Nintendo Suddenly Claims Ownership Of Many YouTube Videos

[Clovus]

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.

Games aren't just made for "FUN". Some games are clearly made to make money. Some are intended as art. Some are scary. Some can be depressing. I'm currently playing "Kingdoms of Amalur", which is pretty fun. But before that it was "Dark Souls". I wouldn't describe my experience as "FUN", but it was one of the better experiences I've had with a game in awhile. I'll forget about Amalur as soon as I stop playing.

Similarly, LPs don't have any weird rules like this. It's like saying a Punk Rock band shouldn't care about getting paid since it should "be about the music, man." As many have stated in the thread, good LPs require a lot of work. I want these guys to get paid since I want to see them focus on doing more LPs. I don't want them grinding away at a 40 hour a week job, I want them grinding away on camera and making funny jokes or explaining how to kill that boss.

There's nothing wrong with "making money". It's so weird when people suddenly think a particular activity becomes less just because someone is getting rewarded for it. Does getting paid require that your "job" suck or something? Like, hey, it's no fair that guy's getting paid doing something fun!

 

[lacktheknack]

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. If you read the terms of Youtube's monetization service it says:

Link

This is something that other publishers have already been following. This is the reason why networks like Machinima have licensing agreements with game companies in the first place. This is, at this point, standard industry practise, and I think it reflects poorly on every journalist who took this and tried to portray it as some unique attempt by Nintendo to shut down Lets Plays.


Removed the rest of my post, as at this point, it's irrelevant. Nintendo are simply doing what every other game company does. The only exceptions that I can see are Valve, Minecraft and FTL.

So to everyone huffing and saying how they're going to swear off Nintendo for this, I hope this is now going to extend to every other publisher or developer working in the industry.

Thanks, I needed to see that.

Kudos to those three, though, especially Mojang. They could have made a LOT of money if they took the ad revenue.

 

[Ipsen]

I kinda know going into this that it's probably not going to be a very popular opinion, but I don't really have a problem with this. I think Nintendo is well within their right to get paid for the use of their intellectual property and it is actually a fairly cool move on their part to leave the videos up and not outright sue or ban the users.

My first problem with this perspective is that (and feel somewhat free to let this view color your first impression of me) you let a big company like Nintendo (who, for comparison's purposes, no one will doubt have more influence than a youtube video producer) decide what's 'well within their right'. Don't get me wrong, I think they have justification as well to protect their IP, but (besides IMO not in this manner) to use an example, a group of thugs could claim they have a right to my wallet if they want to as well. This is all groundless suspicion, I'm well aware, but it IS my instinctual reaction to this situation.

Of course I do realize that the commentary does inherently change the product, and that people are return users for the personality attached to the channel, but it IS still a video chiefly made up of their assets. Commentary being just one piece of the overall whole (art, design, music, SFX etc.), saying that Nintendo has no right to any compensation just seems naive to me. Of course I think in a perfect world it should be some sort of a revenue split, but even then Nintendo would have to end up with the lions share of the money.

You're leading me down the assumption that you have not watched a Let's Play, or at least a variety of. You...can't really watch a Let's Play without the commentary taking the attention of the video (do tell if you differ in opinion). I hardly get any of the 'art, design, music, etc.' out of a Let's Play because they are toned down for the sake of the video itself (by either video quality, which often don't reach above 720p, or just the fact that sound levels are lowered for the sake of the commentary mixing).

But in our imperfect world we are left with this solution. Nintendo says "It's cool to use what's ours, we will seek compensation on our own." leaving the fans to decide whether or not its worth it to them. If you are a career LPer and only in it for the money (and I don't mean that in a negative way, there's no shame in doing something for the money, it's called a job.) then just don't do those games, if you are just a huge fan that wants to pay tribute to a game you love, then go ahead and don't worry about it.

'Career LPers' don't make their money by simply playing the game. First off, the money made is through ad placement revenue. Secondly, one must either pay prior, or have that ad revenue meet the threshold of AdSense in order to MAKE profit (somewhere ~$100 per video, could be wrong). To make that back from ads, you'd have to have tens of thousands of views. To make worthwhile profit, however, you'd need hundreds of thousands of views. Simple playthroughs, and there are plenty of those around, don't do that; it's the one's who happen to have a unique appeal in play that draw in viewers, and what besides the game itself can provide that, but the commentator/producer? Zinho73 speaks to the issue pretty well:

Spoiler

Why do people feel they should be paid for playing someone else's game in the first place? Game reviewers at least put the time into writing and filming reviews, which count as original composed content. Why should filming my average co-op session on a game with some friends all of a sudden entitle me to make money from a game? All I've done is hit 'Record' on an otherwise normal session of gaming. Since when does that entitle me to money?

