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Nintendo decides it owns YouTube's Let's Play scene
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I don't agree that there should be a protest, but if someone decides to remove their Nintendo LPs and/or only focus on non-Nintendo LPs in the future in order to make money off it, I could understand it. That doesn't mean I agree with it or that I'd act the same, but I can see why they would do it.
Before:
- LPers advertise product for free
- LPing costs money: Recording equipment, cost of electricity and internet (+ time invested)
- LPers get very small ammount of compensation from ad revenue
=> Unless helped out through donations, LPers lose money through LPs
After:
- LPers advertise product for free
- LPing still costs money and time
- LPers lose even small compensation through ad revenue
=> Entire cost of LPing has to be covered by donations or paid from own pocket
The problem I see here is that Nintendo's products are still advertised for free. Nintendo just want more money themselves and hurt those who support them for free.
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Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
Precisely my point.
Edit - The crackdown was on competitions using one CD key for Starcraft competitions.
Unmotivate - Updated May 17th - "Let's Complain About Nintendo"
The PA Forumer 'Lets Play' Archive - Updated March 25th, 2013
There have been cases where I watched LP's so I wouldn't have to buy the game. So in a way, I consumed the game on Youtube and the Dev got nothing out of it. Such a case SHOULD be covered, in a way.
Ultimately the only fair way would be to split revenue. Most likely people will have to work with Nintendo officially to get these things organized in some way.
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If people get as much enjoyment out of watching a "narrative driven" game that's literally the same for everyone with no satisfying gameplay that you'd be missing out, you might as well watch the film version then. They might even cut out the repetitive combat sections with chest high walls.
Watching a game shouldn't be the same as playing it. The good LPs show the skill of the guy playing it or his knowledge of the game, it's development, quirky bugs, lots of stuff you'd miss. This isn't streaming the latest Game of Thrones episode while yelling out whenever there's dragons on screen.
This is perfectly within their rights, and I fully expect Nintendo's LPs to come down. Which is probably the point Nintendo was after, so they could control the message a bit more.
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
It's not irrelevant, it's exactly relevant as the LP related policies of the companies involved. People started Youtube of LOL before Riot issued a policy. Riot saw it was already happening, and then decided to issue a reasonable policy that has benefited pro players, the community in general, and the game itself.
http://www.riotgames.com/legal-jibber-jabber
Highlights: Ads are allowed. Sponsorships are allowed. Cannot gate the video behind subscription wall, but are allowed to have it on, say, Twitch which offers premium accounts.
--
Edit to add: And this is similar to the policy I'd like to see Nintendo adopt. They wouldn't be getting flack if this was their policy.
I dunno, I've seen some LPs in that vein.
And that's the problem - what defines a "good" LP? How do you say "this video, we'll let them make money off of our product because they are adding to it, while these guys we'll take all the revenue because they are a mouthbreather?"
The answer, of course, should be a creative partnership - IE either Nintendo reaching out to the LPer in an advertising/sponsorship deal, or the LPer reaching out to Nintendo asking for consent.
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
So good message there: Support our competitors!
Wouldn't it have made more sense to do a copyright strike on the channel instead of coming off as greedy penny pinchers?
Not every LPer uses the ad partnership program on YouTube.
Unmotivate - Updated May 17th - "Let's Complain About Nintendo"
The PA Forumer 'Lets Play' Archive - Updated March 25th, 2013
Short answer: No. That would be declaring war.
This punishes the good LPs that people should watch with the shit ones. The shit ones will just play something else. They'll just play flash games or indie games if all big publishers decide they can't do that anymore.
Exactly.
Copyright law cannot be selectively applied. Part of its core is that you must defend your copyright against all comers. It's why Nintendo has some of the strongest anti-piracy measures out there.
I'm sorry, but even if you are a good LP'er, if you don't get permission from the copyright holder to redistribute the copyrighted work, you are violating copyright law. You are also violating Youtube's TOS, per that post last page.
Bringing up that Nintendo's not in the best PR position to do this is irrelevant, and why I'm trying to frame it with other companies. If you do not aggressively defend copyright, you will lose it.
The dividing line is making money off of someone else's copyrighted material, at least in this aspect of copyright law.
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
Copyright is not trademark. You lose trademarks if you do not protect them. You do not lose copyright over your work if you do not exercise it. This is a choice, not a necessity.
