Nintendo claiming ownership on Youtube videos featuring their product

[Guild McCommunist]

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.

Well to be fair he's kinda like a nonexistent market then. He couldn't even play the games so there's no real loss there.

(side note let's not talk about piracy since I know that's a common argument but this is a completely different subject)

A LP is in no way a perfect substitute for actually playing a game really, hell the only LP I watch (Game Grumps) I just watch for the commentary, not because the game itself is interesting. I skip entire LPs by them because they're just flat out boring.

 

[Rydian]

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

Depends on the uploader. Generally you're going to need like, 50,000 or more views on each vid to make a noticeable amount of money, but there are actually plenty of youtubers that make their living from it, like bluexephos (yogscast), pewdiepie, etc.

 

[Lestworth]

I still find it funny how someone can be thrown the law of "fair use" in there face, and yet still argue and ignore that fact. Fair use covers anyone who has manipulated the video in such a way to the point it wasn't a direct rip of him playing the game with no outside sounds, or content added. This basically encompasses every single person on youtube (ignoring the special few).

So for someone to even think that Fair Use can be ignored due to copyright "infringement" there was already a LEGAL BATTLE OVER THIS. Who won, its no surprise to me, Fair use.

I'm just curious if such people as Raocow will be affected by this, as he only does SMB / MB1-3 / SMW / SMBX and a few hacks of other games.

 

[nachoscool]

Based Nintendo getting rid of LPers. I can't even believe people actually do this as a full time job.

 

[the_randomizer]

Sorry, I'm going to continue uploading videos of LPs. Too bad, so sad. There are ways to circumvent YouTube detection methods and bypass any checks they have established.

 

[Deleted-236924]

You'd think Nintendo, of all companies, would be able to learn from Sega's mistakes.

Guess not.

I guess you could say that...

...


... Nintendon't!

 

[Pleng]

Well on a personal, and entirely selfish level, this is good thing for me... On the rare occasion I search for game footage on YouTube I want to see just that - GAME footage. I want see the game and actually *hear* the music and sound effects without some wannabe journalist yapping away in a really really irritating voice.

Now, considering the type of videos I want to see (straight gameplay footage) are unlikely to be created by people who expect revenue form their videos, and assuming that people who DO create videos with voice overs are likely to produce less Nintendo-related content, then by the sounds of things, there'll be less 'noise' in my search results.

However I realise I'm in a minority here and, looking at the bigger picture, this is bad news for both Nintendo and the creators of the content. Nintendo in the long term looses people promoting their games for free to make a short buck in the short term. As many have said, a revenue sharing system would have been a much better and fairer idea. Even if Nintendo got 25% of the revenue then that's still a fair whack.

The question on my mind is WHAT do YouTube have to gain by approaching companies in such a manner? What difference does it make to them who the money goes to? I can only assume that Nintendo are getting a *lower* cut of the ad revenue than a private individual. Anyway... this could turn out bad for YouTube. If I was somebody earning money from YouTube content, and all of a sudden *ALL* that money was taken from me, I'd simply remove my videos.

 

[Lestworth]

If I was somebody earning money from YouTube content, and all of a sudden *ALL* that money was taken from me, I'd simply remove my videos.

That's kind of how I view it. If i was the person that was all of a sudden target by Nintendo, and all my revenue was stripped from those videos. I'd tell them to kiss it, and put my videos to private, or delete them off of youtube. This is of course if Nintendo, after labeling the video, does not posses full and complete control of said video.

 

[KingBlank]

A LP is in no way a perfect substitute for actually playing a game really, hell the only LP I watch (Game Grumps) I just watch for the commentary, not because the game itself is interesting. I skip entire LPs by them because they're just flat out boring.

Yeah, I watch LPs for the commentary mainly, or in the case of minecraft mod LPs, (such as direwolf20's) I watch them to learn how to use certain mods.
Nintendo developed games are oriented around game play, unlike say - the half life series, which is effectively a book where you move around to turn the page.
A LP can't be harmful for Nintendo game sales.

