Another video of the “Samsung Galaxy Note 7″ [Bomb]”mod for” GTA V that hasn’t been taken off YouTube (yet).
It’s not every day that we see a pike story that combines current news of cell phone explosions, game tweaks, and copyright legal issues into a single cocktail of pure Ars catnip. Today is one of those days, however, as phone manufacturer Samsung has released a seemingly frivolous DMCA takedown request for a video featuring a Grand Theft Auto V mod with a Galaxy Note 7 as an explosive weapon.
As Techdirt reports, the video titled “GTA 5 MOD – Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (Bomb)” is “no longer available due to a copyright claim by Samsung Electronics America, Inc. and its affiliates,” according to the YouTube page. Before the removal, the video seems to be a simple gameplay recording of this “Samsung Galaxy Note 7” [Bomb]mod, from modder HitmanNiko, who replaces Grand Theft Auto V‘s sticky bombs featuring a 3D model of the famously broken (and now discontinued) phone.
It’s not clear if the removal was automated or manually requested by the phone maker, but you can still find plenty of other videos on YouTube that show that mod in action, so Samsung doesn’t seem to be spreading a wide net across all such videos as from yet.
The mod itself is quite clearly a satirical social commentary ripped from the headlines, just like any video that simply shows it in action. This is almost certainly not the sort of thing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is designed to stop (not that Samsung is the first to abuse the law to stop videos that are more embarrassing than infringing).
Funnily enough, if developer Rockstar or publisher Take Two wanted to have a problem using the videos Grand Theft Auto V assets, it would probably be within its right to do so. Perhaps Samsung can lean on its friends in the gaming industry here. Or it could just focus on fixing its phones.