Nintendo Suddenly Claims Ownership Of Many YouTube Videos

[blizzaradragon]

Okay...I'm getting conflicting stories here.

On one side it's "Nintendo is an evil, shitty corporation who deserves to die in a fire for taking ALL of the money LPers are getting."

And the other is "Nintendo is just doing what every other company does, and this isn't as bad as people are making it out to be."

Which is it?

It all depends on your point of view in all honesty. Neither side is inherently right or wrong, although motives behind it can paint either one as either side.

For example, there are LPers who are flipping shit because they want to make money on their videos but don't want to get a license so they have view #1 because they're losing money. I'd say this motive paints view #1 as bad. Maybe a bit of an extreme, but they're there.

In short, neither one is right yet neither one is wrong. Ultimately it comes down to how this plays out to determine what happens, as some of the bile from both sides comes from how this has been implemented(YouTube's content ID system, which most YouTubers will tell you needs to have some kinks worked out anyway). So essentially do some research, and the answer will become clear to you. Hope that helped

 

[blizzaradragon]

That's true, at this point it is speculation. But at the same time I don't see how it won't go that way as targeting those that have the licenses to do so already would just make this whole move be thrown out. From what I'm seeing, it comes down to the people who are being flagged to fight back as I don't see YouTube themselves going through every video flagged and asking who has a license to use their stuff and who doesn't, cause let's face it we're talking about YouTube here. Now if the people who are getting flagged but have licenses aren't doing anything, then yeah I see what I said to be worth as much as a dog fart. It'd kind of be like an employee who gets extra on his paycheck due to an error but doesn't report it, except in this case the employee is getting thousands to millions of little paychecks. Ultimately, we'll just have to wait and see though. I wish I could find out what happened on YouTube regarding similar situations when other companies started doing this such as Microsoft so we could see some sort of comparison, but so far my research has come up with squat...

Fair enough.

I just remember another fan-project video that fell under Fair Use and parody getting taken down entirely a couple of years back. They protested with You Tube, but to no avail. It wasn't with a video game, but a TV show, but it set a certain precedent in my mind that You Tube + Fair Use = Suck it.

Like I said, I hope it doesn't go that way this time. I hope you're right. But, due to previous You-Tube burns, my hopes are not high.

I hope I'm right too, as one of my hopes is to get partnered with a big name like Machinima that has the licenses. That or get popular enough to get the licenses on my own. Ultimately it's a wait-and-see game though, and I hope that those unfairly targeted can recover.

That being said, do you know how many years back this was? I know that since Google got YouTube they've let some of their policies slip(like their user agreements, which prevent Let's Plays in the first place if their monetized without a license) but they've been more fair about protecting Fair Use from what I've seen, so it will probably be easier for people effected by this to get their ad revenue back.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

That being said, do you know how many years back this was? I know that since Google got YouTube they've let some of their policies slip(like their user agreements, which prevent Let's Plays in the first place if their monetized without a license) but they've been more fair about protecting Fair Use from what I've seen, so it will probably be easier for people effected by this to get their ad revenue back.

... I can't remember. ^^;;

**checks as best as I am able**

Summer of 2011, I think?

 

[Terramax]

EDIT
Turns out this is not a unique thing. In fact, this is industry wide practice. Nintendo have simply finally decided to do what the rest of the industry already does.

I think the question here is 'why now?'

My opinion is that Nintendo are attempting scavenging new ways of making money, considering profits are down. And, as numerous other people have stated, trying to profit on fans who're already providing you with free marketing is not the most judicious move out there.

It's less surprising to see EA or Activision participate in this kind of behaviour, because it's well documented that they have a low opinion of their customers. But Nintendo have always tried to sell this lovely, happy, family-friendly, user-friendly, customer caring company, and this move just doesn't fit with that mold.

Furthermore, if we deem it ok simply because others in the industry are doing the same, then by that same logic, I guess we shouldn't complain whenever another company announces they're adding near-game breaking DRM to their games, seeing as Ubisoft, Activision, EA, etc, are all doing it?

 

[Clovus]

*snip*

Exactly this, soemthing being legal does not make it right.

Legality cannot be argued here, it is legal, otherwise Nintendo would not have made the move, they checked if they could do it legally.

Morality can be argued here, because soemthign being legal and moral are not the one and the same.

Wow, this has been quite a thread. I'm glad that there is general agreement that Nintendo is in the right legally. LPs are not covered under fair use. Reviews, probably even longform ones like TotalBiscuit's "WTF is ..." series, do fall under fair use since a small portion of the product is used and the usage of the clips have little impact on the "potential market". Obviously the commentary can affect the market, but that's legal. NOTE: TB does do LPs though. Terraria with Jesse Cox was an LP that he complained about doing later just for money basically. TB generally has complained about the quality of LPs.