 

[ZaeZae64]

http://blazehedgehog.tumblr.com/post/50598448215/nintendo-is-killing-lets-play

This was an interesting read.
(yeah, yeah I know dumblr, whatever)

 

[Hielkenator]

How's this bad news?
Anyway there are tools available to eliminate ANY advertising on youtube.
If I read properly they are not blocking any videos.

 

[FAST6191]

Fair use covers anyone who has manipulated the video in such a way to the point it wasn't a direct rip of him playing the game with no outside sounds, or content added. This basically encompasses every single person on youtube (ignoring the special few).

So for someone to even think that Fair Use can be ignored due to copyright "infringement" there was already a LEGAL BATTLE OVER THIS. Who won, its no surprise to me, Fair use.

That is an interesting interpretation of fair use and one I am not sure any judge present working could get behind. The obvious question there is what counts as added content? My logo in the bottom right, a timer, if I have 4 hours of raw footage but 20 minutes beforehand is me talking does that count? 4 hours of footage but I stick my title card in front?
Certainly there is a line at which fair use appears and in various levels talking over a game could count as criticism/review, satire in some cases or possibly even education (the traditional big three exceptions to copyright before we even get to the far trickier area of general fair use).

Sorry, I'm going to continue uploading videos of LPs. Too bad, so sad. There are ways to circumvent YouTube detection methods and bypass any checks they have established.

The trouble there is if you are caught that probably counts as admission to bad things and in many cases being caught gaming the system is just as bad as outright being caught doing something wrong.

Re: the point of games is gameplay. Possibly but it would be a hell of an argument to make in front of a judge, especially with precedents already set for sampling, for clips from shows, for audio tracks, for subtitles to films and more esoterically some of the commercial playback stuff from videos/DVDs.

 

[the_randomizer]

That is an interesting interpretation of fair use and one I am not sure any judge present working could get behind. The obvious question there is what counts as added content? My logo in the bottom right, a timer, if I have 4 hours of raw footage but 20 minutes beforehand is me talking does that count? 4 hours of footage but I stick my title card in front?
Certainly there is a line at which fair use appears and in various levels talking over a game could count as criticism/review, satire in some cases or possibly even education (the traditional big three exceptions to copyright before we even get to the far trickier area of general fair use).


The trouble there is if you are caught that probably counts as admission to bad things and in many cases being caught gaming the system is just as bad as outright being caught doing something wrong.

Re: the point of games is gameplay. Possibly but it would be a hell of an argument to make in front of a judge, especially with precedents already set for sampling, for clips from shows, for audio tracks, for subtitles to films and more esoterically some of the commercial playback stuff from videos/DVDs.

Haven't had any issues yet, but I can't be too safe. What do we do, post videos of the latest Harlem Shake?

 

[Guild McCommunist]

How's this bad news?
Anyway there are tools available to eliminate ANY advertising on youtube.
If I read properly they are not blocking any videos.

But they're taking the revenue from videos with Nintendo content away from the video's creator. So for people who make a living off Youtube doing, say, Let's Plays, lose the money from their Nintendo videos if Nintendo cracks down on them.

Plus Nintendo also gets the option to control distribution of the video. They can set up when ads appear in the video, make it unavailable in certain countries, or block it completely.

It's very bad if Nintendo REALLY cracks down on this more than they already have.

 

[Rydian]

How's this bad news?

... read the thread? We've explained how it's bad over and over. People who do LPs and other types of video game videos sometimes rely on the money from advertising for a living (their food, rent, etc.) via the existing ads.

But if Nintendo claims a video, then the money from the existing ads goes to Nintendo, NOT the person who did the video.

http://blazehedgehog.tumblr.com/post/50598448215/nintendo-is-killing-lets-play

This was an interesting read.
(yeah, yeah I know dumblr, whatever)

Am I seriously reading "if it's fun then you don't deserve it as a job" and "it's okay for people who LP like pewdiepie to have their income/job removed because I don't agree with them doing it for the money instead of the fun"?

How childish can somebody get!?

