Nintendo claiming ownership on Youtube videos featuring their product

[emigre]

So if I just love the 'charm and hard work' of Stephen Fry's voice and he goes and makes an audio book, should the writer not receive any of the profits?

That's a shit analogy.

 

[jacksprat1990]

A bit dumb on Nintendo's part. They didn't learn from SEGA it seems.

 

[Wizerzak]

That's a shit analogy.

That's a shit response. My analogy was perfectly reasonable and deals with all the same problems faced with video game playthroughs.

Copyright infringement is copyright infringement, even if it has your voice / face plastered all over the top. Legally, Nintendo (and every other game publisher) could sue for these videos. The only exceptions are game reviews, however playing through an entire game does not exactly constitute as a 'review'.

 

[emigre]

That's a shit response. My analogy was perfectly reasonable and deals with all the same problems faced with video game playthroughs.

Copyright infringement is copyright infringement, even if it has your voice / face plastered all over the top. Legally, Nintendo (and every other game publisher) could sue for these videos. The only exceptions are game reviews, however playing through an entire game does not exactly constitute as a 'review'.

Fair Use.

 

[Rydian]

So if I just love the 'charm and hard work' of Stephen Fry's voice and he goes and makes an audio book, should the writer not receive any of the profits?

The point of the book is the information, in audio format it's still the same information.

On the other hand, gameplay is the point of a video game. Interaction. You don't get that from watching somebody else play.

And before you try to convince yourself that it's the other way around, ask yourself this. Should it be illegal to go over to a friend's house and watch them play a videogame? I used to do that all the time. Am I in the wrong for watching them? After all they only bought the copy for themselves, and have no distribution agreement.

 

[DSGamer64]

Still not as bad as Major League Baseball, they have the worst content restrictions in the western world methinks.

 

[Wizerzak]

Fair Use.

...you don't appear to understand how the law works or what is meant by 'fair use' so I'm not going to even bother to respond anymore. Good night.

 

[SifJar]

Well, I have a few thoughts to share on this:

It's clear that this initiative was started by YouTube, not Nintendo; they have made similar offers to others, including Notch for Minecraft videos (which considering the vast magnitude of Minecraft videos and the relative size of Mojang compared with Nintendo, would probably have been a much more tempting offer than the one to Nintendo). Of course, Nintendo still accepted the offer.

This will undoubtedly lead to a few things;

(i) people will stop making videos about Nintendo games - this is an obvious response, and it means a serious dip in "free" advertising (although I guess it's not really "free" when you weigh it against the potential revenue gained by doing the deal). Many people don't have the disposable income to buy every video game they want, and so naturally they turn to reviews etc. to help them choose. In this day and age, that means, for many people, YouTube videos. The advertising given by YouTubers is probably worth more than the ad revenue on those videos.​

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(ii) YouTubers who do keep using Nintendo games in their videos will move to other monetization methods e.g. merchandise, or in-video ads/sponsorship. For the former, there's probably not much Nintendo could do. For the later, there is potentially grounds for them to take action, I'm not too sure. (I would hope there isn't, but I would also have hoped they wouldn't have been able to get the ad revenue in the first place).​

Either way, viewers will be bombarded with either extra advertising (the regular YouTube ads plus the in-video ads), or else with requests to buy merchandise. Lose-lose for viewers IMO, which in turn decreases viewers, which in turn decreases effectiveness of these videos as an advertising mechanism for the games.​

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I also think it is somewhat ridiculous that Nintendo will be able to control where the videos can be watched, the age ratings, etc.

So as you can see, I am opposed to the idea (even though I never watch any sort of game play or LP videos on YouTube, nor create them).

On the other hand, I can understand why Nintendo might want some sort of control over videos concerning their products, but I sincerely hope this doesn't lead to any form of censorship from Nintendo, as that would set a very dangerous precedent for YouTube IMO.

I think this is a poor choice, and I think it will create bad publicity for Nintendo, which is yet another downside to the whole thing.

 

[emigre]

Who remembers when Ninty were encouraging to make their own Lets Plays?

 

[PolloDiablo]

internet is too advanced for the current copyrights laws....
and personally, judging from how fast the net is evolving, I think that will never change
this will be a constant struggle, with the bigger boys taking advantages over these "grey areas" and getting all the cash

I believe the only way to bring balance to this "corporative abuse"... is piracy
Nintendo is getting money from a youtube video you have worked so hard? just pirate a couple of games and "get your money back"

there's no other way around it.... the world just work that way

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

tl;dr thread, but I hope to god everyone isn't all like "well that's understandable I mean Nintendo blah blah good things blah blah".

 

[emigre]

tl;dr thread, but I hope to god everyone isn't all like "well that's understandable I mean Nintendo blah blah good things blah blah".

Maybe Nintendo are just being MASTER TROLES about all of this?

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Maybe Nintendo are just being MASTER TROLES about all of this?

BETR TROLE THAN U

 

[KazoWAR]

good thing my channel is partnered with a company that already works with nintendo.

 

[emigre]

BETR TROLE THAN WII U

Fixed that for ya.

 

[narutofan777]

Do you know what I did with my nds a long time ago? I broke it in half and slammed it against a rock then I buried it.

 

[jacksprat1990]

Do you know what I did with my nds a long time ago? I broke it in half and slammed it against a rock then I buried it.

Erm...Unlucky. You missed out on a lot of good games.

 

[KingBlank]

YouTube LP's = advertising...
then again, I have a friend who used to just watch let's plays instead of buying games cause his computer could not run them.

 

[gbadl]

My question is, how much are people really making doing long plays? $10 a day? $100 a day? $1000 a day?

 

[Ericthegreat]

Ah, the wonderful world of Youtube. For many it has provided one of the most innovative new careers in modern history, being able to do your own pet project, such as a Let's Play series, and be able to get paid for it. This is thanks to Google's AdSense, a program which gives Youtubers money for the ads on their videos. For many, this makes up their living, especially the frequent Let's Play series by many Youtubers. Now, however, it seems avoiding to play Nintendo games for Youtube is a safe bet, as Nintendo is beginning to crack down and claim ownership on videos featuring their games.

By claiming ownership, videos featuring their games get all their ad money sent to Nintendo instead of the creator. An example is Youtuber Zack Scott, who is currently doing a Let's Play of Nintendo's recently released Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. This report is also backed by Mike Bithel, creator of indie game Thomas Was Alone and the hugely popular series of Youtube channels Machinima.

In response, Nintendo issued the following statement:



A reminder that content ID matches aren't copyright infringement charges, but are still pretty bad. If a video is correctly content ID'd, that means that the owner (Nintendo in this case) controls a lot of aspects of the video, such as when ads play, what countries the video can be shown in, even if it can be shown at all. All the ad revenue from that video goes to the owner as well.

So if you're a LP'er or even use Nintendo game footage, images, or audio for your Youtube videos, it might be best to avoid them for now.

Source

That's really shitty as the amount of money they are getting means nothing for Nintendo, but as for the uploader, it could be a good source of beer money.