MikuMikuDance channels on YouTube and other video hosting sites are getting hit with cease and desist letters from Rooster Teeth for making RWBY content. Both SFW and NSFW content is being hit.
The full story about the legal threats, the DMCAs, and copyright claims are detailed with plenty of screenshots over on Nyannet.com.
There’s also a quick summary of the controversy provided by YouTuber Hero Hei.
They reveal that content creators like W&S MMD have been hit by Rooster Teeth’s legal team.
There’s an imgur gallery with all of the images from the back and forth between W&S and Rooster Teeth’s customer support.
The images are quite telling.
W&S tries to find out what led to the videos being blocked, but they were stonewalled by Rooster Teeth.
The videos had their global visibility blocked and monetization made ineligible.
Things escalated when Patreon stepped in with a copyright notice from Rooster Teeth requesting for the removal of links from W&S account.
They also revealed a DMCA notification letter from June 17th, 2020 made by Rooster Teeth’s legal department that was sent to Patreon to have the links removed.
They later sent out another DMCA notice to have the YouTube channel remove RWBY content.
ABF MMD had all their videos blocked, and then later had the channel removed, which was nearing 100,000 subscribers. There’s still an archived cache of the channel from July 5th, 2020, after the videos had been blocked but before the channel went down.
A second channel is still alive, but with far fewer subscribers.
They’re re-uploading some of the videos to the channel, including RWBY content.
However, given that Rooster Teeth is on the war path, it’s just a matter of time before they target the secondary ABF MMD channel.
(Thanks for the news tip fefvvv)