I do let's plays but I'm not a youtube partner and do not profit from it. I agree that I should not make money while using a lot of other's people work. I see what I do as advertising and fan service.

I understand if Nintendo (or any other company) wants to block what I do because they cannot control the quality of every let's play and it may harm their copyrighted material. I think it would be e dumb move, because I do think it does way more good than bad - but I get it.

But I cannot get behind the fact that Nintendo wants to profit from my work. There are tons of LPs of Nintendo games, but only a few that have hundreds of thousands of views. This is not Nintendo's work, this is the merit of the Lper. If the LP is making money from that, it is a valid discussion to have, but Nintendo making money from the content imposing themselves is just as unethical, if not worse.


Let's plays are a fantastic way to promote a game and companies should not be so greedy about it. The youtube licensing as it is already protects that. Send some cease and desist notes and make a let´s play kit available for fans, with customized intros and outros. By all means, keep people from gaining money using your work - but do not use your leverage to do the same thing and hide behind a PR smoke screen.

My main problem from this whole situation is that it is really AdSense who gives out the money that LP producers make. Despite the fact that they'd disrespect content producers because they can, why isn't Nintendo fighting where the money comes from, or at least helps themselves by getting their own ads on LP's focused on their games (under the assumption this doesn't happen already)?

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

What a bunch of bullshit. I can't believe people are actually defending Nintendo. Let's Play videos are not taking any money from Nintendo so they have no right to interfere with their videos. I don't watch Game Grumps play through the Mario Party games because I want to witness all the game's content without paying for it. I do it because it's funny to listen to Egorapter and Jontron banter back and forth. You can't experience a game without playing it. A let's play is the equivalent of watching a movie but with no sound or watching a really long trailer

 

[Nihilm]

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.

I think here is where we are of split opinion, I find most of the laws in general leave open for certain scenarios that make the law immoral to use in that situation and moral in another. I mean most laws would not have been created if there was not a situation where it was the right thing to do, atleast I hope that is what people were thinking when they were created.

That said, laws are far from perfect and I personally believe they should be changed and made, so it is more understandable how they work and what is what. Now laws are ambigious at parts, because different situations need different action, but in terms of copyright it would be fairly simple to make the laws much more solid.

If for example Nintendo did make a easy service where one could buy the right to make money of stuff like LP's, soemthing easy to achieve, that anyone can get for a flat amount. It would be fine. Pay us 20 % of your revenue on the videos. Pay us 50 %, pay us 200 dollars once and you can use it, wtv. I might argue against some of the costs(and how high they are), but atleast it seems fair. Instead they out of the blue, just came and took all of it, hid behind laws which are exploitable and that is that.

This can be said about all of the copyright claims about most anything on youtube.

You could make the law even clear about, how there must be some addition and not just flat out gameplay, acknowledgements etc, etc.

It might be a naive view of the world from me, but the way I see things is, that if it doesn't seem fair it probably isn't. That's why I point out there how Nintendo aren't losing much because of the LP's to justify why I think Nintendo is causing more harm than the LP'rs ever did. It's not fair.

I think the songwriter analogy doesn't work here, if a big corporation adn took your sogns and made a few changes it isn't the same as a LP of a game. With the distinction that a LP is soemthign you watch and not play for the first thing, the second thing it encompassing the commentary part of it, also if it is a LP of something like skyrim it is a vastly different experience than what you would get if you were playing it.

Now if the huge corporation took your lyrics, changed them a bit and released their own mix with different music then I'd say it was fair for them to take it. I mean you aren't losing revenue due to it, you can continue making songs, your following will more than likely still stay with you . But these scenarios need a definite way to solve them.

Sorry if structually this makes no sense anymore, since i think i went on a tangent somewhere here. Eh, did I even answer your question?


EDIT: Oh yeah and about that piracy bit, I do believe there are cases of moral piracy, that aren't legal, but not having enough money is one of them. Though you could definately argue that. Anyway this isn't about piracy nor do I wish to discuss piracy on the escapist, considering how taboo of a subject it is here and how easily it derails every thread it is in.

 

[Church185]

After reading through both of the threads I did a little searching and found a recently compiled list of game companies that are LP friendly (link below). I think I'm going to use it as a guide, and support these companies from now on.

http://alloyseven.com/component/k2/item/115-monetize-gaming-videos

 

[tzimize]

*snip*

I agree with this. People can still make Let's Plays, they just can't make money off of them, and I don't see what's wrong with that.

