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So, you're essentially saying that people shouldn't be allowed to speak freely and openly? I don't understand what kind of control you wan imposed on the rights of others. We live in a global society today, one where people have rights and are free to speak their minds - how exactly is that unacceptable?

TBD wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It would fly fine in the UK or Eire, or any country which has a Fair Dealing clause in its copyright laws.

France has a very similar clause.

Dutch law also includes a sort of fair use though apparently more restrictive than the English speaking versions. I do not know the details.

What I was referring to with the "fly" comment was whether or not it would fly that BoW (or anyone else similar for that matter) can be called a legit journalistic endeavor, not to the copyright laws themselves. Not sure if we are talking about the same thing


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Thrax wrote:If you require people who review products to have a phd, something is wrong. Take, for instance, the guys that review cars on TV. They haven't got jack for formal education, but they know a lot about cars, what makes cars good, and what people generally are looking for in a car. That makes them plenty qualified for what they do. BoW can review miniatures as well as any of us, and they don't need a piece of paper to do it. I respect your point, but it's not really carrying any water.

But that is not what I said. It's fine for people to review products, but let's not give them a name they don't deserve.

My point is: to the law it often matters a lot whether or not someone can be called a journalist. They happen to be able to legally get away with a lot of things non-journalist wouldn't be able to get away with. So if just about anyone can create circumstances where he or she can say "I'm a journalist!", then where exactly do you draw the line? It would basically mean Chaos applies.

Anyone can call themselves a journalist. There is no legal qualification to become one as you would need to become a doctor.

If someone does a good job, they will get a following. Journalism above everything requires an audience.

Being a journalist does not mean you don't have to obey the law, and it doesn't give you automatic rights of access to everywhere. There is an area of contention on the shielding of sources from police investigation. That doesn't apply to Beasts of War.

I will note that some bloggers have become an accepted part of the journalistic community.

Japan Times employs Arudou Debito as a columnist off the back of his blog.
Penny Arcade is widely followed and quoted.
The Drudge Report.
Many companies have introduced blogs as part of their PR efforts.

Thrax wrote:So, you're essentially saying that people shouldn't be allowed to speak freely and openly? I don't understand what kind of control you wan imposed on the rights of others. We live in a global society today, one where people have rights and are free to speak their minds - how exactly is that unacceptable?

That is not exactly what I said either. Certain fields of profession happen to require certain education or documents for someone to be able to be called a proper - lawyer, physician, dentist, you name it. A lot of professions have unique legal obligations/liberties/restrictions/etc that come along with them. If you didn't go to lawschool you simply can't call yourself a lawyer (at least not where I live). If you aren't a - insert profession here - you can't legally do certain stuff you could otherwise legally do.

Now, if the name tag "journalist" happens to come along with certain legal liberties others (non-journalists) do not have, like publication of other people's yet unreleased work, then yes, there should be a well-defined proper distinction.

Let's call a real journalist a journalist, and guys who review & spoil things on Youtube what they are: guys who review & spoil things.

The topic of journalism & freedom of speech in our global society is an entire different, off topic, discussion I will not go into, except for saying that yes, journalistic freedom is something that does get insanely abused and needs to be addressed. For example there are entities out there that are almost 100% pure politically motivated, but yet get to operate under a different set of rules because they mask themselves as "journalistic endeavors". Journalists are supposed to operate under a certain code of ethics, but throw it out of the window whenever they feel like it. So yes, there is such a thing as abusing freedom of speech. A lot of people are blind to it though.

As far as i know BOW doesnt do it for pay from the miniature companies ( ?? ) and they certainly have some of the best videos in the miniature company.

-They have professional way to display their videos with the editing software
-The qualities and know hows of the videos are all very good.
-They are also very diligent on the updates as well as they cover a broad spectrum of Product Review , Game Mechanic Discussion , and introducing new games.

Mr Hyena wrote:Their videos were pretty poor quality anyway; so its not really a loss.

You are either trolling or you dont know how to switch the video to HD. Their videos are sometimes 1 gig and is crystal clear at full screen.

Mr Hyena wrote:Compared to most other videos that perform the same function in any sort of genre/hobby.

How cute, then by all means , show us some?

If GW doesn't want their stuff to be "spoiled" then they should learn to keep their house in order and hide it from the world until such time as they decide to share it with the rest of the world. It's not anybody but GWs fault for things becoming rumor and showing up online. They're tightening the grip on everything now, so you haven't much to worry about. It's not like BoW sneaks into their HQ and steals gak on a regular basis. GW allows people who leak things access to their upcoming product - they are aware they do this and it is either deliberate, or a calculated risk. 'Nuff said.

