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[Various] [Updated 2] Vox Media Goes After YouTubers That Mocked The Verge PC Build Video

8K views 88 replies 39 participants last post by  Eusbwoa18 
#1 · (Edited)
Vox Media is leveraging copyright strikes against YouTube channels that mocked The Verge's infamous PC build video. The company has allegedly manually filed a copyright strike against Kyle of Bitwit for creating a parody video of The Verge PC build video. WCCFTECH says that this will create the Streisand Effect "whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the internet." It is obvious that a parody is considered "fair use" so more than likely Vox Media will lose the case. But not before reminding the entire tech industry how bad that PC build video really was.
Source.

Original source: https://twitter.com/bitwitkyle/status/1095578571244879872





I had already mostly forgotten about it, since the video is from September of last year. Now it seems that they wanted to quietly rewrite history when the spotlight wasn't on it. Well, welcome to the Streisand effect, now it's under the spotlight again.

Here are a few more videos that may eventually get taken down and one extra at the end where one already was:












3 updates:

1. Here is one more news source: https://www.techspot.com/news/78757-vox-media-targets-youtuber-parodied-verge-terrible-pc.html
Facepalm: Highlights from the ill-fated tutorial include installing the RAM in the wrong slots, using thermal paste and a pre-applied thermal pad, leaving a screw off the CPU cooler, calling zip ties tweezers and demonstrating terrible cable management. And that's just scratching the surface.

The Verge, one of the larger technology news sites on the Internet, published a video last September detailing how to build a $2,000 custom gaming PC. While the production value was decent, the overall feel of the tutorial was cringe-worthy and much of the information presented was flat out wrong or misleading.


2. Jayz made a video about it, explaining what options Vox media had and how DMCA works and is abused:
 
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#2 ·
Best news I've seen all week. I do enjoy seeing karma at work, and large faceless organisations being ridiculed for their mistakes all over again.
 
#66 ·
"Faceless" is part of the problem. Names and faces to alot of these faceless parent companies need to be called out.
 
#5 ·
Wonder why they waited till months after the fact. The mocking videos were littering youtube immediately after their "fail build" video went up. Why not try and do damage control right away?
 
#56 ·
I think Rich's last video on the subject seemed to hit the nail on the head for this.

Seemed like Nilay was trying to test the waters to see if the strikes would stick on Rich and Kyle and then proceed to the other videos after if they did. Instead he got the rightful backlash he got. And of course, everyone was reminded of the Verge's incompetence with that initial PC build video we had all forgotten about.

Good job Nilay, you played yourself.
 
#6 ·
I skimmed through the video. The majority of the video is primarily the original video from the Verge with Kyle's face inset in the corner. That doesn't fall under Fair Use, or rather, if it does, it's going to be a LOT harder to prove. Most of Kyle's contributions seem to be riffing on the Verge's video. He'd need to prove that it is in fact a transformative work, but it's trash-tier parody and/or commentary at best. There actually is a case for copyright infringement here, as is the case with the vast majority of reaction videos.
 
#11 ·
What was wrong with their build?
 
#12 ·
1 stick of RAM in each channel, bad orientation on PSU fan, missing screws on CPU cooler hold downs, using a random rubber bracelet as an ESD bracklet (not bad per se, but bad info nonetheless), and horrible TIM application on the CPU with the already existing TIM on the cooler plate.

Just lots of bad info in general for a video that is supposed to be informational. Like 'your PSU must be lifted off the case with rubber isolation grommets or it will short to the case' (talking about the vibration isolation mounts) and them promptly goes and screws the PSU to the backcase with the 4 screws.
 
#14 ·
Lol so the rubber grommets would prevent it shorting despite running a screw into it? Classic. The PC actually relies on the PSU for it's earth ground as the housing of both is metal. That's not something you'd want to prevent.
Do you mean they populated A1 and A2 instead of A1 and B1? I don't know how I missed all this lol
 
#15 ·
 
#17 ·
This kind of thing has already been taken to court on Fair Use won, Kyle's video was complete parody and was making light of the Verge's horrible mistakes and a video that was meant to be a "guide" that would cause newbies to destroy their builds.
 