This false sense of entitlement to making money off of other peoples intellectual property is quite sickening to be honest. If Nintendo had said that they couldn't do them at all, that'd be another matter entirely.

While I get where you're coming from, I also somewhat disagree. Its not like LPers are selling pirated copies, they are simply using a product that they have bought (I guess) and use it for others to see. Imo its more or less as stupid as people filming themselves spraying Axe in their armpits and Axe wanting to get money from their views. I mean...you cant even smell it on video.

Nintendos products are not being compromised. Their intended use is for PLAY. Nobody can PLAY a game by watching lets play. If anything, nintendo receives free marketing. FREE.

This is why its a dick move of them to claim the money from the ads. They are basically getting free marketing and fan service and their thanks is to say: fuck you, we want your money too in case you have some. The work being shown is NOT theirs. Someone actually spent the time to play their game, film it and upload it. Thats the work being monetized, and I think the LPers should get the money.

TBH I dont care much, I almost never see lets plays. Sometimes I can look one up to get an impression of a game before I buy it, but otherwise...I'd rather play it myself.

 

[kael013]

I agree with this. People can still make Let's Plays, they just can't make money off of them, and I don't see what's wrong with that.

This false sense of entitlement to making money off of other peoples intellectual property is quite sickening to be honest. If Nintendo had said that they couldn't do them at all, that'd be another matter entirely.

Except some people don't just record a playthrough of a game and attempt to live off that - they talk over it. Case in point: Jesse Cox of OMFGcata. He does LP's of all sorts of games but he's a comedian as well. All throughout he's cracking jokes about the game world, AI, influences on the game, etc. Jesse in essence is a gaming stand-up comedian. He's pretty popular [i/]because[/i] of that; in other words, people don't watch his vids for the game content, they watch for Jesse's personality. And that's what he's earning his living off of.

Another example: TotalBiscuit and his WTF is... series. Same thing - beginning game content with commentary over it - but this time the commentary is informative since it talks about the game's pros and cons. It's essentially a review (though technically, it's first impressions since he never goes too far into the game). The game content behind that isn't snippets either, he's actually playing the release version of the game. These vids are how TB earns his living and helps support his family.

And the sense of entitlement of making money off other people's IP? You do realize that third-party devs rarely get to keep the IP rights to their games now-a-days, right? Look at Halo. Bungie made it, Microsoft published it, now they own it (probably not the best example, but you get the idea).

 

[sirjeffofshort]

I kinda know going into this that it's probably not going to be a very popular opinion, but I don't really have a problem with this. I think Nintendo is well within their right to get paid for the use of their intellectual property and it is actually a fairly cool move on their part to leave the videos up and not outright sue or ban the users.

My first problem with this perspective is that (and feel somewhat free to let this view color your first impression of me) you let a big company like Nintendo (who, for comparison's purposes, no one will doubt have more influence than a youtube video producer) decide what's 'well within their right'. Don't get me wrong, I think they have justification as well to protect their IP, but (besides IMO not in this manner) to use an example, a group of thugs could claim they have a right to my wallet if they want to as well. This is all groundless suspicion, I'm well aware, but it IS my instinctual reaction to this situation.

Of course I do realize that the commentary does inherently change the product, and that people are return users for the personality attached to the channel, but it IS still a video chiefly made up of their assets. Commentary being just one piece of the overall whole (art, design, music, SFX etc.), saying that Nintendo has no right to any compensation just seems naive to me. Of course I think in a perfect world it should be some sort of a revenue split, but even then Nintendo would have to end up with the lions share of the money.

You're leading me down the assumption that you have not watched a Let's Play, or at least a variety of. You...can't really watch a Let's Play without the commentary taking the attention of the video (do tell if you differ in opinion). I hardly get any of the 'art, design, music, etc.' out of a Let's Play because they are toned down for the sake of the video itself (by either video quality, which often don't reach above 720p, or just the fact that sound levels are lowered for the sake of the commentary mixing).

But in our imperfect world we are left with this solution. Nintendo says "It's cool to use what's ours, we will seek compensation on our own." leaving the fans to decide whether or not its worth it to them. If you are a career LPer and only in it for the money (and I don't mean that in a negative way, there's no shame in doing something for the money, it's called a job.) then just don't do those games, if you are just a huge fan that wants to pay tribute to a game you love, then go ahead and don't worry about it.

