Note. The following is the opinion Solely of the author and not necessarily that of Real Otaku Gamer or its staff.
Recently there has been a major controversy in the YouTube Gaming Community and the Retro Gaming Community, when WatchMojo.com, the 29th most watched channel on YouTube was involved with a plagiarism scandal. Prominent Youtuber and retro gamer, Larry Bundy jr., aka Guru Larry, put out a video back in June about the worst selling video game systems as part of his webseries, Fact Hunt. He and the others in the video discussed the actual worst selling systems and not just what was often misreported.
That video can be seen below
This past week, WatchMojo put out their own video about the worst selling systems. The issue was that they used Larry’s research and information without permission or credit. Now while facts cannot be trademarked or copyrighted, Larry was smart about his videos and put traps in them. These traps were in the form of minor exaggerations and guesstimations, which WatchMojo included in their video. This became known and WatchMojo took down the video and issued an apology. That should resolve the issue, right? Well not quite.
Fellow retro YouTuber ( and the only British Wrestling Politician) TopHatGamingMan pointed out in his video that WatchMojo included comments in their apology that essentially placed the blame on Larry for using traps and therefore somewhat false information. Never mind that major businesses and corporations do this as well for the same reason Larry did. This is done to protect the content being put out from being stolen. WatchMojo genuinely came off as being upset not that they plagiarized but that they got caught.
As well, many comments made by certain individuals at WM come off as very disingenuous and feeling that they are completely absolved. Thing is, this isn’t the first time WatchMojo has done this. YouTube channel Games You Loved, has had similar issues. They received credit, but were not asked permission to use the content. This is a major issue that needs to be addressed. The issue of stealing content without permission, and often not giving credit or attribution is a large concern for content creators. I myself have had articles I have written stolen by others and republished without credit or attribution. This cannot be allowed to go on. Larry has a large following which is how he was able to get WM to admit wrongdoing, but someone like THGM or Games You loved would not have that option.
As THGM discusses here , the issue is more than just WatchMojo’s plagiarism but their reaction as well and how they handled it. For example, the company and the CEO’s tweets and retweets seem to show a lack of awareness about why people were upset. If a company doesn’t see what they did wrong, and tries to blame the victim for protecting his work, then that is a situation that might make content creators nervous. The company doesn’t seem to have accepted fault fully and that is very off putting. Not to mention they also used some of the same jokes as in Larry’s video.
This is a worrying matter for content creators and I want to raise awareness. No one should be allowed to take another creator’s content without their permission.