Popular lore elocutionist, Arch Warhammer, is now just known as Arch after the legal department from Games Workshop hit him with a copyright strike for infringing on the Warhammer trademark, even though the property is on the Traitors of America master list.
A very short recap of the situation was provided by YouTuber Ace1918, who not only covered the situation involving Arch Warhammer, but also what sort of consequences this could have on every other YouTube channel out there that contains Warhammer content while being monetized.
After receiving the copyright strike and the letter from Games Workshop, Arch Warhammer complied. His YouTube channel is now known as simply Arch.
This also means that other YouTubers or content creators sharing material online that is monetized based on the Games Workshop content could run into similar problems. I also wonder what this would mean for projects like Astartes?
But the troubles for Arch didn’t end there.
Arch did a follow-up video noting that Games Workshop instituted a blacklist against him when it comes to sponsorship deals related to Warhammer.
The short gist of it is that Games Workshop and Wargaming had a partnership together featuring war ships from Warhammer, and Wargaming had sponsored some of Arch Warhammer’s content. However, when Games Workshop found out about it, they wanted to ensure that Arch was blacklisted from any sponsorship deals related to Warhammer products or content.
The blacklist was confirmed via a tweet that was published by the World of Warships Twitter account on July 2nd, 2020, where they responded to someone criticizing Wargaming’s sponsorship deal with Arch Warhammer.
You can check out the original tweet below.
— World of Warships (@WorldofWarships) July 3, 2020
If you’re unable to read the message in the tweet, it states…
“Dear World of Warships players and Warhammer fans,
“Due to a human error on our side, a rather controversial figure in Warhammer community, Arch Warhammer, was involved in our marketing activities for World of Warships and World of Warships: Legends. While working on our Warhammer collaboration, we were specifically warned by Games Workshop not to work with this influencer, and we agreed to it. Thus, we ended up sponsoring the person we don’t want to be affiliated with and failed to fulfill an important and rightful request of our partner.
“We take full responsibility for this incident and sincerely apologize to you and to Games Workshop for letting this happen. […]”
Take note that they’re admitting to being persuaded to blacklist someone unrelated to Games Workshop. This is actually an anti-trust violation.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, they explain…
“Any company may, on its own, refuse to do business with another firm, but an agreement among competitors not to do business with targeted individuals or businesses may be an illegal boycott, especially if the group of competitors working together has market power.”
This is a clear cut case of blacklisting since Wargaming haphazardly admitted to blacklisting Arch Warhammer from their sponsorship deals for no other reason than because Games Workshop told them to.
However, given that Arch, Games Workshop, and Wargaming are not located in the U.S., (even though YouTube is) it may be difficult to get the FTC involved.
There’s certainly grounds for an investigation.
(Thanks for the news tip durka durka)
