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Nintendo decides it owns YouTube's Let's Play scene
Posts
I think it's all about controlling their content/IP.
Controlling it, so they don't have competitors ads show up before, in front of, during, over under, after their IP/content.
I also think they would very much like to control how it is used. So people don't go off on some racist rant during their Animal Crossing Let's Play.
I'll chime back in on this once I'm able to focus on it again.
(Seriously, the OP is really disengenuous, and at the very least should collect the myriad facts on how copyright law is applied. Also, I still maintain that machinima is a completely different beast than straight playthrough videos.)
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
The glaring difference being that nobody here (as far as I know) has been able to monetize the usage of their forum avatar.
STEAM: Gasman1220 | My Backloggery
Speaking of stuff that isn't being monetized...
Full disclosure,
I not only think that things like this is OK :
NSFW (audio)
but that it improves, and enriches, our society.
I don't think it deprives SCE and Jay-Z of new revenue streams.
And seeing how Content holders use their veto powers, I'm not sure they should have (much of) a say in how their content is used/transformed.
(Tough in those cases they should (prolly) be financially compensated. But without a way to say "No".)
But that's just me.
Goosey is in the eye of the beholder. Given that I know you are familiar with the situation, I could just bring up the "Fighting is Magic" situation, which is very much an analogue of this situation other than the creators in that case making a lot more original content than LPers do.
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
Hey, I'm new to Ponies here (though spending years creating a fan project like that without an inkling of permission strikes me as a tad silly).
And yes, goosey is definitely a subjective thing, which is why I fall on the side of giving the copy holder more power and relying on them being sensible/caring about public face enough to not go over board.
An argument can be made that this was the "non overboard" way of handling it, especially considering how zealous Nintendo's been about protecting their copyright in the past. As I said earlier, they've been ramping up their Youtube presence lately in anticipation of their not holding a conference this E3, so this is kind of a logical extension.
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
Many LP and game videos are hugely well produced things which are successful based on the work of the creator, not the videogame. It's why so many are based on BAD video games, not good ones. Honestly with this situation we are pushing up against the boundaries of what the law is. Nintendo should get some money, but if the primary content is based on the users commentary then the item should belong to the user, not Nintendo.
My concern is that bad apples (videos which are just long montages of expensive to produce copyrighted art, cutscenes and music) will be used to create legislation banning the uploading of all forms of interactive media use without the permission of the content creator. Nintendo did make that game, they made that art you are using, but fair use is a vital part of criticism and parody and the amount of material you should be allowed to use for 'fair use' has to be dependent on the media you are commenting on or parodying. For example, if I was reviewing a board game I would say it was 100% fair use for me to post up a complete and detailed video of me playing the board game from start to finish. Even if I did so multiple times. But if I was reviewing a movie it would not be OK for me to post up a whole video of the movie. If I was reviewing a book, it might be fine to include a 5000 word sample, but if I was reviewing a movie I couldn't include 5000 words of the script.
I guess the key issue for me is that this shows we need a third party decision on this, and that decision needs to be biased towards the users not the creators. However whatever decision we do get will be hugely biased towards the corporations who employ the creators and will be bad for everyone.
Hurrah...
[Citation needed]
You have to define creators and users. Are creators the original content creators, like Nintendo, or are they people who do the LPs and add their own stuff to it, like the commentary and asides and other information? Are users the people who view it?
Where does people who post images of all of a game's components online fall?
Also, copyright law (Especially biased towards the content creator) is extremely important to a modern society. I greatly dislike that corporations get to abuse it (and I would love to see nothing more than copyright reform be pushed as a major part of government policy), but dancing with the devil is a small price to pay for protecting my future livlihood.
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
This is an insanely scary prospect considering the lengths of copyright and the concentration of "creative" properties being consumed by so few corporate entites. I think it's safe to say corporations will always be goosey about things as long as it makes a quick buck. This line of thought protects that behavior, well done.
It's also pretty anti-thetical to creativity. Yes, some control so the artist makes a profit for his work is needed, but complete control only damns society in turn for benefiting a select few.
Well tabletop games aren't keen on book information and contents being posted. There's instances of the companies giving consent to particular pieces of content though, like character sheets / character building information. But again, they're the ones in control of what can be given out.