#19 ·
I want that case they used for the build, lol.
 
#22 ·
such "big" news company, and yet they can't get a proper reviewer for their videos, instead of that they just get a random guy they already know and put him in the video..
 
#23 ·
Has Hair Jesus updated the 2019 fail shirt? This fiasco needs to be at the top of the list.
 
#24 ·
God, I and I am sure many other folks had completely forgotten about the Verge PC build catastrophe. Good job bringing your incompetence back to light Verge!
 
#25 ·
Well I don't think I have ever heard of the Verge or this video so I would like to thank the Verge for bringing it back to life for me to enjoy.

I will skip over the BitWit guy, I don't know how that guy became popular on youtube. Maybe it's one of those "so bad it's good" kind of things, like Sharknado 3.
 
#26 ·
I love how they called it slight in accuracies when they put an updated that they removed the video.

I hope they put someplace else the idiot who was making that build. That guy should have nothing to do with making hardware videos at all. He should be as far away from computer hardware as possible.
 
#28 · (Edited)
The Streisand Effect has been a concept since 2003. I suppose that's another bullet on the list of things they don't understand.
 
#29 · (Edited)
TheVerge made a post about the whole situation today and explain there actions per say:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/15/18226105/a-note-about-youtube-copyright-strikes-from-vox-media

Here is the first line in the whole thing take it as you will
"I want to address a situation around some YouTube copyright strikes (since retracted) issued by The Verge and Vox Media that has gotten pretty toxic, and could have been avoided if the parties involved had simply reached out to me directly."

Also earlier today Gamersnexus asked the verge for a sit down to explain everything, he even said he would fly them out to him or fly to New York just for a interview.
 
#30 ·
Ha

Hmmmmm. "could have been avoided if the parties involved had simply reached out to me directly."

What about their legal team? Considering they had done an opinion piece on the abuses of the take down system it seems a little hypocritical that they would not have even reached out to the channels first to discuss before issuing a strike and a take down.

I personally think the content on the Verge is ****. This stinks of desperate retaliation.
 
#32 · (Edited)
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/15/18226105/a-note-about-youtube-copyright-strikes-from-vox-media

Those two reaction videos used 90 percent of our footage without any edits, cuts

That right there is factually wrong. Maybe they are counting on nobody actually doing the math. Let's see Bitwit's parody video, it's 9:12 long (552 seconds), whereas The Verge's video is 11:10 (670 seconds). Even if Kyle's video was showing the Verge's footage non-stop throughout the video that would amount to 82.4% not 90%. But not even this is true.

In the first 11 seconds of Kyle's video he uses footage from The Verge, then it returns at 00:16s (-5s then) with a still image that stays on screen until ~00:19s. Then there is the sponsor and some commentary with only Kyle on screen and the Verge's video footage only returns at 00:47 (-28s then) and it shows a variation of a still image from the Verge's video stopped at 00:11s until 00:53 on Kyle's video. Then, from 00:54 to 00:58, it's only Kyle on screen commenting (-4s). Then, from 00:58 until 1:02, it's the same still from the Verge's video stopped at 00:11 (which basically has only "How to build a custom computer" written on the screen against a white background). Then, at 01:10, Kyle pauses the Verge's video at 00:19s and it stays like that until 01:16. Then at 01:24 he pauses the Verge's video again at 00:27 and it stays like that until 01:31. Then there's the infamous "tweezers moment" at 00:37 in The Verge's video and Kyle pauses it there at 01:41 in his video and talks about it until 01:56.

I could go on and on, but let's just jump to the end: Kyle stops showing anything of the Verge's video at 08:11, so a full minute and one second (-61s) before the end (at 08:28 he shows the Verge's YouTube page but you can only see a tiny bit at the top of the actual video (paused), what he is showing is that they had disabled both the likes/dislikes and the comments on the video, so it doesn't really count).

You see where this is going, right? Let's jump over the fact that Kyle paused the Verge's video numerous times and thus he couldn't possibly have used even 82.4% of the thing, which is the absolute maximum possible given the lengths of the two videos, let's just subtract all the times where the Verge's video isn't shown:

552s-5s-28s-4s-61s=454s = 67.8%.
 