'Career LPers' don't make their money by simply playing the game. First off, the money made is through ad placement revenue. Secondly, one must either pay prior, or have that ad revenue meet the threshold of AdSense in order to MAKE profit (somewhere ~$100 per video, could be wrong). To make that back from ads, you'd have to have tens of thousands of views. To make worthwhile profit, however, you'd need hundreds of thousands of views. Simple playthroughs, and there are plenty of those around, don't do that; it's the one's who happen to have a unique appeal in play that draw in viewers, and what besides the game itself can provide that, but the commentator/producer? Zinho73 speaks to the issue pretty well:

Spoiler

Why do people feel they should be paid for playing someone else's game in the first place? Game reviewers at least put the time into writing and filming reviews, which count as original composed content. Why should filming my average co-op session on a game with some friends all of a sudden entitle me to make money from a game? All I've done is hit 'Record' on an otherwise normal session of gaming. Since when does that entitle me to money?

I do let's plays but I'm not a youtube partner and do not profit from it. I agree that I should not make money while using a lot of other's people work. I see what I do as advertising and fan service.

I understand if Nintendo (or any other company) wants to block what I do because they cannot control the quality of every let's play and it may harm their copyrighted material. I think it would be e dumb move, because I do think it does way more good than bad - but I get it.

But I cannot get behind the fact that Nintendo wants to profit from my work. There are tons of LPs of Nintendo games, but only a few that have hundreds of thousands of views. This is not Nintendo's work, this is the merit of the Lper. If the LP is making money from that, it is a valid discussion to have, but Nintendo making money from the content imposing themselves is just as unethical, if not worse.


Let's plays are a fantastic way to promote a game and companies should not be so greedy about it. The youtube licensing as it is already protects that. Send some cease and desist notes and make a let´s play kit available for fans, with customized intros and outros. By all means, keep people from gaining money using your work - but do not use your leverage to do the same thing and hide behind a PR smoke screen.

My main problem from this whole situation is that it is really AdSense who gives out the money that LP producers make. Despite the fact that they'd disrespect content producers because they can, why isn't Nintendo fighting where the money comes from, or at least helps themselves by getting their own ads on LP's focused on their games (under the assumption this doesn't happen already)?

That's cool. There is a lot in there that I didn't know, which of course I had expected would be the case. Like I said, it's all just my opinion (and perhaps a woefully uneducated one as well,) so I can totally respect that the other side of the coin is in all likelihood just as valid.

I do still think that the best solution would be for some sort of a revenue split, much as a host of a television show would get a part of the revenue that show makes while still respecting and paying all the other people who helped to make it happen. (Of course, that's the system most of my experience in this arena comes from, so maybe there are better solutions out there that I'm just unaware of due to my lack of experience producing actual content for the internet aside from the odd 'just for fun' project here and there.)

 

[Frostbite3789]

And when people elect to watch an LP instead of buying a game, that's one less game that ends up selling.

So you're also for DRM and other anti-used game measures, correct? Because a used game sale is a lost new sale with that logic. Otherwise most of your points which basically sum up to this are completely disingenuous and you're the Nintendo fanboy everyone thinks you are, but you refuse to admit to.

Every Nintendo thread I always think "I wonder if jeffers is going to stride in, all clad in shining armor, white shield in hand" and you never disappoint.

 

[GeneralFungi]

Seriously Nintendo, WTF. This is the dickest move of the worst proportions, I hope it's worth it to compensate the shitty sales of the Wii U. I don't think Sony would do something like this in the PS4, you know, 'cause they even included a "Share" button in the controller itself.

The share button would be the exact reason Sony WOULD do something like this. It is very likely that it may be a way for them to control the way other people watch their content. Wouldn't want places like youtube taking the view that would be rightfully Sony's, right?

This is a dick move. I won't dispute that. But copyright laws are nothing but dick moves stacked on dick moves and will ruin something for someone else in almost every circumstance.

The problem isn't Nintendo and their greed exactly.. they've been very fair in comparison to many other publishers have and the fact that they don't simply remove the videos puts them a step above certain other publishers. Yes I'm unhappy about it, but this is a problem with copyright laws in general. I'd say rather then exclusively scorn Nintendo I'd try to make an effort to change copyright law for the better.

As many others have already pointed out, this isn't necessarily about the legality or the rules. It's about essentially free advertising and respect for your fans (and potential fans). Nintendo could have opted to have the videos yanked. Instead, they opted to put claims on the videos such that they continue to exist but all revenue from them goes to Nintendo. That's basically an admission that the videos really aren't all that bad at all.

How is opting to have the video pulled from youtube worse then just denying ad revenue? I just don't understand. There are many people who do LPs as a hobby and don't get paid for it at all. This would essentially deny everyone who wanted to do LPs of Nintendo games even if they didn't earn a living off of it. And people who do earn a living exclusively on youtube would probably already have a license for it or would go through the effort of getting one.

