Undertale music publisher issues copyright strikes against reuploads and remixes of the music and takes down an Undertale fangame for using Undertale music; Toby Fox, creator of the Undertale, disagrees with publisher.
There's a ton of standard youtuber drama and rage bait thrown in to pad out the video, but that's the gist.
undertale is one of the best indie games
that has ever been released with its
fantastic writing touching and funny
story relatable characters and high
quality Sprite art however undertale is
also known for having one of the best
soundtrack in video game history with
the OST getting millions of views on
YouTube alone it gets to the point where
there have been thousands of fan remixes
new unique music using undertale as
inspiration YouTubers like myself using
undertale's music as background music in
their own videos and fan games taking
years of development which includes
remixes and covers of different themes
from the game how ever undertale
soundtrack is in danger allow me to tell
you a story about how one fan game has
completely changed the dynamic of how
undertale's music is handled and the
company behind undertale's music
publishing is going against Toby Fox's
wishes this is the story of how
undertale's music is in copyright
hell Our Story begins with well me and
this awesome fan game called undertale
yellow that took 7 years to develop it
also begins with Materia music
publishing and if you don't know who
they are they're basically the people
that publish undertale and delun
soundtrack they handle all the legal
stuff surrounding the music so Toby
doesn't have to deal with it himself
including copyright now for you to
understand this story let's go back to a
little bit before undertale yellow's
release material music publishing has
always caused a lot of problems with
people using undertale's music
specifically through YouTube's copyright
system basically a couple years back
undertale's music was always getting
copyright claimed left and right on
YouTube through their autoc claim system
and once I got claimed there was nothing
that you could really do about it now Mr
Toby Fox didn't actually want this
happening so when he talked to material
music publishing they basically told him
that there was nothing that they can
really do that there isn't a quote do
nothing option in YouTube's copyright
system that prohibit autoc claims
however Toby wasn't willing to back down
with how his music was being handled so
he struck a deal with material music and
publicly released a statement saying
that if any song from the undertale
Deltron soundtrack ended up getting
autoc claimed that you should dispute it
and it should be resolved and that was
supposedly the end of it unfortunately I
wouldn't be making this video if that
were the case this brings us to today
undertale yellow if you don't know what
undertale yellow is it's probably one of
the most hype undertale fan games that
has ever been in development this thing
took 7 years to develop and truly was a
10 out of 10 experience it's clear that
the team behind it really designed this
game as a love letter to undertale the
writing the gameplay the art and the
music it's all so good however remember
material music yeah yeah they didn't
actually like the concept of pieces of
undertale's music being included in
their soundtrack which in return had a
massive domino effect with how undertale
soundtrack is being handled in the
YouTube copyright system and it's in the
most infuriating way so let me tell you
the story of one of the most obsurd
enraging and disgusting moments in
undertale's
history I should preface this story by
saying that if I'm seeming a little bit
too dramatic or emotional at points it's
mainly just me being entertaining and
additionally this isn't meant to
complete completely on material
music it's meant to be constructive
criticism because what happened with
them handling this situation truly needs
to have attention brought to it so what
better way to bring attention to it is
by making a video on it without other
way let's begin officially all right so
the date is December 9th and undertale
yellow just dropped hundreds of content
creators around the world are currently
playing the game and that includes me hi
I was streaming the game on the day it
was released and the day after because I
was feeling really sick on release day
either way my plan for these two streams
was to combine them together and upload
one really long playthrough the game
because having these two streams be
separate is kind of weird and I thought
that I was going to be able to do this
without much of a problem of course
given the context of what I talked about
in the intro it was certainly much of a
problem now before I go ahead and talk
about what the problem is and obviously
it's going to be with Materia music I
should note that Materia music didn't
actually do anything to either of these
live streams when they were initially
finished keep this in mind anyway
combining these two streams actually did
end up being slightly annoying as it
took me roughly around 10 hours for my
computer to render the full SU hour
video however I created a thumbnail and
uploaded the video to YouTube expecting
everything to be all fine and dandy I
mean especially because both these live
streams didn't end up getting copyright
claimed at all it's also important to
say that I don't usually have problems
with material music claiming my videos
weirdly enough they typically only claim
my live streams so since undertale
yellow consists of unique remixes and
original music I wasn't worried about
copyright claims at all however then I
uploaded this video turns out that when
YouTube finished checking the video the
