Nintendo Claims Ownership on Many Vidoes

[vonboy]

Firstly, I know that Nintendo lagally can do this. Under current law.

One thing to realize is most of the industry is for letting youtubers profit from making videos of their games. Microsoft is for it, as well as minecraft (I know microsoft bought out Mojang, but they were for it before then.) Lot of indie developers allow it, because they realize it creates a lot of ad revenue. Many of them would have never been noticed if there wasn't videos being made about them, getting people's eyes on them.

Nintendo's is also flagging reviews of their games for getting revenue, like what's already been said for Angry Joe. Critical analysis of products is protected. Why wouldn't it be, as it would create a weird situation where someone could put up any product they wanted, no matter how bad, and other people couldn't review it, informing the public before they make a purchase. I repeat. Nintendo legally owns footage of their own game, but they can not own someone else's critical analysis of their work. That is protected under free speech, and this is Nintendo stepping out of their bounds.

There's been cases of Nintendo flagging hour long talk discussion videos, because they showed a 30 second trailer of one of their games in it, taking all the revenue from the entire video.

Now, one thing, Nintendo has no right to take all the revenue for a video when the part that pertains to them is only a small fraction of the total video. This is them stepping out of their bounds for sure. Taking revenue that doesn't even legally belong to them, as it's not even pertaining to them.

Second, they are flagging videos for showing trailers. Promotional material. Specially made footage that the company wants as many people to see as possible. How can they take revenue when the video maker is essentially showing an ad for a Nintendo game? That's really what a trailer is. An advertizement. This is promotional material that Nintendo sends out to media outlets, telling them to spread the word about their games. How can anyone be incentivized to put up videos, that are really advertizing for Nintendo, when they will get nothing out of it. Nintendo will flag it, and take the money for themselves.

Nintendo can do this legally, yes, but there's been many cases of them stepping out of bounds, and taking revenue that doesn't even legally belong to them, because the flagging process of videos is so out-dated and archaic.

I hope Nintendo realizes that by doing this, they are going to have to do all of the advertizing for their games themselves. They are already starting to do this, as evidenced by their "Nintendo Directs" they've been doing, instead of taking the traditional media outlet route sometimes. It's really sad that Nintendo is preventing many of it's fans from being able to profit by spreading the word about them. You have Angry Joe, PewDiePie (The biggest youtuber there is right now), Total biscuit, and many others boycotting Nintendo. Refusing to make any more video's about them, or even wanting to talk about them anymore. You get too many people not even willing to talk about you anymore, it's really going to start hurting your sales (Which their sales have been pretty horrible the past few years, honestly. I know they've made many other mistakes with the 3DS and the Wii U, but this revenue taking is a part of it.)

Just my two cents.

[pokeplayer984]

Animeboye, I'm sorry but, you just don't see the fallacy in your arguments.  You see, the thing about Let's Plays is that they are fair use for one VERY big reason.  In fact, it is the one main point that really makes them transformative enough to make them fair use.

Playing a game yourself and watching someone else play a game are two VERY different experiences.  Anyone who has been through both can testify to this.  It's these two different experiences that Let's Plays hinge on to make them fair use in the first place. (That and commentating on their experience while playing it.) The fact you are watching someone play a game rather than playing it yourself.

Remember, unless you can disprove the differences in the experiences, you really aren't going to get anywhere in this argument.

[Animeboye]

Let's Plays are fair use? Since when? When did this change? Source, mein freund?

Yes, playing a game vs watching someone play are two different experiences. So what? What does that change? You say my argument has fallacies yet I see just as many, if not more, in yours. If I watch two people watching a movie or listening to a song, then that changes the experience just as much as watching someone play a game.

And thanks for telling me how to debate. I never would have figured that out on my own with my tiny little brain. You haven't proven any of my points wrong. You're just regurgitating what entitled Let's Players like DarksydePhil have already said. "I deserve that money because I had to go through the harrowing trial of turning on my console/PC, starting up my camera, and filming myself play a video game! Then...then...I had to upload the footage and EDIT IT!!! WAAAAH!!!"

No. I'm sorry but you DON'T deserve that money. That is not your content. I can't go to a theater, film a movie, commentate during said movie, then upload the footage and make money off of it. Why should Let's Players be allowed to get away with stuff that no one else would ever be able to? They're not special. They shouldn't be held above the law.