Anyway, the morality issue is interesting. I think Nintendo may be making a bad business decision here. It seems likely that they earn more from the free advertising aspect of LPs than they will through these ads. I have some major problems with copyright (especially the length), but I think Nintendo is in the right morally here too. I think the current definition of "fair use" and "transformativeness" are both good moral laws or readings of the law.

LPs are not "transformative". I really, really enjoy some LPs. I watch YogscastSips almost every day. I think he does a lot of hard work to put his videos together. I would like him to get paid for it, so I'm glad Yogscast has that worked out. However, I don't think his LPs of "Orcs Must Die", "Skyrim", or "Sim City" are transformative. Sips adds lots of jokes and creates a lot of extra material that wasn't there before by adding extra story details, but he's still just clearly playing the game. He doesn't transform the work into some kind of statement about humanity. He makes jokes, but they don't qualify as "parody" since they aren't statements about the game or the makers of the game.

Anyway, is this a good law? I think so. Before saying we should throw this out, make sure to flip the situation. Suppose I was trying to have a career as a songwriter. After several years I have a small following and I'm getting by. Should a huge corporation be allowed to swoop in and take all my songs by making small changes to them? I think most people would find that to be wrong. Imagine I wrote a book. Would it be ok for David Letterman to simply read my entire book on TV in a funny voice occasionally making jokes without me getting paid?

Nintendo may be making a bad business decision here, and they may have went about this in a questionable manner, but I really don't see how it is immoral.

 

[MrBrightside919]

Oh god! It's the SEGA debacle ALL OVER again...but with a relevant company...

 

[blizzaradragon]

EDIT
Turns out this is not a unique thing. In fact, this is industry wide practice. Nintendo have simply finally decided to do what the rest of the industry already does.

I think the question here is 'why now?'

My opinion is that Nintendo are attempting scavenging new ways of making money, considering profits are down. And, as numerous other people have stated, trying to profit on fans who're already providing you with free marketing is not the most judicious move out there.

It's less surprising to see EA or Activision participate in this kind of behaviour, because it's well documented that they have a low opinion of their customers. But Nintendo have always tried to sell this lovely, happy, family-friendly, user-friendly, customer caring company, and this move just doesn't fit with that mold.

Furthermore, if we deem it ok simply because others in the industry are doing the same, then by that same logic, I guess we shouldn't complain whenever another company announces they're adding near-game breaking DRM to their games, seeing as Ubisoft, Activision, EA, etc, are all doing it?

You make some good points. Although with your last point I guess one of the big things to ask people is why is the backlash happening now as well, instead of back when other companies started doing this. Other people have pointed out that Microsoft took this same move back in October, yet the internet backlash was a fart in the wind compared to what is happening when Nintendo does it. I didn't see people on Twitter talking about how bad this move was, or the arguments that are taking place across the internet like they are now. There was an article about it here on the Escapist, but it didn't attract nearly as much attention as this did. Like you said it doesn't fit in with the image of Nintendo, yet the keyboard warriors coming out in droves were hard to find when other companies did this. If we argue against DRM from everyone, why are we only arguing against Nintendo for this policy? In comparison, the Microsoft thread barely hit 7 pages within 9 days, while there are two threads for this that are almost at the 7 page mark in less than 24 hours. Hell, I've been in arguments across the web now with people who are boycotting Nintendo and only going Microsoft because of this move, a move just dripping with irony. I guess that begs the question of how many people are angry at anyone who does this and how many are angry only at Nintendo doing this?

 

[Nihilm]

*snip*

Its immorality in my eyes can be reduced to:

LP's are making quality content(atleast a lot of it i've seen is quality) and getting a tiny but fair bit of money for it.
Nintendo, wants to take that money because legally the LP'rs shouldn't be able to make that money.

The damage the LP'rs have done to Nintendo with this is next to none, especially considering the free and mostly good advertisement, their games get out of it. A symbiotic relationship where everyone involved benefits some way or another.

Now Nintendo, decided it is worth to stop this and take all the benefits the LP'rs are getting for themselves as well, because they legally can.

By doing this it hurts all those LP'rs who have come to depend on the money, since they had large enough of a following to generate enough money to do it full-time or atleast just justify all the time they do put into the videos. Making that option to people not worth it.

So LP'rs did minimal if any harm to Nintendo, but Nintendo came and ate them and took their stuff because their bigger and they can.