@ TBD : The problems you describe are mostly related to the fact that the accepted definitions of "Journalist" and the laws and regulations applying to that have simply not caught up with the nature of the internet and modern communication.

Cases like this, and the debate on whether "blogs count" and so on are what will eventually inform the rules and regulations.

After all, modern communications move a lot faster than the Law Behemoth.

But for the record, these video reviews do indeed count as "Journalism". Similar things have existed for years...the only thing that has changed is that the set-up costs and medium have changed.

TBD wrote:But that is not what I said. It's fine for people to review products, but let's not give them a name they don't deserve.

My point is: to the law it often matters a lot whether or not someone can be called a journalist. They happen to be able to legally get away with a lot of things non-journalist wouldn't be able to get away with. So if just about anyone can create circumstances where he or she can say "I'm a journalist!", then where exactly do you draw the line? It would basically mean Chaos applies.

Just because you're not a journalist (by degree) doesn't automatically disqualify a publication / journalistic endeavour you publish. Noone is saying that the BoW-dudes are journalists in the sense that they have a degree. But they're journalists in the sense that they publish a journalistic endeavour. Get it?

To the law – and I'm only referencing Sweden now since I'm not as well versed in how it works in other countries – there usually is some caveats to what is a publication or not. You have to be kinda regular, have someone that's responsible for the publication (that bears responsibility for any laws that the publication might break) etc. It's not mandatory (in Sweden) for digital media though. We have a bunch of cases when blogs actually were considered publications and therefore were protected under the constitution regarding copyright and the right not to give up your sources to the police.

But that's law, and the law is a completely different kind of universe. In the case of YouTube it seems that they shut down channels and videos more or less without questioning when someone files a violation of TOS/copyright claim. My very uninformed guess is that they have to do that in order not to be responsible in case there is a lawsuit since they're the ones providing the publishing service.

LunaHound wrote:As far as i know BOW doesnt do it for pay from the miniature companies ( ?? ) and they certainly have some of the best videos in the miniature company.

-They have professional way to display their videos with the editing software
-The qualities and know hows of the videos are all very good.
-They are also very diligent on the updates as well as they cover a broad spectrum of Product Review , Game Mechanic Discussion , and introducing new games.

Mr Hyena wrote:Their videos were pretty poor quality anyway; so its not really a loss.

You are either trolling or you dont know how to switch the video to HD. Their videos are sometimes 1 gig and is crystal clear at full screen.

-BoW does indeed have some pretty pro editing.
-Qualities and know hows? No. The BoW staff are about as well qualified with 40k rules and tactics as someone who has been playing for a short time, still is mistaken on some rules, and has not been in any sort of tournament.
-Diligent about updates, yes.

As for Mr Hyena's comment, he means quality as in production value. Despite the editing effects being good, the scripts are bad, they stand around saying "uhhhh" often, they do not talk professionally, and they are not well informed on many topics. Especially 40k tactics and rules.

Thrax wrote:If GW doesn't want their stuff to be "spoiled" then they should learn to keep their house in order and hide it from the world until such time as they decide to share it with the rest of the world. It's not anybody but GWs fault for things becoming rumor and showing up online. They're tightening the grip on everything now, so you haven't much to worry about. It's not like BoW sneaks into their HQ and steals gak on a regular basis. GW allows people who leak things access to their upcoming product - they are aware they do this and it is either deliberate, or a calculated risk. 'Nuff said.

Sure, I agree with that for the most part, though sometimes during a production process it's unavoidable that third parties have an opportunity to be naughty and/or break trust. Sometimes it's your own fault something gets out early, but sometimes it is not.

For us it's very cool to get spoilers & leaks, of course, but if you are the company/person who has worked hard for a long time on something, and some hobo at the printers takes a picture and spoils it, then that sucks beyond belief. I can completely understand how they feel about that and that they are sick of it, whether it is GW, Mantic or some mucisian who'se video clip gets leaked.

And again, no hard feelings towards BoW at all. All the best wishes to them, and hopefully their videos are back online soon for all that enjoy them. I'm just not willing to call them a proper journalistic endeavor.

Thrax wrote:If GW doesn't want their stuff to be "spoiled" then they should learn to keep their house in order and hide it from the world until such time as they decide to share it with the rest of the world. It's not anybody but GWs fault for things becoming rumor and showing up online. They're tightening the grip on everything now, so you haven't much to worry about. It's not like BoW sneaks into their HQ and steals gak on a regular basis. GW allows people who leak things access to their upcoming product - they are aware they do this and it is either deliberate, or a calculated risk. 'Nuff said.

