Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Nintendo decides it owns YouTube's Let's Play scene
Posts
I don't really have a dog in the hunt. I can see both sides of the argument clearly and think both sides have merit. I think legally this is well within Nintendo's right, but it might be a bit morally disingenuous. I think the people who tend to make LPs are usually super fans and they don't really intend to fuck over any parent company, and that there isn't much morally wrong with what they're doing, but legally it's pretty gray.
Mostly I think it's just a sad situation.
Ah, good point. It still falls into the realm of Nintendo being the one to make the decision for their case. They've decided to allow for content but not profiting from it. It's a weird middleground, because they could've not allowed the content at all.
Unmotivate - Updated May 17th - "Let's Complain About Nintendo"
The PA Forumer 'Lets Play' Archive - Updated March 25th, 2013
Just call it 'broadcast word of mouth' or 'free buzz' then. Same connotation but with the implication that sometimes maybe there's an asshole doing the preaching. :P
probably the only thing this entire thread can agree upon. The reach of copyright laws and their impact is staggering. Given their incredible importance in today's increasingly connected digital world, it's staggering how one-sided copyright laws are and how poor they do their intended job.
Well I feel that people use the words "free advertisement" as a way of making Nintendo look like they are, like, ungrateful or something, and that LPs do nothing but help game sales.
When that's not really true.
We don't really know how much they help or harm sales, beyond knowing through anecdotal evidence that both can happen.
It's actually quite similar to the piracy argument where it's "pirated copies is less money for the devs!" vs. "The people pirating would have never bought the game anyway!"
The actual truth of the situation is somewhere in the very muddy middle.
I actually think it runs pretty close to the used game argument on both sides, except the people who would usually be screaming bloody murder over no longer being able to sell their games are now giving Nintendo a free pass.
It's perfectly legal for a company to require an activation key for a game, and it's perfectly legal for Nintendo to do what they're doing in regards to LPs.
However neither stance is going to benefit the company in any large way, and ends up just pissing off the game community as a whole. And the real question here is, is pissing off a segment of users with powerful voices in the community really worth it?
It also depends on the game in question. Like I have no doubt in my mind that League benefits from it's open youtube policy but for singleplayer games it's probably a lot muddier.
Which is why I said I'd be cool with Nintendo just blanket saying 'no youtube vids guys'.
The problem is the advertising revenue, not the existence of the video. Nintendo has a very real concern here. It's not even that the pittance LPers get from YouTube changes their bottom line much, it's that in IP lawsuits, you have to show that you've maintained control, use, and ownership of your IP. If you're letting other people exploit your IP for revenue without demanding so much as a share, you're not maintaining ownership.
Hypothetical situation: Let's say Nintendo releases a game with a wildly popular competitive mode. Cartoon Network, in a fit of legal stupidity, starts a game show based on contestants playing this game for prizes without obtaining permission from Nintendo. Nintendo sues them. In court, CN's lawyers point out that Nintendo has been knowingly allowing people to make money off recording and distributing video of themselves playing Nintendo games for years without taking any action whatsoever, and that CN is doing little more than a slickly produced "Let's Play" with prizes. The judge could very well rule that Nintendo's past practice shows they've not maintained control, and thus Nintendo loses the suit. This then sets up Nintendo to lose even more control over IP. This doesn't happen if Nintendo's lawyers can say, "Actually, all revenue from LP videos goes straight to us."
So no, I don't think they're being dickish. If they were being dickish, they'd demand everyone take down their Nintendo YouTube videos. Instead, they are taking very reasonable steps to protect their ownership of their IP.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
I wasn't critizicing your quoting. You quoted correct, you just misunderstood. I wasn't being inaccurate.
If you have problem understanding either that "You [verb] something" can and often relates to everyone instead of a single person, you have a problem with the english language. I wasn't being vague or misleading either.