 

[Lightknight]

Oh, I wasn't suggesting that people wouldn't stop making them. Just that people could choose to become a sort of semi-official provider of LPs of Nintendo games. You could still go rogue and make one anyway, people who are popular could give Nintendo the finger and carry on but those who are just getting in to making videos might choose to become a partner with them.

I think the good LP providers will simply start adding enough original content to give them a legitimate claim to any money generated. The only leverage Nintendo has here is with LPs that just show long playthroughs of the game.

And I didn't think of the guide angle, but that could be one way for companies to advertise this. Rather than watching some guy play the game you could watch a video walkthrough with the commentary being hints, tips and strategies. A lot of LPs I've watched are people playing the game for the first time so obviously it is fairly useless for figuring out the best way to beat a level/boss unless the player is pretty good.

If they're planning to roll out Youtube guides in attempt to montetize them then it would benefit them to stamp potential competitors down to protect their IP now instead of after their entry. If they're not going to enter this arena then they're just being dumb unless there is significant profit to be gained from them doing this. Maybe these groups are getting a lot of money that I'm not aware of?

 

[TheDooD]

Allow me to explain the situation as I see it. The people making these let's play videos are using content that Nintendo worked hard on, and paid for themselves. For a Let's Player to be benefiting from the hard work of other people, and not to mention the possibility of revenue being lost in sales. I think Nintendo has every right to want to gain ad revenue from videos that show the games in their entirety. I mean if I spent tens of millions of dollars making a video game only to find out someone uploaded videos of it making a profit from my work. I'm gonna be pretty annoyed, and the nicest thing I could do is simply ad revenue away from them. So yeah people are looking at this that Nintendo as the aggressor and the Let's Players as the victims, but to me anyways it's the other way around.

It's not like LP's are pirates that stole the game. These are legit buyers just trying to make chump change on YT compared to what Nintendo suits are making, It's a damn dick move. Hell what would be better that NOBODY showed Nintendo games. Letting Sony, XBOX and PC games take more of their market because even less people know that said Nintendo game is even worth their time. Most people don't trust reviewers so they use LP's as a more honest, less bias and more direct way of determining if a game worth their money. If they found a way to make that $60 back so they can buy another Nintendo game then what's so wrong about it?

 

[Liam Barden]

Ok, so a lot of people are saying that because LP'ers add their own personality on top of the game, they should be exempt through fair use.

The problem here is that they are not creating something entirely new, but rather taking the original media in its entirety and then adding a commentary track over the top. People may come for the commentary, but the videos still contain hours of footage taken directly from the game. Nintendo owns that part of the content.

Imagine if we had 'Let's Watch's instead of LP's, where people took an entire movie from start to finish, added their own commentary, and then reposted it for profit without ever contacting the original copyright holders.
You could argue that game content is somehow different to movie content, due to it being interactive, but this is not true of all content in the game. The art, sound, story and many other aspects are literally lifted straight from the game and reposted verbatim.

Under these rules you are still allowed to make LP's of Nintendo games, you just can't illegally profit off of Nintendo's content. But if you do want to make a career out of LPing, you still can. You just have to actually go talk to the copyright holders and negotiate with them some kind of revenue split. Many channels already do this, eg Machinima.

I don't see why people feel they are automatically entitled to some kind of revenue split (or even all the revenue) without even having to ask the copyright owners about it first. At the end of the day, Nintendo invested the time and money into making the game. Nintendo owns the content, and if you want to distribute large portions of their content for profit then it should be negotiated with them first.
As a community that is usually so anti-piracy, I find it surprising that so many feel we have the right to profit off of copyrighted content we dont own or have the license for.

 

[Roxas1359]

I have no problem with not making money of Nintendo games in my LPs, nor any game for that matter. As long as I can still LP my games, without any more hassles than the ones YouTube puts us smaller LPers through, then I'm fine. For me I see people nowadays only doing Let's Plays so that they "can make money off their videos" which I find is sad. I do Let's Plays because I want to do them and to have fun and share my experiences with others, which is why none of my videos have ever been monetized.

Most people think that just because it says you are "YouTube Partnered" it doesn't mean it's okay actually. You will still be hit with copyright claims and with other things for posting content that you do not own and are trying to make money off of. The reason the bigger LPers can continue with their LPs with little to no problems is because they are partnered with companies that have permission from places like Nintendo or Microsoft to be able to post their videos and monetize them. While I do hope to one day get a partnership with one of those companies, trying Fullscreen Arcade now, I think that Nintendo does have a right to claim ownership on videos. Plus people can fight them, they don't always win but it doesn't hurt to try. Plus there is always Game Anyone to where you can post videos with little hassle and the only way you can make money off those ones is if you work hard and get accepted into the partnership program from them.

