It took just shy of two weeks, but it looks like the Activision half of the Activision Blizzard juggernaut has made their thoughts on “World of StarCraft” rather clear. In what will no doubt be a very unpopular move, they’ve had all videos related to the StarCraft II mod removed from YouTube for “copyright complaints.”
It’s important to point out that none of the videos were removed due to claims made by Blizzard Entertainment, which is an entity under the Activision Blizzard umbrella. Instead they were made by “Activision Games Inc.” You’ll probably recognize that as the publishing arm of Activision Blizzard.
As mod creator Ryan points out, World of StarCraft the mod does not technically violate Blizzard Entertainment’s video policies. “Blizzard Entertainment strongly supports the efforts of its community members who produce community videos,” the policy states.
Later in the policies article, it goes on to state: “As a community content creator, you are permitted to create video productions using Blizzard’s Content, and to distribute them freely on your website, or on other websites where viewers can freely view your Production.”
There are a few stipulations to this, most notably that viewers must be able to “freely view” your content. In other words, you cannot charge any kind of fee — whether one-time or recurring — for access to the content.
The World of StarCraft team has emailed Blizzard about the deletion of the videos, but WoS poster khalanil is probably right about this. This is more than likely Activision jumping the gun without consulting the video policies that Blizzard Entertainment has laid out regarding the use of Blizzard copyright content. Worst case, we’ll probably see this mod go through a name change.
But that’s not too terrible, because “World of StarCraft” isn’t exactly a catchy name. StarCraft Universe, maybe?
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