 

[Gahars]

To give another viewpoint, here is an article by the developer of Thomas Was Alone - a small, independent title he believes owes its success to the likes of Let's Players.

Now, Nintendo is as far from indie as you can get, but I think it highlights how much of an impact these things can have. Nintendo may be within their rights to take this action, but they're denying themselves free, easy promotion.

 

[Rydian]

To give another viewpoint, here is an article by the developer of Thomas Was Alone

Indies: Occupy the gap left by the lack of Mario and send out some Steam keys or download codes.

Not a bad idea in general (not just this situation).

I'll close with an example from Thomas Was Alone's sale history. The game launched in July on direct sales, and in November on Steam. The following Christmas I ran a 50 per cent off sale, which was doing rather well.

And then, on January 1st, Total Biscuit did a WTF video about the game (TB isn't a LPer, but he's a YouTube game guy so he's relevant). Thomas sold eight times more units than on launch day. In a matter of hours. I was outselling Assassin's Creed 3 on Steam. And that's not rare, every indie who's received coverage from TB, or a Let's Play from Pewdie or NerdCubed, has a similar story.

Yeah I check out TotalBiscuit's stuff because his "WTF is:" series is... pretty much exactly what I'm looking for when I go to look up a new game on Youtube. Somebody tells me to play it, I think "WTF is (x)?", I go to Youtube, and bam.

 

[jomaper]

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.

If your friend is not really your friend and you're naked, yes.
Now, seriously... I can't believe there is people defending Nintendo in this topic, like... wtf?

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

A lot for a single person doing it for a living, but nothing to a company like Nintendo. But I don't really know anymore if it's "nothing"... I mean, assuming they mean this for every single video with Nintendo's material, they can get a crapload of money and I can't even imagine how much that could be.

 

[dehry]

They still get free easy promotion. They just get paid on top of it. Fuck the people who thought they could just sit in their basement and play video games to make a living. The people at IGN, GiantBomb, and other gaming sites do more than just play games. They actually gather news and write reviews of games (and movies.) The whole Let's Play medium has drifted so far from what it was years ago. It used to be people did them for fun and some happened to be funny. Now it's all about overreactions and cursing while asking people to like and subscribe.

xXXCharizardlover69XXx may have payed $100 for a microphone setup (then downloading a rom/iso and unregistered hypercam,) but Nintendo payed far more to just a single employee to yell "Let's a go!" into a microphone. Mario 64, Super Mario World, and Zelda is not getting free promotion. They are ingrained into gaming culture. Newer things like Xenoblade got spread around by word of mouth and online campaigns, not someone playing through the entire game on YouTube after it was released. The cut scenes in games like that are the same as a movie. No button combination you press will change anything (don't bring quick time events into this) and real people recorded the dialogue and music.

Every one of those people in that video deserve a cut of the money made from a Skyward Sword LP (conveniently played in dolphin with an ISO, but it's not illegal because I don't want it to be.)

It is kinda moot to point this out though, because the general sentiment here on this forum is "SCREW THE GAME COMPANY I WANT FREE GAMES GIBE ROmS PLS"

 

[FAST6191]

The people at IGN, GiantBomb, and other gaming sites.....They actually gather news

[orchestral video]
Every one of those people in that video deserve a cut of the money made from a Skyward Sword LP (conveniently played in dolphin with an ISO, but it's not illegal because I don't want it to be.)

It is kinda moot to point this out though, because the general sentiment here on this forum is "SCREW THE GAME COMPANY I WANT FREE GAMES GIBE ROmS PLS"

1) That is classic. I am sure it happens once or twice a year but turning around press releases and newswires are not to much in line with classical journalism. This is not to say bad but you may get called on that.

2) Assuming that is a Nintendo orchestrated affair Is it not called being a session musician?

3) Really? I have seen a handful of discussions on various relevant aspects of IP law, the nature of fair use, the nature of work, the merit of the medium and more in this very thread. Certainly fans of free games make up a significant portion of the userbase but such a thing does not preclude a discussion on other things.