Not to mention that you also don't understand the concept of leaving an option open instead of creating a condition. There's a huge difference between "When A, then B." and "When A and ONLY A, then B." Just because you fail to understand doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Outdated in the sense that it needs an overhaul though, not in the sense that it isn't needed anymore. Problem being that it's not always as simple as we'd like to think.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
What they do care about is controlling the advertising in this channel. I just loaded up a Let's Play of NSMB Wii U with over 5 million views and got an Assassin's Creed Ad.
Nintendo's concern is, that a few months from now, there is going to be a Let's Play for The Wonderful 101 or Pikmin 3 and viewers are going to be flooded with ads for Knack or other products that are in direct competition with them.
I'd bet this entire initiative is the result of somebody in Nintendo corporate loading up some Youtube content and seeing competing content advertised over their own stuff.
Fair Use is not required to be noncommercial. If it were, shows like The Daily Show, Siskel and Ebert, and X-Play could not exist. Commercial intent is just one among many criteria used to determine such a thing.
And no, I'm not saying Let's Plays necessarily are Fair Use. Just that it's silly to disqualify them based on that.
MS unless you are partnered with Machima will take down videos of Halo content if you are monetizing them plus many of their other core franchises. Most record labels will throw up ads before any video fan made or not that uses one of their songs. Your home video of your kitten dancing around to some obscure hit of the 80's might get monetized by that system.
If you want to not pay Nintendo all you have to do is one of two simple things to escape this auto check.
1. Make the videos less than ten seconds long.
or
2. Escape the primary detection methods of the game, i.e. don't show the main screen and mute the game audio, that's what they use to detect this.
Also other studios have been doing stuff even more nefarious (Sega takes down any video related to a series with forthcoming games so that they can have favorable search results, i.e the last two Shining Force games) and other companies have used this in the relatively benign fashion of stopping people from monetizing OST dumps, you know when they just show the same damn background image and upload the entire soundtrack on one playlist.
TL:DR Nintendo isn't shutting down anyone. They are just substituting anyone else's attempt to monetize their own content. If you still want to make money off of Nintendo's back, there are ways around it even on Youtube. Other companies have done much worse things and have been for awhile now.
No, actually, they're creating the video feeds as well.
So you're stating than a Let's Play is 100% Nintendo's content?
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
The game sure as shit is; the audio, the visual, the scenario. It's not a wholly new work, and hell it's not even a derivation (which Nintendo would still have a claim on)
Hell if you did an audio only LP of the game ala a rifftrax you'd be free and clear.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy | blog
You can't do an audio only LP like you do for movies. That's the whole point. Movie commentary is audio synced up to the movie. LP add gameplay and audio. You could run an emulator that recorded audio and key presses and distribute that file but that raises the barrier to entry from just clicking a YT link.
There used to be demo (.dem) files for Quake speed runs. People used to commentate Warcraft 3 tournament games by distributing an audio file since not many people had the capability to make a good video or the bandwidth to distribute it. You loaded up the replay and started both the audio and the game at the same time, you even had an app for that.
However, the game itself does not constitute 100% of the LP content, yet Nintendo is claiming ownership of 100%. Personally, I have an issue with that, and if the advertising revenue was split in some way the situation would be wholly different. By claiming all advertising revenue, Nintendo is essentially claiming ownership of work they have had zero hand in producing(the commentary of the LP), and this strikes me and some other people as greedy douchebaggery. It is perfectly legal for them to do, doesn't make it any more right.
The degree to which the game content constitutes the LP depends on the LPer. In some cases with minimal commentary etc. it can be close to 100% and virtually indistinguishable from an extended gameplay demonstration. In other cases the game content can be a miniscule part of the finished LP, where the commentary, various hijinx and extra content derived in some way from the game may constitute a majority of the Let's Play being watched.
I'm pretty ok with these people getting fewer incentives to do what they do
Both of these, so much so. I work for a large retail chain supporting their online website. One of things we have on our site is Google Ads, and it was very explicit from the very beginning that no competitors are to show on the ads. It's view as one of the dumbest mistakes the company could make to have ads showing up encouraging people to shop at our competitor.