Unmotivate - Updated May 17th - "Let's Complain About Nintendo"
The PA Forumer 'Lets Play' Archive - Updated March 25th, 2013
Depends on whether you consider the game content shown in an LP to be the content of the LP, or the actions taken by the player and their commentary to be the content of the LP. If it is the former, then the game IP owner obviously has all the rights to it. If it is the latter, then the content creator, i.e. the LPer has all the rights to it. If it is a mix, obviously there should be a compromise. If it is the latter or a mix, why should the game IP owner automatically gain the rights to content they did not produce(the content created by the LPer, such as commentary, memes related to the game, stories and extra content outside the direct gameplay, etc.)?
The extent to which the game itself is the content of an LP varies depending on the amount of content produced by the LPer. If the LP is watched mostly for commentary and other content provided by the LPer, as opposed to watching a gameplay video of the same game sans commentary, then the product being consumed is the content created by the LPer and not the content created by the game developer/IP owner to a greater extent.
My personal opinion is that I consume the content produced by the LPer, it usually being comedic, poignant, interesting or otherwise entertaining commentary. I have little to no interest in watching just gameplay or silent LPs, but obviously this varies from person to person.
Let's not forget that copyright law has little resemblance to its original form, while the original benefits from it and arguments for it are still being touted as being valid(which is difficult to believe when the laws themselves have changed significantly). It has been quite thoroughly perverted over the years by corporate lobbying.
That is exactly my point though. @tbloxham was not very clear, and I was asking for clarification.
In the end, I think this whole discussion is just going around in circles. What really needs to happen is that we'd need a court ruling on what is what.
Some people who aren't Nintendo but are video game producers don't agree with what Nintendo is doing.
Right, sorry. I seem to have misinterpreted your comment.
Unsurprisingly, Capy are being cool people.
Yes, but no one who is coming out against them is anywhere near the same leagues in terms of overall revenue and IP value. Not to belittle them, but it is a different scale.
(Also, as an aside, I really shouldn't have skimmed over the comments. I can't believe those are the same forums as this.)
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
Except for every example of a company being an ass about their youtube policies you get ones that are fine and/or endorse creative endevours using their work. If someone wants to lock something up tight and throw away the key then more power to them. I think most people actually prefer having their work seen and interacted with.
That and if it's a choice between extreme power to the holder or no power at both ends of the spectrum I'd rather lean to giving them more power than not enough.
There's a crucial difference between indie developers and Nintendo though. Of course indies will like let's plays because they have way more to gain from the exposure. And Nintendo isn't saying people can't talk about their games on YouTube, Nintendo is saying people can't profit from talking over their games on YouTube. I do agree taking all profits is a bit much but really the only way to handle this satisfactorily is to handle each video case-by-case which is impossible. I feel like Nintendo should be open to discussion with YouTubers but otherwise I don't have an issue with how they have dealt with this.
Let's Play is a new medium of sorts and it was only a matter of time before something like this happened and this is the best outcome I can think of until we move forward and people try to legitimize it.
So content creators are ranked by the number of lawyers they can hire?
The comments there have an excellent example: http://lparchive.org/Jurassic-Park-Trespasser/
This is probably one of the best video LPs around. It talks about the game's development history, how it was presented in previews for press, why they did what they did as they did. It's about the game's design, designer's intentions, the game's mechanics and story. And also gameplay. And that's just the first two or three videos, I haven't finished it yet.
Look at the 1st video and then decide if the author just took the game and played it while screaming into a mic.
For example, from my personal experience, I watch Game Grumps, not because I give one whit about what game they are playing, but because I like how they interact regardless of the game on screen. Their interaction is the entertainment value I am showing up and sitting through ads to experience.
On the flipside I have watched LPs where I could care less about the talking voice because I am more interested in seeing what the game itself is all about. In those situations I am sitting through ads to experience the game that the developer made.
In scenario 1 I feel that the commentators should be the recipients of the ad revenue because they are what I came to see. In scenario 2 I think Nintendo has the claim because the only reason I am watching that LP is to see what their game is about, and the commentators are not really adding anything of entertainment value to the game that would warrant compensation.
I don't know of an easy way to differentiate between the two types though, or how one would go about setting up a system where the appropriate people were compensated but I feel like there is an important distinction to be made between the two types.
Delphin Twitch Stream:
Research Indicates is boss. You should watch his Crimson Skies LP if you haven't yet. That man is a walking encyclopedia of interesting stuff. I used it earlier as an example of an LP where the LPer provides a significant amount of the content.
Still at work so I can't watch that, but I'm well aware of the game that birthed the Microsoft Xbox. If that LP is as you describe, then the content creator put a hell of a lot of work into the research and examination of the product. Such work could make a hell of a claim for educational fair use, and the creatuor should be compensated for it.
