Earlier today I received an e-mail from the people at YouTube, who informed me that a seven-second video that I ran of Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto bobbing his head during a musical performance of the Spike VGAs was in violation of a Viacom copyright.
YouTube, I learned will not jump to the conclusion that a seven-second clip is a-ok.
Neither, is another video we captured of Miyamoto bobbing his head, one we used for a brief news item.
Perhaps it was the musical performance of the Black Keys, playing in the background of those clips that got Viacom's attention. How could Viacom or YouTube know these videos were captured for news purposes?
And... what else isn't free and clear of Viacom complaints and YouTube reactions? Oh, just the official trailer for The Last of Us. It, too, has been pulled for now. That's why there's a big takedown notice smack in the middle of the game's official site.
All of these clips have one thing in common: they involve content that aired on the Spike Video Game Awards on Saturday night.
We've reached out to Last of Us's caretakers at Sony for comment about this. We'll hit up YouTube, too and see what the deal is.
UPDATE: A Sony rep says the company is "sorry for the inconvenience" (we didn't think it was their fault!) and says they hope to have this resolved shortly.
This is The Last Of Us's YouTube trailer, as uploaded by Sony. If/when it displays something other than a takedown notice, you'll know that the parties involved came to their senses. That one seems pretty cut and dry.
(YouTube has also pulled a video we captured of the Call of Duty developers getting "teabagged" at the awards and are threatening to cut off the account of Brian Crecente, who uploaded that. He's claiming fair use.)
UPDATE 2: A day after YouTube blocked the video, Sony swapped a working version of the Last of Us trailer onto their official game site. They used a non-YouTube player. Meanwhile, a Viacom spokesperson declined to comment about why the takedown notice was issued.
Last of Us Trailer Pulled [Twitter]