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Activision Removing Call of Duty Exploit Videos

• Egon Kilin
• November 26th, 2014

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare players beware, if you upload videos of your gameplay to YouTube you could be subject to a DCMA takedown courtesy of Activision. Activision is targeting YouTube uploads that they deem to be promoting unsavory gaming practices in their Call of Duty franchise. Activision explains their stance in their statement to Eurogamer where they said, “We’re excited that so many fans are having fun playing the game and posting videos of their gameplay. We love watching the videos ourselves. Occasionally, some folks post videos that promote cheating and unfair exploits. As always, we keep an eye out for these videos – our level of video claims hasn’t changed.”

However, not everybody is convinced. In fact, Machinma issued a warning via their newsletter that Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare videos that depicted any game glitches could have copyright strikes leveled against their YouTube accounts. The threat of copyright strikes from Activision has many people concerned as even one strike against your account will disable your access to features like live streaming.

This is particularly unnerving for those that earn their living from YouTube videos, especially since any videos that will garner a lot of views such as those demonstrating CoD glitches and exploits earn ultimately money for those account holders. As Ian Higton, a YouTube Editor for Eurogamer explained, “The terrifying part for content creators though, is that if you receive three copyright strikes your account will be terminated and YouTube will remove all your videos.”

This creates an interesting dilemma for gamers and game developers like Activision and publishers alike. Do you feel that YouTube videos that could potentially give some players an unfair advantage because of glitches should be taken down? Or do you think that companies like Activision are guilty of unnecessary and possibly unfair censorship that could potentially ruin somebody’s ability to make a living?