#38 ·
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/15/18226105/a-note-about-youtube-copyright-strikes-from-vox-media




That right there is factually wrong. Maybe they are counting on nobody actually doing the math. Let's see Bitwit's parody video, it's 9:12 long (552 seconds), whereas The Verge's video is 11:10 (670 seconds). Even if Kyle's video was showing the Verge's footage non-stop throughout the video that would amount to 82.4% not 90%. But not even this is true.

In the first 11 seconds of Kyle's video he uses footage from The Verge, then it returns at 00:16s (-5s then) with a still image that stays on screen until ~00:19s. Then there is the sponsor and some commentary with only Kyle on screen and the Verge's video footage only returns at 00:47 (-28s then) and it shows a variation of a still image from the Verge's video stopped at 00:11s until 00:53 on Kyle's video. Then, from 00:54 to 00:58, it's only Kyle on screen commenting (-4s). Then, from 00:58 until 1:02, it's the same still from the Verge's video stopped at 00:11 (which basically has only "How to build a custom computer" written on the screen against a white background). Then, at 01:10, Kyle pauses the Verge's video at 00:19s and it stays like that until 01:16. Then at 01:24 he pauses the Verge's video again at 00:27 and it stays like that until 01:31. Then there's the infamous "tweezers moment" at 00:37 in The Verge's video and Kyle pauses it there at 01:41 in his video and talks about it until 01:56.

I could go on and on, but let's just jump to the end: Kyle stops showing anything of the Verge's video at 08:11, so a full minute and one second (-61s) before the end (at 08:28 he shows the Verge's YouTube page but you can only see a tiny bit at the top of the actual video (paused), what he is showing is that they had disabled both the likes/dislikes and the comments on the video, so it doesn't really count).

You see where this is going, right? Let's jump over the fact that Kyle paused the Verge's video numerous times and thus he couldn't possibly have used even 82.4% of the thing, which is the absolute maximum possible given the lengths of the two videos, let's just subtract all the times where the Verge's video isn't shown:

552s-5s-28s-4s-61s=454s = 67.8%.
Nice work, ^

This whole thing is gold and have enjoyed watching it unfold.

Can't help but wonder what Verge's original agenda was but it's long gone now over this noise. I mean you can't fail that hard without trying.
 
#33 ·
Oh look, the Verge trying to make themselves out to be the victims again.

The fact the original video even went though to begin with with as many people working on it as there were, and nobody caught anything? Shows they don't know jack squat about building a PC. It only "didn't meet our standards" when they got called out! After of course trying to hide the backlash by hiding comments, and likes/dislikes before removing the video.

What standards? You guys had none!

And now crying "boohoo" we're the victims. Just like they did with the original backlash. It would be one thing if they made some minor mistakes, but they had stuff in there that could have had anyone following their video drilling holes into their radiators, overheating their CPU and PSU, RAM not working correctly, etc! Hardly minor!

And all they could do was call all the backlash "racists" and paint themselves as victims instead of owning up to their incompetence.

What a garbage outfit the Verge is.
 
#37 ·
Verge response is the initial one. About 10 mins.


 
#41 ·
^Pretty much^
Every PC reviewer I've ever seen has made a mistake or given incorrect info and all of them that I'm aware of made a video that later corrected it. Jay (among others) struck all their 8700k vs 2700x comparisons becasue the boards used enabled MCE by default or allowing either CPU to run past TDP. Happened many times with various CPUs.
You're better off to admit that you're wrong than to appear biased or ill-informed.


What vox did was pretty low and tbh I don't really feel like it was their place to be making PC building videos anyway. I wouldn't have attacked them over it but I'd have definitely pointed out what was wrong as many channels did. The dude was wrong about something at every step of the build, badly at times, but I don't feel like anyone deserved to be harassed over the matter.



Side note:
Jay happens to be wrong about a lot of things all the time which is why I don't trust anything he says, but usually neither he nor his viewers know that he's wrong so it keeps going.
 
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