The problem with those people is that they have small parts and the only way they can feel bigger than everyone else is to break the rules that they agreed to. On topic, I cought a couple of their vids and wasn't impressed by some but I enjoyed others so I was fairly neutral on them. However I met them at Salute and off camera they seem to come out of themselves a bit more and they seem like great guys (for the 5 mins or so I had).

Lack of proof aside, there seems to be a lot of hacking at the moment especially of game based elements Warseer/PSN (not the same scale admittedly) and I can't see 'tube just pulling vids for no reason unless there is an issue or a complaint by someone was upheld.

-Qualities and know hows? No. The BoW staff are about as well qualified with 40k rules and tactics as someone who has been playing for a short time, still is mistaken on some rules, and has not been in any sort of tournament.

I was refering the quality of how they film things. Especially product review 's over head close up shot of the sprues

As for Mr Hyena's comment, he means quality as in production value. Despite the editing effects being good, the scripts are bad, they stand around saying "uhhhh" often, they do not talk professionally, and they are not well informed on many topics. Especially 40k tactics and rules..

Well personally i think they are great , i watch them every week as well as subscription. so its subjective.
But we can let their number of subscribers and view counts do the talk.

Ok , seems like everyone wont be happy unless i say the cons of BoW , then yes they do have something they should work on.
The glasses guy need to study up the product first. I find it cute and entertaining that he points to sprue parts and attempts to guess what its for.

But yes that part isnt professional.
Other then that..... nope , me like

I dont know BOW's chaps curricullums and to be honest it matters little to me if they have a PHD or not.

I find it a bit strange the fixations some of you have towards them... unless you know their particular formation why do you assume they have no qualification?
There are things there that could be changed for the better and thats a valid debate I guess... but people confusing deliberatly the tree for the wood just to try to belittle their efforts and their great utility to the community is kind of sad.

From what was said on Turn 8 I got the impression that BoW was started out of love for the hobby.

Of all the myriad of gubbins posted on Youtube BoW is pretty darned good imho.
It hasn't been going all that long afaik and they do a very good job.

Youtube have played silly sods with them before, though it was not as long as this before they got the videos back up.
I would be surprised if it was anything to do with GW.

I would just like to point out that people criticising BoW have no qualifications in literature or video production so their opinions are meaningless and should not be allowed to be heard.

See how that works?

[/sarcasm]

Journalism, good or bad is popullated by experts on many diferent fields that have little to no formation in journalism... there are tons of sports ex practicioners that cover sport events just to name one example... also I believe a good communicator is something you have to have some talent to do... even if you have all the formation and PHD if you dont have a talent to be a good communicator you kind of suck at communicating to a audience... ( and they had a big audience so )

And the ridiculous of all this qualifications debate is even so much bigger when you have a bunch of guys that have a passion for this hobby and open a channel and do a great job at delivering reports/reviews/promoting a wide range of games... totally free for us to enjoy and then you see some guys claiming "their not professionals", "they have no script"... talk about ridiculous prespective on things.

Im not saying if its free we have to swallow cr@p I'm saying Its a project pushed by the love for the comunity and tries to enhance that experience to all regardeless of if we like it or not and anyone trowing mud at them with lateral comments like - I dunt like it so I dont care ...or - they have no qualifications... should instead do something productive and say go paint something and shat up

Kilkrazy wrote:I would just like to point out that people criticising BoW have no qualifications in literature or video production so their opinions are meaningless and should not be allowed to be heard.

See how that works?

[/sarcasm]

Wait, does that mean I can be criticizing BoW? I have a journalism, video production and literature background. I also have production credits in some gaming products.

BoW is part of the "news media", therefore they are part of what journalism has become thanks to the web (and the quality of their web presence beats out quite a few of the more mainstream medias' web presences).

Beast of War. Not surprising I wouldn't have heard of them really. But I'm sure to take a look at them and I hope their productions are quickly put back up on YouTube.

People need to seriously calm down - the trouser tenting by GW hates is quite unbelievable

The BoW channel was taken down because Beasts used to use advertisments on their videos - youtube/google gets half and BoW gets half of the income payed by the advertisment set up.

Whether BoW realised the adds were annoying people or just recieved a better deal they changed their advertisment to other things but rather than the advert being the pre-scripted shampoo advert or w/e (we've all seen them) they just stuck on some kool graphics and pictures of models onto the front of their videos as effectivly a 20 sec intro to each video....