I hope I proved my points to your liking. That took all the brain power I had.

PS, let me tell you a little secret: I've considered possibly trying to do my own Let's Plays. Not saying I will but maybe. But if I do, I'm not monetizing the videos. Why? Because the footage in said videos wouldn't belong to me. I'd feel guilty (possibly) getting rich off of someone else's hard work.

[pokeplayer984]

Let's Plays are fair use? Since when? When did this change? Source, mein freund?

Ask and ye shall receive.

https://iplsrutgers.wordpress.com/2014/01/2...itute-fair-use/

When it comes to fair use, what matters most isn't whether or not the content is yours.  What matters most of all is HOW you use said content to make the experience different.

On top of what I have said, copyright laws are different for each piece of media.  In the case of movies, the MPAA has made it their business to make what you can do with movie footage as limited as possible. (Why do you think they try to make SOPA happen?  It's just to restrict us more than we already are.) Video games on the other hand don't have as many restrictive copyright laws.  They do have a lot, I will admit, just not as many.  What you can do with one piece of media may not be the same with others.

Using movies to compare copyright laws of video games doesn't work because the copyright laws are different from one another.

[Animeboye]

Well good golly gee! A source!

Alright. Having read some of this, I strongly disagree with a couple things. Firstly, he says that most videos have the person discussing the game, like giving hints or analyzing them. Not from what I've seen. Most of the Let's Players I've seen spend that time usually just making bad jokes and not even paying that much attention to the game. Or in the case of someone like DSP, his critiques of games usually are just "Dood, the game's bugged man! The game didn't explain anything! Freakin' Kojima!!"

Second, while there are Let's Plays that don't profit off the game, there are more that do than don't. So he's not exactly right that most Let's Plays don't profit.

Third, while there are Let's Players who do only post a single video of a game. Kr1tikal for instance. Sorry if I spelled his name wrong. He's also one of the only Let's Players I actually find funny. He only posts one video of a game and it's usually not that long. In the case of someone like DSP, Game Grumps, or Pewdiepie though, they normally post the entirety of their playthroughs. This can actually be a bad thing if the game is say, more story heavy. If someone is going to watch the entire playthrough of a story heavy game, they may see fit not to buy it since they've already experienced the story. In some ways, this can even be true for more gameplay oriented games like Mario.

Now before you say that their experience may not be the same as the person's they just watched, that doesn't matter. If they've already seen the story and the gameplay, they could see fit not to by the game. True, this won't be the case for everybody but there will always be exceptions. And what if those people were planning on buying the game but then watched a Let's Play of it and decided that was good enough? That's one less sale the game's getting.

Going slightly off topic from the article, one rebuttal I've heard about Let's Plays is that they're "free advertising". That doesn't work. When you advertise something, games included, you only show a little bit of that product. You don't show it in its entirety. Again, there are Let's Players who do show only tidbits of a game, like Kr1tikal. His videos I'd say could be a stronger case for that than say the three I mentioned two paragraphs ago.

And I'm willing to contradict myself a bit here and say this: while Let's Plays can help certain games. Indie games like say, Minecraft, Five Nights At Freddy's, or Stanley Parable, bigger name games like Mario, Call of Duty, GTA, Assassin's Creed, and Zelda don't need help selling. These games are well known even outside of the gaming community. Games like Mario and GTA have sold well long before Let's Plays were even a concept and will continue to sell long after the fad ends.

That was quite a lot to type in all seriousness. Strangely enough, I actually feel a bit better having debated on this. I do have some more I'd like to share but it's getting late where I am and I have to be up in a few hours. So I'll leave it at this for now.

[Animeboye]

Double post but I just wanted to apologize for my snarky comments towards Pokeplayer last night. There's been some stuff going on in my life right now(job related stuff) that last night just pushed me over the edge. I still stand by what I've said about Let's Plays being monetized but for right now, I think it'd be best for myself as well as everyone else if I just don't post in this topic anymore. I've said my piece and I don't know what else I can contribute to the conversation.

[F-14 Ace]

I've noticed a lot lately that every time I try to watch an Assassin's Creed video, some company called Merlin is claiming copyright and blocking the video.  I was under the impression that Ubisoft owned the Assassin's Creed franchise.  I don't know who these Merlin pricks are but they're taking down anything remotely associated with Assassin's Creed.  They took down one video because the guy in it was playing the theme song on a violin.