Edit,
Where on earth are you getting this idea from?
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Pretty damn sure Mario is going to fight Bowser and save Peach. Oh shit. Spoiler alert on that one!
I wonder if Link is going to fight Ganon this time? Think maybe Princess Zelda will be involved? Ah man, no way!
Nintendo games are about the gameplay folks.
"There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother."
-"People who watch a funny guy play Mario are doing it instead of buying and playing Mario themselves, every view in that video is one copy that is not sold"
-"The cook should not get any money, since he is shamelessly profiting off the intellectual property of the farmer"
Probably a lack of sleep, but my mind keeps going back to the case of Star Wars and the very real risk of it entering the public domain by becoming part of the cultural fabric of the country - hence why Lucas fought any violations of his copyright so strongly. Nintendo runs that risk too, especially with Mario.
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
Case #1: Not 1 to 1, but I'm sure it happens. Plus, again, others profiting off of the game developer's work.
Case #2: Cooking is a transformative process. Plus the cook paid the farmer for the raw material used to cook the food (sort of like you have to get permission to use samples in a song).
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
That's generalizing to an incredible degree.
Also wrong.
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A fair point. There are probably people who need it though. Don't underestimate how much work goes into LPs, and the ammount of money isn't exactly small either. Why Nintendo discourages spending money for them, is beyond me.
Because Mario is the only game made by Nintendo?
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
Now explain why those interactive bits suddenly grant the Let's Play complete diplomatic immunity from copyright laws when uploaded to Youtube.
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Did you get permission and consent from the copyright holder for your avatar and signature?
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums.
Because that would lead to a biased assesment of the games when Nintendo refuses to grant permission to anybody who are critical of them.
No, I did not, and if the creators who uploaded that served me with a C&D I would take them down.
Ah. So.. like game reviews nowadays? Or maybe like Sony, who will let the publishers decide when the share button can and cannot be used in their games?
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
This is tempered, however, by the fact that copyright is violated an utterly absurd number of times. This doesn't make all instances legitimate, of course, but it means some measure of thought should be put into how some areas of enforcement are handled. We, as a society, have come to largely rely on lenient enforcement in many areas (fan-trailers, screenshots, and LPs as examples within videogames, but there are plenty more in popular culture). Essentially, the ball is in Nintendo's court on this. They are free to do this, legally speaking. It's also incredibly fucking stupid. Both can apply at the same time.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums.
I don't think that's the issue. The issue is that there's two types of copyright defense:
- Defending positive use of your material
- Defending negative use, aka misuse of your material, meaning misrepresantation or presentation in a bad right
If you wanted to stop negative use of your product, discouraging everyone is a weird desicion. It doesn't stop anyone completely, it just discourages everyone, even positive presentation aka free advertisement.
If I really really want to present their product in a bad light, this desicion isn't gonna effect me. I just have to spend more money on it.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
Everyone is profiting off everyone's work. If I make money doing data analysis with Matlab for people who don't have Matlab then I'm profiting off Matlab's work. But it's ok because I paid a Matlab license. If Matlab were to come and tell me: "You are making unfair use of our IP because if you didn't analyze that data they would have been forced to buy Matlab themselves" I would still be laughing at them.
Cooking is a transformative process, a LP is a transformative process, too. The raw material is the game, a game that has been paid for. Nintendo has already made their correspondent profit at their correspondent link in the chain. This new trend of trying to get your profits and all the profits of the subsequent links in the chain is as stupid as a farmer telling Gordon Ramsay he wants a cut of his revenue because he farms the rice that he uses.
What if instead they simply asked you to put a watermark in the corner that said "Owned by XXXX"? Would you declare it to be the ultimate insult like the decrier's here?
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It's not going to affect anyone or anything. Those videos will still be allowed to exist. Let's Play's of Nintendo games will still be allowed to be made. Only now, instead of an ad for Axe Body Spray at the start of the video, it'll be for the Wii U or 3DS or something.
That's literally it.
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According to the first page, it's larger than that.
Edit N.3: "...redirect ad revenue to Nintendo's pockets instead of the video creator's..."
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
As I understood it, the revenue would go to Nintendo rather than the uploader. So if TB does a long WTF of a Nintendo game, he will not see a dime for it. Which is a dick move and highly unfair for TB.
gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=202693
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What if suddenly no one can have any stolen art from anywhere as their avatar or signature?