When popular YouTuber PewDiePie let slip a racial slur during a key moment in one of his recent streams, the developing team behind Firewatch pleaded with fellow developers to take action. Campo Santo Founder Sean Vanaman immediately set into motion his appeal for a DMCA takedown strike to take down all of Pew's content that relates to their games. Now that takedown strike has been accepted by YouTube.

Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg took to his YouTube account to confirm with a new video (seen above) that the takedown request has been accepted by YouTube and the strike was now in affect. According to Kjellberg, when he first saw the Tweets from Vanaman, he immediately privatized the video in question out of "respect" for the developer. Despite this, YouTube and Campo Santo pursued the DMCA. Now that this has officially been taken to the next level, things could get ugly for PewDiePie here in the near future.

The way these strikes work is that if a YouTuber receives three of them, the channel will permanently shut down. Kjellberg admits that this is "a pretty big deal," and that the future of his channel could be in jeopardy if more of these "slips" occur.

In accordance with the policies put into place, the effected accounts that are shut down after a third strike relinquish all videos uploaded via that avenue. All of the attached videos will then be deleted and the user will no longer be able to create another account. Any and all videos PewDiePie has uploaded to YouTube through the years will be confiscated if a third strike goes through.

This whole debacle does bring up a point ... does the team behind Firewatch have a case against Kjellberg for his Let's Play content? According to a Lawyer that spoke with Polygon: yes, with limitations.

“In the case of a Let’s Play video, a content owner like Campo Santo would argue that they can revoke their permissive, non-exclusive license to stream (granted to end users) against anyone who uses their content in a way they find offensive, or in a way that associates their game or brand with something against their values."

We're filing a DMCA takedown of PewDiePie's Firewatch content and any future Campo Santo games.

— Sean Vanaman (@vanaman) September 10, 2017

I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make.

— Sean Vanaman (@vanaman) September 10, 2017

Posted: Sep 15, 2017 4:39 pm
Last Updated: Sep 15, 2017 4:44 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: http://comicbook.com/gaming/2017/09/14/pewdiepie-channel-under-fire-as-youtube-accepts-recent-takedown/