Filing a counter-notification for a copyright claim

[d32009]

Jurisdiction

Maryland

Three gameplay videos of mine was recently taken down for copyright infringement. The claimant believes the videos use footage from an anime that is currently airing in Japan. However:

- The claimant was the distributor of the anime, not the game's publisher. Due to a similar incident with the same videos, I believe that the anime distributors do not have the authority to claim my videos.

- My videos were all posted nearly a week before the series even aired, and therefore there is no way I could have used footage from it.

- Two of the videos are related to the noted work in name only.

With this information, should I file a counter-notification or just leave it alone?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

This is a complicated question of copyright law. It's impossible to answer given that we don't know the details and relationship of the gameplay videos to the infringing works, which it seems to be something contained in the gameplay videos, perhaps manga. If there is no right to republish the work, you may not have a claim for a DMCA counter-notification as you wouldn't have the rights to fulfill a putback. If all you're concerned about is a gameplay video that is an ego trip, I'd leave it alone. Too much work to deal with a DMCA dispute.