators whose content mentions or features clips of popular anime series like Bleach and One Piece.
9 月 6 日，YouTuber Nicholas Light 在其频道发布了一段视频，内容暗示他所有的内容都即将被平台删除。在这段标题令人不安的视频《我的频道今天将被删除》中，Light 声称自己成为了近期由一家名为“Remove Your Media”的公司发起的“成千上万次虚假版权打击”的受害者。在长达 13 分钟的视频中，Light 大部分时间都在指责 Remove Your Media 的首席执行官 Eric Green 是一个“网络喷子”，专门针对那些提及或包含《死神》（Bleach）和《海贼王》（One Piece）等热门动漫片段的创作者。
It’s not clear how many of Light’s 1.3 million subscribers made it to the end of the video where he admits that YouTube already removed the copyright strikes against his account and informed him that his channel would not be deleted. But in a follow-up video titled “My Channel will NOT be deleted” posted on September 8th, Light thanked himself and “every single person that contributed” to the ongoing conversation about Remove Your Media unfairly threatening creators’ livelihoods.
目前尚不清楚 Light 的 130 万订阅者中有多少人看完了视频的结尾——他在结尾承认 YouTube 已经撤销了针对其账户的版权打击，并告知他的频道不会被删除。但在 9 月 8 日发布的后续视频《我的频道将不会被删除》中，Light 感谢了自己以及每一位参与讨论的人，感谢他们为揭露 Remove Your Media 不公平地威胁创作者生计所做出的贡献。
When I recently spoke with Light via email, he told me that over 60 of his videos had been temporarily taken down after he was hit with over a dozen copyright strikes stemming from Remove Your Media’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown requests. Light said that “having a video taken down or struck is almost second nature” for people running reaction channels. But he insisted that the way Remove Your Media has been going after creators is abusive and unrelated to any legitimate interest in protecting copyrighted IP.
最近我通过电子邮件采访了 Light，他告诉我，在收到 Remove Your Media 根据《数字千年版权法》（DMCA）发出的十几次版权打击后，他有 60 多部视频被暂时下架。Light 表示，对于经营反应类频道的创作者来说，“视频被下架或被打击几乎是家常便饭”。但他坚称，Remove Your Media 针对创作者的方式是滥用职权，与保护版权知识产权的合法利益毫无关系。
“I think [Remove Your Media is] trying to get the attention of these companies, to hopefully get hired by them,” Light said. “But because they’re so sloppy, they’re damaging themselves. With all the major channels covering this, they’re doomed.”
“我认为（Remove Your Media）是想引起这些大公司的注意，希望能被他们雇佣，”Light 说，“但因为他们做事太草率，反而是在自毁前程。现在所有主流频道都在报道这件事，他们注定要完蛋。”
While it’s easy to get the sense that Light might have been playing up some of this drama for viewers’ attention, it is clear that a number of other content creators have similarly been hit with an inordinate amount of copyright strikes. Many of these creators specialize in anime and gaming reaction videos that feature blurred-out or otherwise altered pieces of copyrighted footage. The creators superimpose the altered copyrighted footage (like anime opening sequences or full episodes) onto videos of themselves reacting to and/or commenting on it.
虽然很容易让人觉得 Light 可能是在夸大其词以博取观众眼球，但显而易见的是，许多其他内容创作者也同样遭受了过量的版权打击。这些创作者大多专注于动漫和游戏反应视频，视频中通常包含经过模糊处理或其他修改的版权素材。创作者将这些修改后的版权素材（如动漫片头或完整剧集）叠加在他们自己反应和/或评论的视频画面上。
Though these types of videos are kind of like an inverse Mystery Science Theater 3000 where the on-camera creators are meant to be the focus, viewers can also use them as a (less-than-ideal) way to watch copyrighted material without having to pay for it. The creators insist that their content is fundamentally transformative and protected by fair use, but that has not kept YouTube from sending them warnings about their accounts potentially being erased.
