New Japan Pro-Wrestling DMCAs Its Own Channel Over Video It Uploaded
As all manner of content creators will tell us, copyright enforcement is both very important and is at least doable enough that it sure would be nice if platforms like YouTube could do even more to enforce those rights for content creators. This mantra will typically come from those that are the most aggressive and draconian in terms of enforcing their own rights, of course. In other words, it typically comes from those that ought to have the most experience with just how challenging enforcing copyright properly actually is.
Like the New Japan Pro-Wrestling organization, for instance. Yes, this is a relatively small organization, but it has also built for itself quite a reputation for staunchly policing its intellectual property.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling are infamous for issuing copyright strikes on YouTube, even taking down videos from content creators when still images are in use as opposed to fully-fledged video footage. Videos of NJPW content shared on X (FKA Twitter) are also often taken down by copyright strikes from the promotion.
Again, just the sort of people that ought to be well-versed in all of the trials and nuances of enforcing copyrights, having done it so often for themselves. But this obviously isn’t a post about how aggressive NJPW is. Those are stories are legion.
No, this is a story about how, before then deleting all the tweets pertaining to this topic, NJPW managed to DMCA its own YouTube chanel.
Yes, NJPW issued a copyright strike on their own video, four months after they uploaded the full match between KAIRI (Kairi Sane) and Mercedes Mone.
NJPW tried to encourage fans to watch the bout as it tied for the top bout of 2023 for NJPW Strong. However, clicking the link shows NJPW has blocked the content from….NJPW.
The link does not show that any longer, actually. The video appears to now be restored and is fully available to anyone who wants to watch it. But the original tweet promoting what was then a taken-down YouTube video has been deleted. So whatever this was, it was certainly some kind of a fuck up on NJPW’s part.
And, hey, mistakes happen! But when our most aggressive, and thereby experienced, copyright police can’t even manage to not slap the handcuffs on their own wrists, maybe it’s time to admit that all of this copyright policing isn’t quite as simple as too many folks want to pretend it is.