Also, the Exec comment is probably more accurate than you think. I can't tell you how many project requirements I've seen come down the pipe because a VP didn't like the experience. Example, our error page used to say something like "Oops, you've experienced an issue." VP didn't like that, so any errors had to be changed to start with "Sorry" instead of "Oops".
Yet this is something that could have been achieved without also taking the ad revenue. Even if we're talking about minuscule amounts of money, it's more of the principle of the thing.
It probably started as "we don't want ads for our competitors on videos with our content, hey lawyers, take care of that", the lawyers saw that these videos were making money, and went further than the intention. However, the principle of the matter is that Nintendo and other publishers are deserving of revenue here if the LPers are making money off of Nintendo's content without their consent. It's still first and foremost their content. I agree that there should be a split, but I'd argue that it's up to the LPers to work that out with Nintendo, not the other way around. I would strongly support a central licensing agency for situations like this so LPers don't have to work out separate agreements with Nintendo / Activision / Ubisoft / 2K Games etc, but who knows if such a thing will ever happen.
That said, it sounds like the algorithms that YouTube are using to determine which videos are using too much of Nintendo's content are overly broad and are even impacting videos on channels where Nintendo supposedly already has agreements in place about revenue-sharing.
I'm curious if you have any examples where you would say the commentary + hijinx + extra content constitutes a majority of the LP over the original game content. I don't watch many LPs, so I honestly don't know of any. I would think that the added parts are still based on the original game content / systems put in place by the designers and could never outweigh the game content itself, but without examples, I can't say for sure.
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
This Arcanum LP adds some storytelling because he made a backstory for his main character: http://lparchive.org/Arcanum/
Ultima 4,5,6 explains the mechanics, how some things were implemented in code, hijinks: http://lparchive.org/Ultima-4-5-and-6/
These are text only, I can find you some video ones later but these surely also fall under this whole topic, what with using the game's assets are world building.
tails Gets trolled
This is only true for Trademarks, not copyright. A common mistake, and a viewpoint that many publishers like to put forward to help justify their actions, but not the view of the courts.
Why would someone else want to spend a long time and a lot of effort if they aren't going to be repaid for their effort? Sure, you could argue that the diehard fans would still be doing just because they enjoy the game and want to share it with others. That's true. But you wouldn't find stuff like the actual Lets Play youtube channel popping up, with comedic personalities playing video games being the main draw. Noone that watches the Rooster Teeth LPs are watching for the games they play (Minecraft notwithstanding, that game's whole existence is an anomaly for examples that would include it). Their Monopoly LP has over 2 million views over it's two videos. Hell, the more popular games that they do an LP of on or make a game out of, regularly have 1.2 to 1.5 million views per video. They would not be wasting their time away from custom animation and machinima episodes if there wasn't an audience wanting to see videos of them playing games and just being generally silly the whole time. I know, because I don't watch most of their other content, just the LPs where certain players are on them, because I find those specific ones humorous.
That's why I said Youtubers.
Also, some people will watch any shit some of those same people poop out. See pewdiepie.
tails Gets trolled
They muted the whole thing. Removed the audio track completely. They didn't just monetize it, they didn't allow it, they completely stripped the audio out of my video.
In the movie industry, Rifftrax is a great example, we cannot stream an entire movie and put our commentary over it and expect to get paid for it. You better believe the MPAA would be all over that removing EVERYTHING. That's why Rifftrax has to release only the audio commentary and you have to provide the movie.
Nintendo is being pretty cool about all of this, because essentially they own what is being shown on the video. What if they decided to just strip all the video out and leave your audio commentary? That would be bad. Or if they simply removed every video. Putting an ad on it? Yeah, it's not awesome, but I can't really fault them for it.
It would be nice if some of these LPers who try and do this as a sort of job would be able to contact Nintendo and perhaps work out a split share of the profit from ad views on Youtube, but I don't know that Nintendo would work with that. I doubt it.
