EA Copyright Claim Removes Donald Trump Mass Effect Video
John Williamson / 8 years ago
Donald Trump is a rather controversial figure who was originally dismissed during the first stage of his Republican nomination campaign. Rather swiftly, Trump began to attract a vociferous following and shocked political commentators with his dramatic rise in popularity. Throughout the course of Trump’s success, he’s made various remarks which would end other politicians career. Despite this, whenever he says anything controversial, it seems his popularity rises by a significant amount. Of course, Trump is often the subject of many parodies, memes and other fan content on YouTube.
Recently, Donald Trump tweeted a fan-made video entitled, ‘The Trump Effect’. This includes music and Martin Sheen’s voice-over from Mass Effect 2. According to Game Informer, various Bioware employees were appalled by the notion of their work being an integral component of Trump’s current political strategy. The publisher, EA, reacted by launching a YouTube copyright claim and flagging the video for breach of their intellectual property. EA released a statement regarding these events which reads:
“The video was an unauthorized use of our IP,”
“We do not support our assets being used in political campaigns.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXWU2EbBoQk
As always, this hasn’t really altered anything and the video is still available through other YouTube channels. Surely, this move has bolstered Donald Trump’s publicity and giving him additional headlines. Personally, I haven’t got a problem with spoof videos, or users making their own unique content. However, copyright holders will take down any content which they feel uses their intellectual property. It’s a fascinating situation because I’m wondering if any other video using their assets would have been taken down in a similar manner.
It’s probably down to views, and the amount of people accessing videos with copyrighted material. Whatever your opinion about Trump, I honestly think it’s important to have freedom of expression to mock, criticize and help media personalities. Starting to block content just because you dislike its message is a dangerous path to walk down.
