Escape from Tarkov Dev Shamelessly Abused YouTube Copyright to Shut Down Critic

Escape from Tarkov developer Battlestate has abused YouTube's Copyright Strike stystem to shut down Eroktic Gaming.

One of the issues with the current state of YouTube is its easy to exploit copyright strike system. Whether you have grounds to strike someone’s content or not, you can do it easily and often manage to take down entire YouTube channels, demonetize videos, and monetize videos for yourself.

The problem stems from the fact that these claims go through an automated system which can be manipulated easily. But companies go out of their way to manually flag content creators as well. Especially, those who criticize their video games. Game companies like EA, Activision, and Nintendo are notorious for going after Youtubers.

Unfavorable videos aren’t tolerated by some game companies and one of these companies is Battlestate Games, the creator of Escape from Turkov.  A first-person shooter game with amazing visuals and Battlefield like gunplay. The company recently exploited and abused YouTube’s digital millennium copyright act to target Eroktic Gaming.

Battlestate Games issued 47 copyright strikes on Eroktic Gaming. According to Eroktic, these are all false copyright claims that this company is using to take down his channel.

Eroktic posted videos in which he showed concerns about a potential data breach that puts your information at risk. His claims can not be substantiated at this point due to the fact that his videos are no longer available. However, that hardly matters now as this is less about a data breach at this point and more about abusing Youtube’s copyright system.

It is a clear abuse of DMCAs, one that is clearer when you look at the studios’ statement posted on Facebook.

Lately, Eroktic decided to settle on the concept of negative hype and started ardently supporting people who obviously designate their position as hostile to us. Eroctic released a video in which he, in a tendentious manner, accused us of incompetence that allegedly led to a leak of two million profile credentials. The video was based on someone else’s document which described the process of obtaining basic information about profile through rating tables (a nickname, ID, statistics from the rating). Nevertheless, after our check we were convinced that no leaks have ever happened. Eroktic began to spread rumor that cheaters can steal your account and get you banned for cheating. All of this was and remains false.

Eroktic released the next video, without regard to our further actions, and tried to make a show of this situation. He broadcasted video from YouTube which was allegedly proving that leak existed and that 90% of all game profiles have already been banned. Again, he made this video in the most disrespectful and cynical manner. We conducted our investigation and were convinced that this video is also a complete lie. According to the bits of information in the video, we found out which profiles were compromised. Quick search revealed that all data of all the three accounts shown in the video were in free access on the Internet, particularly in the database of one well-known game that has been leaked a year ago. Why did the passwords work? Because quite often, users use identical emails and passwords for multiple profiles. We took measures immediately, forcibly resetting passwords of the accounts which we found in the leaked databases of other games on the Internet. In addition, we began process of enhancing the safety of profiles in case of REAL threats.

By this time, the negative media background that emerged through actions of Eroktic, resulted in rather large number of messages of concerned users and also to other provocative and speculative posts of the ill-wishers willing to self-actualize on this. The decision to address YouTube concerning video on the Eroktic’s channel had to be made in order to stop misinformation and hatred. Moreover – we did not want and we do not want this person to be associated with our game in the first place. His purposefully destructive actions cannot be considered “criticism” no matter how you look at it. Eroktic has a long history of negative attitude towards our project, the company and players, and with the recent actions he crossed the line.

The relations between developer and players are always based on mutual trust and respect. We want to state our position once again – we will always have zero tolerance to lie, provocations, hacking, destructive behavior, etc.
We want to ask you not to give in to provocative actions of various persons, not to trust everything that they write unsubstantially.

We do not know if the data breach actually took place nor can we say Eroktic is spreading misinformation. The company could have gone to the court of law of it felt this is a smear campaign and slandering.

But instead of taking it to the court of law, the company choose to copyright strike and use DMCA to target the channel. The company intentionally used the copyright strikes on 47 videos to shut down an entire channel as fast as possible. Of course, going to a court of law would have been a slower process and in case was a data breach, an investigation would have made it public.

DMCAs are used to protect your content in case someone else is trying to pass in on as their own, there is an NDA breach, or it isn’t under fair use. In this case, Battlestate used DMCA spamming for not agreeing with or liking what Eroktic Gaming had to say. The community isn’t supporting Battlestate in this situation, in fact, some of the YouTubers and content creators have cut ties with Escape from Tarkov in solidarity to Eroktic Gaming,

Sarmad is our Senior Editor, and is also one of the more refined and cultured among us. He's 25, a finance major, and having the time of his life writing about videogames.