autoclaim system had detected that the
song enemy approaching from undertale
soundtrack Was Heard for 10 seconds of
the video in the entire 6 hours was
completely not able to be monetized this
obviously made me upset but I was used
to stuff like this at this point as a
YouTuber so I sent in my dispute knowing
that they would remove the claim because
that's what Toby Fox told them to do
however instead of waiting for the claim
to be released I decided to just cut the
part out myself and render the video for
another 10 hours I figured that would be
faster than waiting for them to release
the claim because it takes between a day
and 2 days for the claim to be removed
anytime I get one so that's what I did
only for YouTube's autoclaim system to
once again detect the same song enemy
approaching in a completely different
spot this gave me a horrible realization
the battle music is getting claimed this
meant that no matter what I did past
this point I would not be able to cut
out the copyrighted music because it's
the battle music that's getting claimed
so my only option at this point was to
wait for Materia to release dispute
however I heard from my friend Shay that
contacting material directly can help
speed up the process so that's what I
did I added them on Twitter and they
responded
with ping I
mean you you could have just
said email I don't I've never heard
anyone say ping either way when I
emailed the address I sent them over the
claim information and they were super
friendly about it before they took a
look at the claim they asked me to
review their YouTube FAQ and then send
them a link to the video that had the
claim on it so that's what I did I
looked through the FAQ and the only only
thing I could find that my video didn't
follow the rules of was that I needed to
credit Toby Fox and material music in
the description to be fair I've never
heard of this rule existing before but
hey it was simply them asking to give
credit to the people that own the music
so I can't be too upset about it credit
is nice I also sent them the link to the
video too which they requested now it's
very important to note here that I sent
them the first video I uploaded not the
second video I uploaded it's also
important to note that I disputed the
claims on both videos please keep this
in mind as I continue this wonderful
story I was certain that the claim was
going to be completely resolved at this
point because they were being super kind
to me over email and Jay had reassure me
that when I emailed them the claim would
probably 100% be removed and then they
emailed me
back damn it do you want to know what
they said thanks sibbles it looks like
undertale music was used in a different
game so the copyright claim will stay in
place for this one so at this point I
was backed into a corner with nowhere to
go and I got a completely vague answer
as to why this claim got denied for
release I had never in my entire life
had heard of this before from anywhere
it doesn't even make sense for one Toby
fox said explicitly on Twitter that if
you get autoc claimed a dispute would be
accepted and the claim would be released
those were Toby Fox's words and what
about any of the other playthroughs of
undertale Yellow on YouTube why do so
many other content creators get to have
their playthroughs up but why is my
playthrough specifically having a
problem where the battle music is
getting copyright claimed and when I
asked them to remove the claim which
Toby fox said they should be doing they
deny it this response wasn't even in
their YouTube FAQ there was nothing in
there that said that undertale music
can't be played when other games are
present but you want to know what was
even more terrifying about this email
this email response was so vague that I
couldn't even tell what the actual
problem for this was does this mean that
in order to use undertale music on
YouTube the video has to be about the
actual game like if you were doing a
video as say about something non
undertale related are you allowed to use
undertale music I had to know more so I
followed up with an email clarifying
that the music that is getting claimed
was a remix of the original theme which
by the way on their YouTube FAQ says is
allowed and additionally that other
people are uploading their playthroughs
of the game without any problem of
copyright claims and then they just
completely ghosted me I never got a
response or any sort of clarification of
what they meant by this now those who
have kept a sharp eye have realized that
my undertale yellow playthrough actually
did end up getting uploaded with full
monetization so let's go over how this
happened remember earlier when I said to
remember that I sent them the link to
the first video that got copyright
claimed yeah well turns out they didn't
even look at the video in question
because they denied the dispute for the
wrong video so what's funny about this
is that they denied the dispute for the
second video I uploaded but accepted the
dispute for the first video I uploaded
and if you recall the first video was
the one I sent them in the link so my
only guess as to what happened here is
that they saw undertale yellow in the
title denied the claim on the first
video they saw that had undertale yellow
in the title and then continued to
accept other disputes from other videos
that were sent to them which happened to
include my video and since they're meant
to accept any disputes that get sent to
them they just accepted it without
second
thought what this was majorly
It's a bullshit right though. Copyright law goes way too far and gives rights holders all the power and people that purchase music and want to do cool things with it no say.