Wes

So…that last video of mine really caused quite a stir, didn’t it?

I’ve had my fair share of videos in which people disliked it greatly.  And I was fully expecting this video to not be a popular one of mine.

Number one, it was a video dealing with Doug Walker a.k.a. the Nostalgia Critic.  Anyone who knows TGWTG fanboys knows very well that they are an rambunctious group of people, usually incapable of rational thought or reasoning.  You so much as even say one negative thing about him and they will swarm the comments to defend their hero.

Number two, the subject of my video was about copyright, which is a rather touchy subject.  With how confusing and complicated the copyright law is, there is always great debate about whether or not shit like some geek’s fandub of some shit anime or some basement-dweller’s comprehensive review of “Barney Goes to a Black Lives Matter Rally” violates copyright law or falls under Fair Use.

Number three, the video ended up being shared on Reddit.  If you know anything about Reddit…yeah, ‘nuff said.

Number four, some people just don’t like me at all and refuse to concede whenever I make a good point and will just hate anything and everything I do.  Those niggas are fucking stupid.

Nevertheless, my video has shaken so many jimmies (so to speak), that some of the YouTube commentary community decided to take time out of their busy schedule of troll-shielding and making godawful response videos to Anita Sarkeesian to make a commentary on my video.

One in particular that several people have pointed out to me is this:

Oh boy…let’s see here: an absolutely embarrassing title screen, crayon writing, some sprite shit (put in as a vain attempt to make this look “cool”), too much video game shit in general, the video is LONGER than my original video (seriously commentators, knock that shit off), low-quality microphone quality, random shouting where the audio peaks, taking jokes too seriously, missing the point entirely, the guy himself confirms that he’s a child going through puberty…

Yep, it’s a commentary community video alright.  And it truly says something when most of my detractors tend to look a lot like him.  Looking at this guy’s channel, it looks like he’s stuck in 2008 with his production quality.

Against my better judgement, I tried to watch some of this guy’s video.  Sure enough, it was the same ignorant, tired crap that every retard has been lobbing at me.

Nevertheless, I felt it was the time to add a referendum to my video.

To begin with, I do not take back anything I said in the video.  I do believe that Doug Walker is starting this #WTFU campaign mainly because his ad revenue has gone down south since roughly 2010 or so.

I do believe that #WTFU will have a similar fate to GamerGate, the YouTube blackout, and the “Here Is Bob” comments, in that this whole thing will die in two months tops and only retards with no common sense or reasoning will continue to try and make it big.

I AM sick and tired of guys like IHE and YMS bitching about their reviews getting pulled.  “Oh but their videos fall under Fair Use!!” you say to me.  Well, we’ll get to that point a bit later in this post.

Full disclosure: I am not a copyright expert.  Then again neither are you or Doug or IHateEverything or YourMovieSucks or MrEnter or Team FourStar.  Contrary to what my detractors say, I have never claimed to know all there is to copyright or Fair Use.  However I do possess a working fucking brain and I looked it up and saw that there are some things about it that not many people are aware nor are they making themselves aware of.  But will get to that later.

First off, let’s talk a bit about Doug Walker.

It’s no surprise to anyone with a functioning, mental-disease-free brain that the whole “reviewing” money ship has been tanking for quite a while now.  There was once a time when everybody wanted to cash in on that sweet, sweet “reviewing” fame popularized by Doug Walker (and to a lesser extent James Rolfe of “Angry Video Game Nerd” fame).

But much like doing an abridged series or the eventual fate of face-cam let’s plays, that gravy train derailed rather quickly.  With the quality of the Nostalgia Critic on a downward spiral (even moreso when he brought the show back after that painfully unfunny “Demo Reel” show), the popularity of “reviewing shows” as well as Channel Awesome started to drop.  With viewership dwindling, we had guys like Linkara complaining about people using ad-blocker or Angry Joe complaining about Nintendo talking down his copyright

With Doug, although he won’t admit it, his views aren’t the same as they were back in 2008/2009 when he was raking the views (and ad revenue) in.  Now that he’s back on YouTube and the copyright system is interfering with his way of earning money, now suddenly copyright is an issue!  It wasn’t that his show has been unfunny and unwatchable for a while now, no.  Copyright is why people aren’t watching his videos and giving him ad revenue.  As I said in the video, he didn’t seem to care about any copyright issues when he was on Blip!

“Oh, but Doug didn’t know about what was going on YouTube!!”

Oh, he knew alright.  He knew about it because that’s why he left YouTube and went to Blip in the first place!  Once he was on there and he was able to share his videos without much worry, he couldn’t care less about the little guys on YouTube dealing with the copyright issues (except for maybe the other TGWTG guys).

As for saying that I don’t really know Doug’s true intentions…guys, come on.  If he wasn’t doing this for the money, how come he primarily used examples of his videos being pulled down?  How come monetization was one of the first things he talked about as a consequence of a copyright claim?  Hell, if we go back further, how come he had to start adding mid-roll ads to his videos?  Why when after giving a grand send-off to the character, he quickly brought it back after his “Demo Reel” show flopped?

