First, a 101 on property, Viacom owns Spike TV and the abomination we called the VGA which was ruthlessly panned by gamers before, during, and after it because of nobodies polluting the stage instead of people we care about. In most cases when you embarrass an entire industry, you take a cab to Mexico until it blows over.
Viacom already has a bit of a reputation for protecting their IPs, especially ones that are uploaded on YouTube to where something can be pulled the same day or even the same hour it’s uploaded. There is nothing wrong with this however, and it should be expected.
Many trailers were shown at the VGA, and those same trailers were downloaded by ZTGD for uploading to their own channel, and for embedding into their news stories. Common enough practice for trailers and gaming sites. Then Viacom started being a bully.
From this image straight from ZTGD’s site, you can see Viacom claimed that they owned the Alan Wake’s American Nightmare announcement trailer. Pardon my French but that is the biggest crock of shit I’ve read this week. Claiming that you own copyright on something you certainly don’t have copyright to isn’t just a dick thing to do, but is also quite a serious crime. Additionally, they had the audacity to order a takedown on NaughtyDog’s official videos on their official channel.
This has since been resolved as of writing, but it shows that some out there love to misuse copyright laws and think they can steal content from others through it. That’s how I’m seeing it. Real smooth Viacom, first you make a mockery of the videogame industry and right after you start harassing people because you can’t handle someone having their own IP.
