Platforms like YouTube or Twitch often have little patience when it comes to copyright issues. Anyone who shows too lengthy a clip from a movie or series – or even full works, risks a ban. It seems even more curious that the current film of Borderlands has been completely available on YouTube for over 24 hours now.
Update September 4: The film has since been set to private and is no longer accessible.
What exactly can you see on YouTube? On September 2, 2024, a user uploaded the current Borderlands movie to YouTube. This is not a secretly recorded copy from a cinema, but actually the full movie in the original English audio and in Full HD.
The video has now been online for over 24 hours and has received nearly 1.4 million views during this time. It is curious that apparently no one has taken action against the upload of the film yet.
We have deliberately decided not to provide the link to the film. However, you can view the official trailer here:
Film upload clearly violates YouTube’s rules
Why is this so unusual? YouTube actually has very clear rules regarding copyright. Under “Rules and Guidelines” on YouTube, it states:
Creators should only upload videos they have created themselves or for which they have all the necessary rights to use. This means: Without explicit permission, they should not upload videos that they did not create themselves, and should not use any material in the videos whose copyrights belong to another person – e.g., music tracks, clips from copyrighted programs, or videos created by other users.
via YouTube
There is an exception in the USA for so-called “Fair Use”, which allows reporting, analyzing, or criticizing copyrighted works.
There are various factors that determine whether the use of such material constitutes “Fair Use” – but the full upload to YouTube without any supplementary commentary almost certainly does not count as such.
The channel on which the film was uploaded states its location as being in the USA and should therefore be subject to its laws.
Malicious comments shoot against the film under the video
Why is nothing being done about it? Only the responsible parties can answer that. MeinMMO has already requested a statement. We will add it here as soon as we receive a response.
However, there are already some quite malicious speculations on YouTube about why apparently no one is taking action against the video: The distributors are simply glad that someone is even watching their film this way. Comments under the film state:
- “They uploaded the whole movie to YouTube! Quick, take it down – Lionsgate: Wait… They are watching it. They are watching it!”
- “It’s so bad that Hollywood doesn’t even bother to copyright strike it.”
- “In the past, you could recognize a bad movie by the fact that it was released directly to video. Now they go straight to YouTube.”
- “Plot twist, the studio PAID to upload this.”
On Twitch, streamers also maintained a rather relaxed approach to copyright for a while. During the Corona pandemic, content creators showed their viewers entire episodes of series or even movies. Big streamers are currently watching series on Twitch, but one warns of disastrous consequences