But if he just dropped raw video under it, then the game's creators should be compensated too - if they make a claim against it. I much prefer that such explorations of a game be done with an intermixing of various visual mediums, but that is me.
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
Good thing it doesn't have to be an either/or choice!
Basically the only way you'd 'distinguish' those is LPer's with a bit of clout going to Nintendo and getting their own deal. Which still leaves some rubbish LPer's (pewdiewhatever) in the pool and also creates a system where the only guys who earn any revenue are the very top and have a massive advantage in terms of ability to put time into their videos.
But then you'd need some sort of impartial review, to determine which games are just people recording themselves playing, and which ones actively contribute to culture.
He put a lot of effort into it, going through the game's development history, game design aspects, the works. His Crimson Skies LP episodes also ended with various mini-documentaries on aviation history and how parts of the game tie into it.
Nintendo is going to put their ads in front of videos showing their stuff. OK. They have said as much in their official statement.
Can someone point me to a source that verifies Nintendo is also taking the ad revenue? Because this Zack Scott fellow who keeps getting quoted first is talking about how Nintendo is filing claims against his videos (a phrase I associate with DMCA takedowns, not so much advertisements), but I'm not certain how that means Nintendo is also taking the money.
EDIT: Youtube's FAQ is no help at all either. It says under the "Monetize" option of Content ID Claims that "If ads that you did not enable appear on or before your video, the content owner has applied a Monetize policy." which I guess means that revenue for those ads go to Nintendo? The phrasing makes it sound that in this case there will be extra ads rather than replacements ones.
Definitely and I never meant to imply that it did. I was just voicing an opinion on which stupid state is the least stupid.
As much as *I* don't like Pewdipie's LP I still feel like most people watch his LPs because it's him doing it. It matters less what game is being played, and more what the commentator is saying/doing (Even if I don't like his particular brand)
In his case I feel like he should get the compensation.
Agreed, that's why I don't think there is an easy solution there. The ones that just record their play session should not be compensated in my opinion, but ones who do actively contribute to the culture or are the main draw for the LP should.
It feels like a very gray area and not something that can be covered by a blanket policy easily.
I think that Nintendo having some sot of department (or developers in general) to deal with stuff like this (the review of, and agreements being made) would be ideal. At least in larger companies. As someone else mentioned with indie developers often the exposure for them is well worth the cost of the ad revenue so they could have a public policy regarding their stance on LPs.
I don't think Nintendo is doing anything "wrong" per-say, they are certainly taking a much better approach then they are entitled to which I think is admirable, but at the same time I feel like in the situations where their game is just a backdrop to the actual entertainment that they don't have as strong a claim as when their game is the main focus with just some guy playing it.
Delphin Twitch Stream:
This seems less like a "Acting within their legal rights" situation and more like Nintendo is using the fact that they can hire lots of lawyers to actively bully small content creators out of their legal rights. Am I wrong about that?
As I understand it (and correct me if I'm wrong) The LPers using Nintendos content in the first place is only because Nintendo allows it. Under the copyright laws they are within their rights to request the removal of any video displaying their games without explicit permission from them to do so.
Instead of doing that though Nintendo has decided to allow them to utilize their games in the videos, but want the ad revenue generated from it.
Without the Game the LPers wouldn't have a video, the entire purpose of a LP is to play a game, and that game is copyrighted under the company who holds that copyright.
Fair use comes into play in certain cases, but I think someone listed early that LPs fail to hold up to the Fair Use aspect of copyright law.
Admittedly I know very little about copyright law so I'm not entirely sure on these points.
Delphin Twitch Stream:
I'm hardly an expert but I think as the commentary couldn't exist without Nintendo's content it leaves them able to act.
Essentially because the lets play is basically an extension or presentation of Nintendo content it's still mostly Nintendo's content.
Yeah, I think they're actually within their rights to demand a takedown, but not necessarily within their rights to demand the ad revenue. Because by demanding the ad revenue they're profiting off of another's work, which is exactly the thing that they are making the complaint about. IANAL though.
Would you see the demanding of the removal of the work as being preferential in this case, then?
Then again, the commentary is an equally(in some cases more, in some cases less) important part of the product, the product here being the LP. It could be argued that the LP would not exist without the commentary either. The commentary can be extremely related to the gameplay occurring, or tangentially related. Regardless, Nintendo can't really claim that the commentary is in any way their content.
That would certainly be less problematic from the point of view of considering an LP to be only partially composed of Nintendo's content, and would avoid the issue of Nintendo profiting from other people's work. Whether it's better or worse is another discussion entirely.