While the decision is really dumb, Nintendo is in the legal right here. Also to people who are saying that people like Chuggaconroy and Game Grumps will cease to exist, they are partnered with other sites that have legal permission from game companies to do what they do, they'll be fine. It's smaller LPers who instantly monetize their videos that will be in trouble with this move.

Edit: Time to change my opinion on this with the fact that those with contracts also have been flagged. What I think should happen is that Nintendo should get some of the money, but not all of it as YouTube is personality driven and I watch LPs more for the people who do them and not for the actual game itself.

 

[Karadalis]

Following the logic of all this... should a cars dealer be now entitled to the profits made by an ice cream truck? After all he manufactured/sold the truck right? That guy is using the truck to make money... that should not be right, after all he didnt build the truck... he should sell ice cream on his own without using the truck. Because somehow its illegal to use bought products to make more money aparantly.


This whole deal is bullshit.. nintendo and all software developers who think that they own the product i bought after i bought it can kiss my ass.

They have the copyright... but not the ownership of what i bought.. that changed when i bought it from them.

I bought it.. its mine.. and i should be allowed to do whatever i want with it bar creating copies of it and selling those copies.

The games industry is not the movie industry and should not run by the same laws since even if you show the entire game from beginning to end it still is not a copy of the game since you lack the interaction... you know.. the one thing that sets games apart from movies?

 

[Flaery]

What to say, what to say. Well, Nintendo is in the right, but it's just such a stupid move to make. I won't withdraw my Nintendo-support, but this really makes me think; who thought of this brilliant idea?

 

[Roxas1359]

As an LP'er, or once was, the time and editing that is actually put into making a decent video is not given as much credit as people think. I would love to just hit record and have my audio and video files automatically synced up and cutting out unnecessary noise and parts that don't need to be in the video amongst many other things.

I get this so much from some fans as well who think that it's just easy to simply edit some of the videos. I'm tempted to just upload a raw .AVI file to show them a before and after thing. Sound good? XD

 

[itsmeyouidiot]

How is this bad, exactly? Nintendo is allowing people who use their intellectual property on Youtube to keep using it by placing ads.

I can get that some Let's Players are upset that they're not getting revenue, but if you're doing Let's Plays for money, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Games are meant to be played for FUN.

 

[Clovus]

*snip*

Its immorality in my eyes can be reduced to:

LP's are making quality content(atleast a lot of it i've seen is quality) and getting a tiny but fair bit of money for it.
Nintendo, wants to take that money because legally the LP'rs shouldn't be able to make that money.

The damage the LP'rs have done to Nintendo with this is next to none, especially considering the free and mostly good advertisement, their games get out of it. A symbiotic relationship where everyone involved benefits some way or another.

Now Nintendo, decided it is worth to stop this and take all the benefits the LP'rs are getting for themselves as well, because they legally can.

By doing this it hurts all those LP'rs who have come to depend on the money, since they had large enough of a following to generate enough money to do it full-time or atleast just justify all the time they do put into the videos. Making that option to people not worth it.

So LP'rs did minimal if any harm to Nintendo, but Nintendo came and ate them and took their stuff because their bigger and they can.

So, to be clear, do you think the laws are actually somewhat moral? Like, we should have some basic rules describing what point someone should get permission to use someone else's work? Your response is focusing on the specifics of what Nintendo did, that it was immoral.

I still don't see it is immoral, because I don't think the balance is important. I mean, maybe I just want to write songs for fun and I make no money. If a big corporation takes my work and makes money off of it, then I haven't lost anything, but it is still clearly wrong of them to do that. I'm not sure "they did no harm" is a good enough reason to ignore someone using your IP. You could use that line of thinking to say that piracy is fine if you don't have enough money to pay for a product. If Nintendo had done this when LPs first started, any person doing LPs now would have been operating under a license, or maybe just making money by selling t-shirts or something. The fact that Nintendo allowed them to operate for years and develop a particular business model doesn't mean that they should let that continue once they decided they didn't approve of it.

One possible problem here, and a general problem with copyright laws, is that to be fair to the big LP channels, Nintendo should license their materials with them. But, unless I'm wrong about this, Nintendo can pretty much demand any amount they want. You can do a cover of song at a rate set by Congress, but I'm pretty sure other stuff is completely up to the right's holder. That seems unfair and problematic, especially given that special legislation was created for cover songs. So, Nintendo maybe has some moral need to deal fairly with them, ie to create a fair license system.

Nintendo is also definitely doing someting immoral by using the hamfisted YouTube content system. They are clearly putting ads on videos that qualify for fair use. They have no right to that at all, legally or morally.