Obviously i'm assuming BoW arranged a deal with the company (infinity i think it was) Youtube/google recieved no money from this thereby infinging on the rules!!
It's not rocket science to work out...and i'm not even their biggest fan! Still it was nice to seen some Warhammer and wargames love from N. Ireland, that part of the UK need more Games workshops or wargames help.

.......Some of you people here really do think GW is the Evil Empire don't you.....?!

Nate.

well some people didn't know the nature of the reason for the removal. Not even the people who were most effected which were the creators.

But since you obviously do, care to share a link along with the boldtype underscore of your post?

Or are you just speculating like the rest of them?

Welsh_guy wrote:
.......Some of you people here really do think GW is the Evil Empire don't you.....?!

If it talks like an evil, huge empire and it walks like an evil, huge empire... then it probably is an evil, huge empire.

But then again, never assign to malice that which can easily be assigned to stupidity.

I guess that we'll have to wait and see if Mark Wells (CEO) and Tom Kirby (Chair) start building a Death Star model at their HQ in Nottingham.

I'm sure GW is just protecting their IP.

Welsh_guy wrote: talks out of his butt like he knows something.

Link/pics or STFU and GTFO.

Also, "the trouser tenting by _______" is pretty freaking funny. Consider that line stolen, sir!

TBD wrote:

Buzzsaw wrote:IP laws have very clear allowances for journalists (and, rice wine and beer aside, BoW is clearly a journalistic endeavor).

What exactly makes them a journalistic endeavor? If they are it means anyone can put up a site and (regularly) post some stuff on video and say "hey look at me, I'm a journalist, the rules don't apply to me!".

Maybe it's some crazy US thing again, but this wouldn't fly everywhere.

Not that I personally mind what these guys are doing, btw, but I definitely don't consider them journalists.

I'd go with a more editorial standpoint instead of journalistic. Opinions and views etc.

misfit wrote:

TBD wrote:

Buzzsaw wrote:IP laws have very clear allowances for journalists (and, rice wine and beer aside, BoW is clearly a journalistic endeavor).

What exactly makes them a journalistic endeavor? If they are it means anyone can put up a site and (regularly) post some stuff on video and say "hey look at me, I'm a journalist, the rules don't apply to me!".

Maybe it's some crazy US thing again, but this wouldn't fly everywhere.

Not that I personally mind what these guys are doing, btw, but I definitely don't consider them journalists.

I'd go with a more editorial standpoint instead of journalistic. Opinions and views etc.

With regards to fair use laws (at least in the US) this is a distinction without impact. Reviews are clearly within the scope of fair use of IP, and in fact are the primary reason the fair use exception exists. I would comment on TBD's "opinion", but since he asserts that the rules are different in some nebulous place, there isn't much to work with.

Note, the use to which the IP is put is what makes the use fair, not who is using it; as the US Government Copyright office explains "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."

Again, if someone wants to present non-US rules where the test is different, that would be one thing, but there seem to be fairly strong assertions that the UK is more of less in-line with the US on this matter.


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No information about whether the situation with YouTube will be resolved, but BoW, at least for the moment, appears to be pressing on using an alternate video hosting service.

Beasts of War is publishing videos again but they are using "Blip.TV" now. A different video site.

http://www.beastsofwar.com/battletech/battletech-25th-anniversary-catalist/

It is a solution... for their web, but not being in Youtube makes their stuff reach less people and have less feedback.
I wish they could solve their problems with Youtube because I think that this is a mayor problem for them. They had about 25.000 youtube subscribers. This shut off makes them loose contac with lots of gamers.
It is not the same being in a website than being in the frontpage of Youtube.

I wish them the best... this hobby needs these kind of people and tools.

Hope people can make the move over to the BoW site
Good luck to the BoW team with BoW TV

Also there are some useful vids they did on Youtube, which I hope are not going to be lost.
Assume the rights are with BoW so it should be okay.
Seems like there is still no word from youtube but the new host is only temporary

As long as BoW kept their original project files they can easily re-render the old videos for their new site.

They might do better off with their own site. The bandwidth costs will be higher, but they won't have to share the ad revenue.

TBD wrote:But that is not what I said. It's fine for people to review products, but let's not give them a name they don't deserve.

Yeah, I agree totally. I mean, all they do is review stuff. Anyone can do that! Like a movie reviewer... no way are those guys journalists. Any idiot can watch a movie, and you don't see those guys getting pulitzer prizes, right?