Backloggery XBox Live 3DS: 1805-2274-4550 (Jonathan)
tails Gets trolled
To give some examples, Helloween4545's LPs are something I watch primarily for his commentary, which ranges from fairly outlandish stories to wordgames, mockery, and many other issues related to the games he's playing. He also tends to come up with various miniature memes alongside the playthroughs, and generally the LP presents the watcher a significantly different view of the game being played as a result. His LPs go through the games, but his commentary and various things he messes around with and does in them are most of the reason I watch them. I know I sure as hell wouldn't just watch someone playing the games he plays without any commentary and silliness.
Research Indicates made an LP of Crimson Skies(although I didn't see that on Youtube), where he interspersed the gameplay with commentary on aviation and the background story of the Crimson Skies universe and its various connotations. He also made mini-documentaries related to aviation history and how many issues are related to the game, as well as nearly encyclopedic knowledge of various issues related to the game directly or indirectly. The LP is basically partially educational. The content is almost 50/50.
And while not an LP, AARs(After Action Reports) are something often made by players of various Grand Strategy Games(like Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings etc.). An AAR, Rome AARisen is not a video LP, but uses Crusader Kings as the setting and a guide for various events, then constructs a vast narrative around it. It makes significant use of various assets from the game, as well as several TV shows such as Rome, and crafts it all into a original written work inspired by these things, but composed of nearly entirely original content. Original content is probably around 95% of the material.
What you consider a majority or a significant enough portion to distinguish an LP as an original enough work to not automatically be the property of the game IP owner, I don't know. All I know is that all of these examples are radically, or at the very least significantly different experiences than just playing the games, and as such I consider them as separate entities from just playing the game. We'll need to decide if an LP refers only to video LPs on Youtube, or LPs in general. Additionally, I'll add the anecdote that Helloween4545's Dark Souls LP was the reason I bough the game in the first place, as he introduces the viewer to the game while also pulling some silly stunts.
But their decision and people defending it display a complete inability to understand culture and the creation of culture in the 21th century. This is a very retrograde posture.
This.
It's not even remotely accurate as far as what happened.
Also, I see that it's been pointed out that Nintendo isn't the first, nor the largest, company to have done this; but somehow "Nintendo decides it owns..."?
Come on.
There's certainly a discussion to be had, I suppose, as to the merits of a company 'owning' all visual representations of its products; but that discussion is pretty corporation agnostic and a general ideological principal.
People would have reacted the same way if they had given noticed.
The OP is pretty bad.
tails Gets trolled
I'm not so sure they would have. Letting people know that there is going to be a change would give them time to hash out a deal (either through sharing of ad revenue, or editing the videos so they don't fall under the blanket of it) or decide to end the LP, versus finding out the day after when Youtube basically says "NOPE YOU CAN'T HAVE THAT MONEY CAUSE THEY SAID SO". It sets a very different tone for the LPer, really.
Agree. The revenue needs to be split someway. The revenue isn't much to Nintendo, but to some person who does LP as a sidejob and just wants to break even with equipment costs so he can keep doing what he loves to do, it could mean the end to his passion.
Let's be clear, no one is making bank off of LPs. Even the ones that make some semblence of money (even the most popular youtubers) don't make enough to crack the top 1%. There's probably less than 25 youtubers who make over 250K, out of millions doing the same thing. Plus, this Nintendo move isn't going to hurt them much. It's going to hurt the person who barely breaks even each month or even runs a bit of credit card debt, and that's with his 2 or 3 other jobs.
@Athenor, let me guess, you made no effort what so ever to contact the creators.
You did not ask them if they would be OK with you using their content as avatar/sigh when expressing your personal opinions about various subjects, that they would have no input on what so ever, am I right?
It's easy to say you would be OK with complying with their request, when you know such a request will never come. How about you ask them?
Do you honestly think they are OK with you using their content?
Also, I'm curious, what do you think would be rightful compensation for using their creations as avatar/sig?
US$3/month? US$3/1k views?
[edit] I have no illusions about W.C. feeling comfortable w/ someone like me using his portrait as an avatar.
Or that the photographer feels rightfully compensated.