Lie to me all you want, but don’t try to lie to yourself that Doug isn’t in this for the money.  I firmly believe that’s the only reason why he started this #WTFU “movement” was so he can get his ad revenue coming back in.  And once he does, he’ll go back to not giving two fucks about the smaller guys.

Now…let’s talk about #WTFU and the “major effect” it will have on the internet, shall we?

For all you idiots who truly think that the YouTube copyright system will change because of #WTFU, I want you to actually think…when did a hashtag movement or a YouTube video really changed things drastically?  Really, think about it.  When has that ever happened?

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Yeah, that’s what I thought too.  Now stop deluding yourselves into thinking you’re making a difference.  Just like any other internet movement, by spreading this hashtag, all you’re really doing is being a lazy bastard who is spamming a glorified copy-and-paste chain letter.

No, really.  Remember those?

IMPORTANT!!!!1111!!!  YOU REALLY REALLY MUST DO THIS!!!!!!!!!  THIS IS NOT A JOKE OR A SCAM!!

Copy and paste this to every social media site, send it to 5 people in four minutes!!  Let YouTube know they can’t keep doing this!!  it truly works!  I’ve done it a million times and it’s making a difference!!  Bo-lieve that!!

See?  It’s pretty much the same shit.

And finally, we come to Fair Use itself.

Now ask anybody what Fair Use is and they’re tell you that it’s a thing where you can take someone’s copyrighted work and use it for cases of reviews, parodies, commentaries, criticisms, or education.

While there’s more to it than that, on paper it sounds like a sweet deal, right?  Sometimes you want to use a portion or most of someone else’s work to review it or parody it or use it for educational purposes.  And this sounds like it makes all of that possible.

WELL…here’s something about Fair Use almost NOBODY knows about, and that’s this:

Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair Use

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107

I want you to pay very close attention to numbers 1 and 4.

The first factor of whether or not somethings falls under Fair Use is basically what are you using the copyright material for.  Is it for commercial nature or is it for nonprofit educational use?  Almost every movie “reviewer” I’ve seen bitching about #WTFU are violating both parts.  With them making money off the “reviews” they’re making (be it through ad revenue or having a Patreon page), it definitely fits under commercial nature and the “nonprofit” part flies out the window.  If you’re making money using somebody else’s work, then they have a case.  Note, it doesn’t mean they’re going to automatically win, but they have a good shot at it.  Fair Use won’t totally save you here.

Then there’s the fourth factor which is the effect that using said copyrighted material can have on the value and performance of the original copyrighted work.  Basically, you making a “review” that encompasses spoiling the entire movie or an abridged series can have an impact on how the original work does.  If somebody saw your spoiler-filled movie “review” or somebody watched your hardly-edited abridged series of…oh I don’t know…let’s say “Dragon Ball Z,” then that could damage the performance of the original work and thus companies can take said videos down.  And Fair Use wouldn’t totally be able to help you should they take you to court for it.

And before anybody can bring up Derek Savage, first off…shut the fuck up.  I’m tired of all the pissing and moaning about him taking down reviews.  Is he an overly-sensitive asswipe?  Arguably.  Nevertheless, in regards to IHE, he has the legal right to do what he did.  You and IHE might not like it but it’s true.

Here are some YouTube videos to educate you further on the four factors of Fair Use.  They’re both short videos so you have no excuse not to watch them:

Now I want to leave you folks with one final tidbit.  With all these idiots and self-entitled “reviewers” pissing and moaning about copyright, I am suddenly reminded of a musical artist who had a similar incident like what’s happening to Doug now and how he solved the problem in a true professional manner.

Enter “Weird Al” Yankovic.

You know him as that guy that makes pretty funny parody songs that unfunny nerds obsess over.

Well…once upon a time, he did a parody of the Coolio song called “Gangsta’s Paradise.”  He dubbed it “Amish Paradise.”  There was some controversy about Coolio and how he never gave Weird Al permission to parody this song.  The whole thing has blown over since then, but one can see that this situation was very similar to what’s happening now.

But check this out, rather than get mad and parade Fair Use around like an entitled, ignorant child, he has since always asked permission from the original song creator whenever he wants to parody any of their songs.  And he’s been doing good since then and nobody gives him shit anymore.

So if these would-be “professional” reviewers want to be taken seriously, cool it with the worthless hashtags and whining.  Go out to these movie studios or whomever-it-concerns and ask for their permission to use their work in your shit, unfunny skit videos.

As for people who get their videos taken down even though they contain no copyrighted material (such as Cinema Snob’s videos), sorry.  The system really is fucked and it sucks that your video was a part of that.  You can file a counter-claim and see if that solves anything, but if it doesn’t…then damn.