I agree, but I guess according to Jeffers and Nintendo they consider you a talentless hack who offered nothing of value or originality. I know how much work it takes to put one together, as I have a friend who does it, whichb is why those arguments piss me off so much.

I notice that you are very bitter towards Jeffers in just about every topic you both comment in. You need to take less personal offense about video game forums dude. It's getting tiring to read.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Attention Xbox & PS owners: if Microsoft & Sony have official streaming services for the new consoles, they are not gonna want LPers going freelance on YouTube.

But they're putting the effort into their own systems, instead of just being parasitic off another.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Wow, what a dick move. Nice job harvesting hatered from your fans you idiots.

^
more or less this

I kinda hope these people took the Nintendo related videos down, just to spite them

 

[Eliam_Dar]

I have the feeling that this has more to do when the Wii-U failing, that protecting their content. As I see it, they are not getting income (or at least the expected income) from the Wii-U, and are trying to get from anywhere else.

 

[mysecondlife]

I have no strong opinion of this.

I can't really sympathize with people who earn money by recording their footage of gameplay with little work of their own put into it. Their 'livehood' is threatened because of some youtube video revenue? Boo hoo.

But at the same time, I don't like Nintendo profiting off of those videos. They're game developers and publishers. Just stick to making money doing those things.

Shrug*

 

[DRTJR]

LPs have always been in a gray area in legal terms, so at least they aren't just shutting the video down, which is kinda of common.

 

[Shuu]

Wow... Dick move nintendo. Not even your kind of dick move... Just... Jesus.
Do the not understand how much interest these people generate for them?

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

I don't know... People are claiming that Nintendo should have offered the LP's a cut of their profits rather than take the whole lot from ads... Well, why not make it so Nintendo gets 100% of the cash AS A DEFAULT, and allow the LP's to offer a contract like what is done for any major reviewer e.g. Machinima (or w/e)if they really want some cash from the ads? But then again I'm a ***** for compromise deals even when one side is just pulling off a dick move, so I don't know.

Regardless, this is another case of a major company lumping all the 'offenders' into the same boat, not bothering to differentiate between major, lesser or non-offenders when dishing out the punishment. Sure, some people just do it for fun and actually offer their own content or don't get ANYTHING from ads, while others just do it for the cash (even advertise) while recording nothing but what's happening on screen, but it continues to amuse me how these companies just assume that we're all dirty thieves who need to be punished for 'probably' leeching off from them. After all, we've heard of cases of actual 'proper' reviews and videos with barely any content (e.g. fan-videos) with them getting red flagged and taken down by the brain-dead automated DMCA search-bots. We'll probably see videos that Nintendo claims they won't touch being charged anyway.

Also... Am I the only one who's paid any attention to the whole "copyright strikes" listed in the article? ANYONE?! If I made an LP and was fine with Nintendo taking the ad money, I still sure as fuck wouldn't want the integrity of my account compromised as well. Taking my earnings, legally or otherwise, dick move or not, is one thing. Punishing my account and taking away my ability to make ANY money from ANY of my videos, Nintendo content inclusive or otherwise, is unacceptable.
Again... Am I the only one who's noticed this?! Someone explain to me how that is at all acceptable.

 

[MediocoreUser]

EDIT: The whole "I'm Let's Playing This Game For Money" issue is the reason why I stopped watching TotalBiscuit's content; in several videos he continued to say that he was only playing certain games because he, "had to," not because he genuinely cared about the game in question or wanted to play the game. To me, that's not the reason that a person should be doing an LP.

TB doesn't do let's plays though. He constantly talks about why he doesn't do LPs and criticizes the people who want him to do LPs whenever they ask him to do one. He says doesn't do LPs because they're a cheap low effort way to make money. The only thing resembling an LP on his channel is the terraria series which he admitted was an awful moneygrab and stopped. So, I'm having a bit of trouble understanding how you pulled that out of what he said. Sure, he's a bit transparent about how he runs his business, but I wouldn't call it "playing certain games because he, "had to,""

EDIT: may have paraphrased poorly. Apparently he only said that about the kind of LP that doesn't provide any information about the game. But he still doesn't do LPs.

On topic:

Yea, it's a pretty greedy and awful thing to do. Someone is giving their games hype for free when ad campaigns are so expensive and Nintendo decides to take away their livelihood when they should be grateful. While I respect the LPers who will continue the post Nintendo videos, they really shouldn't continue to reward them.

 

[FalloutJack]

Nintendo: Hello, foot! I don't think I like you!

*Several gunshots are heard*

Need I say more?