My Battle Against UBISOFT

Before I start this part of the blog let me just add that I am in no way affiliated with UBISOFT, that I am using their logo to research, report, criticize and even educate on how I feel this company has violated my rights under the "Fair Use Act." I will seek to demonstrate in this post what happened between UBISOFT and myself that made me reach this conclusion and how they are violating the U.S. Flag code in their upcoming game Assassin's Creed III and how they sold their game Ghost Recon: Future Soldier via false advertisement. With that being said, thanks for once again taking the time to read a post in Drake's Reviews.


First of all the Drake's Reviews team decided to start a video blog on YouTube to review games and inform you of them, of course in order to better do this we used the trailers for the games. Now let's get into the "Fair Use Act" and what it says...



The doctrine of fair use has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years and has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law.
Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair.

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

1. The nature of the copyrighted work

1. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

1. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

I will not stop using your material just like you didn't give us anything for the false advertisement on your game, and also make sure to follow the US Flag Code UBISOFT, this is America and we respect our flag! 

When it is impracticable to obtain permission, you should consider avoiding the use of copyrighted material unless you are confident that the doctrine of fair use would apply to the situation.


In essence the fair use act says as follows - In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship.


So here's the rest of our story. We made a video with trailers from the movie The Dark Knight Rises, and the games Assassin's Creed 3, ZombiU, and the DLC Dawnguard for the game Skyrim. We uploaded it to YouTube and moments later we got an email saying this...



Dear DrakesVGReviews,
Your video "Drake's Reviews 1st Episode!", may have content that is owned or licensed by Comcast Entertainment Group. As a result, the video has been blocked on YouTube.


Dear DrakesVGReviews,
Your video "Drake's Reviews 1st Episode!", may have content that is owned or licensed by Ubisoft. As a result, the video has been blocked on YouTube.


Dear DrakesVGReviews,
Your video "Drake's Reviews 1st Episode!", may have content that is owned or licensed by europapress. As a result, the video has been blocked on YouTube.


Sure enough our video did have content owned by these three companies, and even though we have a disclaimer at the end I can assure you the law says that even if we give credit we are still in violation depending on the situation, so believe me we were following what the law says. YouTube gave us the option of filing of dispute and state the reasons why so we did. We answered that under the law we not only gave credit but that under the fair use act our video was commenting, criticizing, and reporting on the products the companies were selling to us. So then we got another email saying this...


Dear DrakesVGReviews,
europapress has reviewed your dispute and released its copyright claim on your video, "Drake's Reviews 1st Episode!"


Dear DrakesVGReviews,
Comcast Entertainment Group has reviewed your dispute and released its copyright claim on your video, "Drake's Reviews 1st Episode!"


Dear DrakesVGReviews,
Ubisoft has reviewed your dispute and reinstated its copyright claim on your video, "Drake's Reviews 1st Episode!".


Ubisoft reinstated their claim, and it is our believe they just did it without actually reading our dispute to the claim like the other two companies did, now YouTube still allowed us to post the video and told us our account was in good standing that this would not affect us, but it angered me that UBISOFT was acting this way, we praised their games, heck I am not a big fan of Assassin's Creed, but after seeing what they did for AC3 I want to buy it instead of just borrowing it from a friend, when I saw ZombiU it made me want to buy a Wii U just so I could play ZombiU with my friends. So because I feel that they are violating my rights under the fair act and will not change their mind even after the evidence presented, I now present to you two articles that discuss the way UBISOFT has stolen from it's customers and how they are violating the U.S. Flag. I do not believe anything done at Drake's Reviews is as bad as what they are doing for money and the only thing they did after the false advertisement in their game which I must add remained even when the game was release and on the game box art nonetheless all they did was apologize, they were sorry for it, no refunds, no add on, no nothing.


This article talks about the lack of a co-op campaign and the one under it, is from players actually complaining in the UBISOFT forums


http://www.co-optimus.com/article/8319/ubisoft-aplogizes-for-future-soldier-s-lack-of-a-campaign-couch-co-op.html


http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/691286-False-advertising-about-COOP-campaign-Add-it-with-patch-or-prepare-4-class-suit-UBI-Forums


These next two articles are the ones that talk about the US FLAG CODE violation by UBISOFT


http://www.inentertainment.co.uk/20120629/assassins-creed-3-marketing-violates-federal-law/


http://www.assassincreed3.org/news/ubisofts-assassins-creed-3-branded-u-s-flag-violates-u-s-flag-code/


While I presented evidence as to why my use of their content was protected under the "Fair Use Act" UBISOFT still tried to get my video banned and made no attempt to correct the mistake on their game GHOST RECON: FUTURE SOLDIER and is now using our flag in a way that is against the law. Shouldn't UBISOFT be held to the same standards they are holding me responsible for? Or are they above the law because they are a big corporation? What do you guys think about this? Can UBISOFT really be trusted to tell me what the law is if they themselves do not follow it? Please give me your opinion, readers.


Here's my reply to UBISOFT in the same way they did to us customers, and yes people I pre-ordered Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and played it till the end.


UBISOFT... I apologize. 


That should be enough since that's what they did to us right?