尽管这类视频有点像反向的《神秘科学影院 3000》（Mystery Science Theater 3000），即镜头前的创作者才是焦点，但观众也可以将其作为一种（并不理想的）方式，在无需付费的情况下观看版权内容。创作者坚称他们的内容具有根本性的转换意义，并受“合理使用”原则保护，但这并不能阻止 YouTube 向他们发出账户可能被封禁的警告。
Remove Your Media feels it does not need to extensively review all of a creator’s videos to file DMCA takedowns in good faith. Remove Your Media legal representative Evan F. Stone told me that Viz Media and Crunchyroll are two of the company’s “biggest anime clients.” Stone explained that Remove Your Media “reports thousands of allegedly infringing links every day” — some of which are “forwarded by the copyright owners themselves,” while others are discovered through online searches.
Remove Your Media 认为，他们无需对创作者的所有视频进行详尽审查，即可善意地提交 DMCA 下架请求。Remove Your Media 的法律代表 Evan F. Stone 告诉我，Viz Media 和 Crunchyroll 是该公司“最大的动漫客户”。Stone 解释说，Remove Your Media “每天报告数千个涉嫌侵权的链接”——其中一些是“由版权所有者直接转发的”，另一些则是通过在线搜索发现的。
Stone also noted that some clients are “very lenient” with certain types of content, despite their weak fair use defense. But he was adamant that the content being produced by YouTubers Remove Your Media has gone after is not transformative enough to fall under fair use.
Stone 还指出，尽管某些内容的“合理使用”辩护很薄弱，但一些客户对特定类型的内容表现得“非常宽容”。但他坚持认为，Remove Your Media 所针对的 YouTuber 制作的内容，其转换程度不足以构成“合理使用”。
“Commentary, in this context, does not make the use transformative: these videos show the copyrighted work in its entirety, and a great deal of this content sits behind a paywall,” Stone said. “Add the fact that some viewers are watching these versions rather than the licensed versions, and the effect on the marketplace is real.”
“在这种语境下，评论并不能使这种使用具有转换性：这些视频展示了完整的版权作品，而且其中很大一部分内容原本是需要付费才能观看的，”Stone 说，“再加上一些观众选择观看这些版本而不是授权版本，这对市场造成了实质性的影响。”
Stone also pointed out that some reaction video creators use their free YouTube channels as a way to encourage viewers to subscribe to their paid Patreon pages. In Remove Your Media’s view, when a reaction creator’s business model “is recording someone watching full episodes and selling those recordings, episode included, behind a Patreon paywall,” the company does not need to extensively review every single one of their uploads to file DMCA takedowns in good faith.
Stone 还指出，一些反应类视频创作者利用免费的 YouTube 频道来引导观众订阅他们的付费 Patreon 页面。在 Remove Your Media 看来，当反应类创作者的商业模式是“录制某人观看完整剧集，并将这些包含剧集的录像放在 Patreon 付费墙后售卖”时，公司无需对他们的每一条上传内容进行详尽审查，即可善意地提交 DMCA 下架请求。
“For any particular video a creator believes was noticed in error, the counter-notice exists for exactly that situation, and it works,” Stone said. “What [Remove Your Media] is seeing instead is channels countering every single video, full episode uploads included, swearing under penalty of perjury that each one was removed by mistake.”
“对于创作者认为被误判的任何特定视频，反通知机制正是为此而设的，而且它行之有效，”Stone 说，“但我们（Remove Your Media）看到的情况却是，频道主对每一条视频都进行反通知，包括那些上传了完整剧集的视频，并以伪证罪为代价发誓每一条都是被误删的。”
From Light’s perspective, channels like his are producing a unique kind of entertainment that also benefits copyright holders. “It’s free promotion for them at the end of the day,” he explains. Reaction videos of all genres have been popular on the internet for years, and it’s clear from view counts on YouTube that anime fans in particular are watching this kind of content.
在 Light 看来，像他这样的频道正在制作一种独特的娱乐内容，同时也让版权持有者受益。“归根结底，这是在为他们做免费宣传，”他解释道。各类反应视频在互联网上已经流行多年，从 YouTube 的观看量来看，动漫迷们尤其喜欢观看这类内容。
Light feels that because “the [anime industry] doesn’t do the best job promoting their works outside of Japan,” he and his peers have been picking up the advertising slack with their videos.
Light 认为，由于“（动漫产业）在日本以外的地区推广作品做得不够好”，他和他的同行们通过视频弥补了广告宣传的不足。