By the way, I'm curious. What precise licensing do you think it would take to be a journalist? Who should license them? What schooling? Clearly a college dropout would not pass muster, right? No one ever gonna give a Nobel Prize to some dropout nursemaid. What degree must they have, in your mind? Something vague and fake like "public affairs" or "speech"? What is that even, right? Nah. What about a bachelor's degree in history or English? Hah, history? Any substitute teacher needs that. What about experience as a debt collector? Hah, how crazy would that be?

So, wondering what would be appropriate.

Ouze wrote:

TBD wrote:But that is not what I said. It's fine for people to review products, but let's not give them a name they don't deserve.

Yeah, I agree totally. I mean, all they do is review stuff. Anyone can do that! Like a movie reviewer... no way are those guys journalists. Any idiot can watch a movie, and you don't see those guys getting pulitzer prizes, right?

By the way, I'm curious. What precise licensing do you think it would take to be a journalist? Who should license them? What schooling? Clearly a college dropout would not pass muster, right? No one ever gonna give a Nobel Prize to some dropout nursemaid. What degree must they have, in your mind? Something vague and fake like "public affairs" or "speech"? What is that even, right? Nah. What about a bachelor's degree in history or English? Hah, history? Any substitute teacher needs that. What about experience as a debt collector? Hah, how crazy would that be?

So, wondering what would be appropriate.

Ouze wrote:

TBD wrote:But that is not what I said. It's fine for people to review products, but let's not give them a name they don't deserve.

Yeah, I agree totally. I mean, all they do is review stuff. Anyone can do that! Like a movie reviewer... no way are those guys journalists. Any idiot can watch a movie, and you don't see those guys getting pulitzer prizes, right?

By the way, I'm curious. What precise licensing do you think it would take to be a journalist? Who should license them? What schooling? Clearly a college dropout would not pass muster, right? No one ever gonna give a Nobel Prize to some dropout nursemaid. What degree must they have, in your mind? Something vague and fake like "public affairs" or "speech"? What is that even, right? Nah. What about a bachelor's degree in history or English? Hah, history? Any substitute teacher needs that. What about experience as a debt collector? Hah, how crazy would that be?

So, wondering what would be appropriate.

Despite the suspected high % of smartpantsery it looks like you did a good amount of spending time & looking stuff up on this reply, so it must be very important to you (and I'm bored at work, so here we go)

...

A list of people who have done extraordinary work to earn special accreditation... cool?

Needless to say, for every each one of these exceptional cases there are 1000.000 unworthy bums with a website and/or a video camera.

If anyone who watches and reviews movies can be called a journalist, then in principle any random bum = Roger Ebert. I'm sure that is not what you want to state here. Now, can any random bum possibly ever become a Roger Ebert? Certainly. Nobody claims otherwise.

A college dropout can be an excellent movie reviewer, but in general and until further notice he should still be called a movie reviewer and not a journalist. Walter Cronkite probably doesn't agree that Bubba Joe @ BoW should be viewed as a legit colleague, and I'm sure there are random people out there who never went to law school who know more about the law than the average lawyer, but they still don't have the right to call themselves lawyer.
If legislation attaches special treatment to a certain name tag, then there damn better be a proper distinction of that specific name tag and who gets to wear it. That has been the whole point throughout. I don't see how that is so hard to understand and/or (apparently) upsetting to some.

As far as qualifications go, other fields of profession have certain requirements. Just add similar ones to journalism. Figure it out. Normally there would be nothing wrong with, among others of course, a bachelor's degree in English or History as a starting requirement, at least not down here. I can't comment on the specifics and quality of the US educational system and how these particular degrees compare to their supposed equivalents elsewhere (you seem to not think very highly of them & substitute teachers though?).

In addition to that, there is nothing wrong with granting honorific titles to people who have done extraordinary work to deserve such special consideration.

It would be very nice if I could review some movies of boxes of plastic sprues on Youtube and put "journalist" on my resume. However when you put some more thought into it that is not very realistic now is it? Most potential employers would raise an eyebrow at that at a minimum. Some will definitely laught in your face.

I can race a car, but that doesn't make me a legit racecar driver. I can also make myself dinner, but that doesn't make me an official cook. Etc.

Anyway, this post has become way too long already. Again, what I have been saying is that not every random hobo with a website and a videocamera should be called a journalist, because if everyone is then nobody truly is, and the word would be meaningless (which it unfortunately seems it has become a long time ago already). If that opinion offends anyone then that is too bad, but I honestly don't give a rat's arse




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Btw for some reason your new avatar gave me the idea to dig out some of my old G.I. Joe vehicles and look at possible ways to convert them into Ork battlewagons.

Like this one for example: