Mojang Tempted to Claim YouTube Revenue on Minecraft Videos

[Zombie_Moogle]

No, it's not even trolling, it's just not reading the article and taking the title at face value about Notch contemplating to block Minecraft video revenues right now.

Hehe, no. Even going to Youtube with the intent of laying down the law is not a nice move, him denying the offer was a way of saving his arse.

A potential backstabber is still a backstabber.

So what if it was just for public relations reasons? Our backs remains unstabbed.

I think that's the point you're missing.

He could have taken then greedy Nintendo route, but he didn't. I could probably steal everything that isn't nailed down in my office building, but I don't.

Thinking about something, even thinking really hard, isn't the same thing as doing that thing.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

Stop searching for Minecraft videos on youtube and you'll probably find yourself a lot less annoyed about it. Seriously, I rarely see them aside from one or two linked on websites/forums maybe once every other month. If you're seeing so many that they actively annoy you then you're either spending too much time in the wrong communities or actively searching them out for some reason.

God, I hope Notch will get his wish. I'm absolutely tired of the endless stream of vomit that is Mincraft videos, clogging up youtube.

Uuum... so don't watch them?

If I were to search, let alone watch those videos, I wouldn't have no problem with them popping up. The thing is, they appear everywhere. Even on a clean private browsing session, I see at least two simultanous mincraft casts appearing on the front page.

Again, so?

Watch something else. Go to a different website if it bothers you so much. Going offline is pretty much a guarantee to avoid Minecraft LP's

 

[mad825]

No, it's not even trolling, it's just not reading the article and taking the title at face value about Notch contemplating to block Minecraft video revenues right now.

Hehe, no. Even going to Youtube with the intent of laying down the law is not a nice move, him denying the offer was a way of saving his arse.

A potential backstabber is still a backstabber.

So what if it was just for public relations reasons? Our backs remains unstabbed.

I think that's the point you're missing.

He could have taken then greedy Nintendo route, but he didn't. I could probably steal everything that isn't nailed down in my office building, but I don't.

Thinking about something, even thinking really hard, isn't the same thing as doing that thing.

No, I think you're missing the point.

He is willing to exploit so long as he keeps his PR, that's sleazy.

If someone nearly/tried to kill you, you don't greet them with flowers but with mistrust...Unless you're like some worshipper.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

No, it's not even trolling, it's just not reading the article and taking the title at face value about Notch contemplating to block Minecraft video revenues right now.

Hehe, no. Even going to Youtube with the intent of laying down the law is not a nice move, him denying the offer was a way of saving his arse.

A potential backstabber is still a backstabber.

So what if it was just for public relations reasons? Our backs remains unstabbed.

I think that's the point you're missing.

He could have taken then greedy Nintendo route, but he didn't. I could probably steal everything that isn't nailed down in my office building, but I don't.

Thinking about something, even thinking really hard, isn't the same thing as doing that thing.

No, I think you're missing the point.

He is willing to exploit so long as he keeps his PR, that's sleazy.

If someone nearly/tried to kill you, you don't greet them with flowers but with mistrust...Unless you're like some worshipper.

I also wouldn't call someone an attempted killer for thinking about it & deciding not to

He realized it would displease the fan community, which is where his money comes from, so he decided against it. That's not sleazy, that's smart business

 

[Johnson McGee]

I can see this issue being even more sticky for Mojang with Minecraft than with Nintendo. You can argue that Nintendo claims ownership of their games and their stories so someone just playing through the game has a fairly weak argument against that claim. However, people showing minecraft videos aren't showing single player campaigns but their own creations. Minecraft in this situation being more of a platform for creativity than a copyrighted object. I would see this as Lego claiming ownership of peoples' models or Microsoft claiming ownership of novels written in Word.

 

[NiPah]

snip

No, I think you're missing the point.
He is willing to exploit so long as he keeps his PR, that's sleazy.
If someone nearly/tried to kill you, you don't greet them with flowers but with mistrust...Unless you're like some worshipper.

So it took that long to bring death into the debate about Youtube adverts... What're you going to do next time they update Minecraft? Compare him to a rapist?

 

[Phrozenflame500]

He realized it would displease the fan community, which is where his money comes from, so he decided against it. That's not sleazy, that's smart business

Eh I don't think they would lose any money by taking ad revenue from LPers. It's a loss of free advertisement sure, but there are so many Minecraft videos and Minecraft's been around for so long I doubt it would make a significant impact.

TBH if I was Notch I would have taken the deal out of pragmatism, but clearly Notch likes doing things out of the goodness of his heart.

 

[Alcaste]

No, it's not even trolling, it's just not reading the article and taking the title at face value about Notch contemplating to block Minecraft video revenues right now.

Hehe, no. Even going to Youtube with the intent of laying down the law is not a nice move, him denying the offer was a way of saving his arse.

A potential backstabber is still a backstabber.

So what if it was just for public relations reasons? Our backs remains unstabbed.

I think that's the point you're missing.

He could have taken then greedy Nintendo route, but he didn't. I could probably steal everything that isn't nailed down in my office building, but I don't.

Thinking about something, even thinking really hard, isn't the same thing as doing that thing.

No, I think you're missing the point.

He is willing to exploit so long as he keeps his PR, that's sleazy.

If someone nearly/tried to kill you, you don't greet them with flowers but with mistrust...Unless you're like some worshipper.

I don't think you understand. Youtube approached THEM. Of course they're going to be tempted by more money.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I'm willing to bet that fans of Minecraft posting videos on YouTube contributed to about 95% of Mojang's success.

I think it'd be interesting to see stats on that.

 

[robert022614]

Good job notch! Honestly when minecraft first started the beta I never paid much attention. To my embarassment
I assumed it was another farming game. It was the great and often hilarious videos on youtube that showed me what
It really was and how fun it could be securing my business.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Thank goodness Notch isn't a dick.

Yeah, ok, he came close to taking it. But he chose not to.

Good for you, Notch, and thank you.

And I SINCERELY HOPE that this does not carry over to all other companies. That might very well kill a lot of lets plays. And screw over a friend of mine who literally relies on the youtube money his lets plays get him as his main revenue (he's got a metric !@#$ton of physical issues that prevent him from doing pretty much anything else as his job)

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Here's the part of this I was interested in:

Expressing his thoughts on Reddit, Notch admitted that Machinima's hosted videos do bring in Minecraft sales, but he also pointed out that Machinima was making money from Mojang's work. "It's the perfect example of a win-win situation," he wrote, "and them asking for money from us was just offensive ... They have amazing engineers and passionate directors, but their business practices are insane."

Like him or not, I have to admire him saying that bolded part openly. If only more sensible people would take note of it and correct it in the future.

Who am I kidding? Greed rules the roost...

 

[Mid Boss]

- and the only ones left with a modicum of decency are indie devs

That's because Indie developers are gamers and dependent on their fans. Get into the big leagues and you've got people in charge who have never touched a video game in their lives and wouldn't be caught dead talking to their community unless it was a publicity stunt. As a result you get out of touch, over paid, walking bags of pig excrement sitting around dreaming up new ways to %&^& people over for more money.

I honestly don't understand all the corporation worship that goes on in this country. We've seen time and time again that corporations hate you. You are nothing more than a inconvenient barrier between them and your wallet. It baffles me how many people stand up and defend them.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

To be honest, I'll probably at least consider claiming ad revenue if I was in Notch's position, but the important thing is he decided against it (although probably because of Nintendo's blunder). The best little inadvertent tidbit is though, Machinima trying to get money out of him for advertising. That's despicable. Here're everyone against Nintendo's clamp down trying to argue for a nice balanced system where LPs are free of litigation or restriction and the game gets free advertising, and these clowns think Mojang should be paying them for playing the game. Makes you wonder who else they've gone after extra money from, if indeed they thought they were justified enough to approach anyone larger than Notch.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Mojang isn't the only one viewing these videos are free advertising. Notch mentioned that Machinima.com, a host of Let's Plays on YouTube, demanded a cut of Mojang's profits in return for the "advertising" provided by the videos.

Machinima, almost every Video Game company is confiscating the ad revenue from LP videos, Nintendo recently being one of them. Just after everyone started badmouthing Nintendo, you had to show everyone the other dirty side of the coin.

You can argue whether the ad revenue from videos should go to the IP owner or the YouTube uploader all day long, but do you honestly think anyone is going to agree that you can just DEMAND payment for videos that the IP owner never asked you to put up? By that logic I could walk into any store, work a shift and demand payment from the owner. Common sense dictates that that shit simply wouldn't fly, no matter how much money I've made for them.

I don't often say things like this, but what fucking tools. I sincerely doubt a game such as Minecraft needed Machinima to help them out.

I think Notch should have done what Nintendo did, just for Machinima. Sure, it'd be childish, but they'd deserve it, and it'd teach them to take their heads out of their arses.

Yeah, why not? At the very least, Mojang should be reminding them that if money MUST change hands for the LP's to exist, it should be Machinima paying them, not the other way around. After all, you can argue Mojang deserves the ad revenue earned due to copyright, but you can't argue Machinima deserves money for performing a 'service' that Mojang didn't ask for.

Off topic now, in the article about Nintendo mooching cash, it was mentioned that every time you put a video up with copyrighted material, you get 'copyright demerits' or something like that, and risk losing ad revenue from ANY of your videos or even the right to stream videos. Can someone explain to me why, even if I was fine with giving all of my ad revenue to the IP owner, I should make a LP video or w/e if it was going to compromise the integrity of my account?

 

[Triforceformer]

I think the important thing here is that even though they were given the option - and probably needed the money much more than Nintendo does - they opted not to take it.

Over 20 million copies sold across all platforms hardly puts one in mind of a company strapped for cash. No video game company with a game popular enough to make having a cut of advertising revenue of Let's Plays be a fuck ton of money can say they "Need" the money at that point.

 

[lacktheknack]

Notch is a dick, should we all be so surprised?

Quite frankly, now that I've got Minecraft Mojang could just disappear...Screw the updates as well, all they've done is broken the game, the bloodly engine.

No, it's not even trolling, it's just not reading the article and taking the title at face value about Notch contemplating to block Minecraft video revenues right now.

Hehe, no. Even going to Youtube with the intent of laying down the law is not a nice move, him denying the offer was a way of saving his arse.

A potential backstabber is still a backstabber.

...What.

Do you read the things you comment on, dare I ask?

Here's a hint:

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/notch/status/335045859156819969]

OT: Kudos. I probably would have asked for a small cut in the same situation.

 

[Nocturnus]

A dick? No.

An ego? Yes.

"See, I was thinking about cashing in on all your YouTube Videos, but I decided not to. See how good a guy I am? Now you all have another reason to think i'm awesome."

He didn't HAVE to say anything, but he chose to make note publicly of how generous he is being.

Ugh.