Please Understand, Nintendo is the Bad Guy

IamLEAM1983

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Aug 22, 2011
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In other news, Nintendo reveals the decrepit and Antediluvian cesspool of a ruling body it keeps hidden under piles of mushrooms, Master Swords and kart engines.

It's a Japanese gaming company. I can't say I'm surprised. It's not just Konami - a lot of the big players have this excruciatingly polite and almost infuriatingly respectful attitude towards their fanbase when everything is going as intended; but as soon as something doesn't, the gloves come off.

It's just that Konami, in particular, seems to have shucked off its gloves in favor of glued-on MMA fighter's mitts. Nintendo's just going through its yearly copyright-related hissy fit, probably caused by one of the crusty shareholders going "MUH MARIOS ON TEH INTERWEBS?! I LOSES MONIES! KILLS THEM NAO!"
 

Truth Cake

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Aug 27, 2010
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Casual Shinji said:
Man, we've had thread after thread from Nintendo fans complaining about how everyone on this site is constantly dumping on Nintendo, when in actuality nobody is, and then you go and drop a deuce like this. Brilliant! XD

OT: Yeah, Nintendo is a big idiot when it comes to online. Similar to how Studio Ghibli flips its shit if you dare post any footage or music from their movies on Youtube. Seems all that delightful, pure-hearted charm comes with a major drawback. Like your kindly grandfather who tells the most wonderful tales, but who can then suddenly go on a racist rant.
Heh? I've only seen the opposite on this site, people shitting on Nintendo... mostly for Amiibo and all that assorted nonsense to be fair, but still I haven't seen many fans clamoring to Nintendo's defense here.

I agree that Nintendo is definitely assing it up when it comes to Youtubers... like I don't even get why... it's free publicity! People see other people playing fun Nintendo games and go "gosh, I wish I would play that and have as much fun as they guy in the video!" what, are they worried that they're going to give away the big secret at the end of the next Mario game where Mario totally saves Peach from Bowser? Gosh, color me shocked! (Well alright, they don't ALL end like that, but you get my point... maybe)

That being said, even with all this shit I'd say Nintendo is still at least average (not superb, but far from the worst) in the industry when it comes to not dicking their fans. Nintendo, when they fuck up, strikes me as generally more incompetent than malicious and that's what I feel this is a case of (I can't say for certain since I'm in no position to interview any higher-up at Nintendo to get their thoughts on the matter, so call it a gut feeling), and incompetence is generally easier to fix.
 

major_chaos

Ruining videogames
Feb 3, 2011
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Great article, but what it misses is that this is just one small part of a wider reaching action by Big N [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150911/06482132220/nintendo-hates-you-massive-takedowns-youtube-videos-featuring-mario-bros-fan-created-levels.shtml] to remove evidence of fan created Mario content, presumably out of fear that people will realize what a joke Mario Maker is. Or it could just be further evidence that Nintendo is run by a bunch of ignorant old men who fear and do not understand the internet and thus lash out at it [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/07/25/cutscene-uploads-cause-super-smash-bros-creator-to-drop-story-mode-.aspx] rather than admit its not 1990 anymore and fucking adapt.
 

Kilo24

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Aug 20, 2008
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I think that Shamus left out a critical component of the whole picture: the Nintendo Creators Program. For a Youtube video creator, there is literally no upside to signing up for it beyond avoiding copyright takedowns; it's the only thing you get for paying Nintendo your ad revenue and having to deal with the video approval process. Targeting independent video channels is less of a defense against copyright infringement than it is an attempt to make the Creators Program more attractive. Because right now, it's a pretty raw deal.
 

SecondPrize

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martyrdrebel27 said:
SecondPrize said:
You really think video game copyrights holders don't have the rights to broadcasts of their games?
they clearly don't. the moment you interact with the title, any video of it becomes a "transformative work". The very nature of interactivity means that each experience is unique and personal, unlike posting a movie to youtube, something that everybody experiences the same way, every time. posting a video of a game doesn't make the viewer feel as though they themselves have played the game.
What are you transforming? Everything you can do in a game is the output of the developers' code. When you broadcast your gameplay you are broadcasting their animations, their character models, their back and foreground and their music. This is a medium built around player input creating output. If you want to own your gameplay, you need to figure out a way to broadcast it without using any of their shit.
 

Aesir23

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CecilT said:
Well said. They don't seem to grasp the notion that these types of videos are keeping people interested in old properties. Meanwhile smaller companies are begging Lets Players and such to stream their games because they get how free publicity works.
It really is a shame that Nintendo can't seem to grasp this.

While it can be argued how much of an effect Let's Plays and walkthroughs really have on sales, they do certainly have an impact even if it is small. I've actually bought several small games on Steam recently that I would have never known existed if I didn't see them being played on certain channels and thought they looked like fun. I'm not about to pretend to speak for others but I highly doubt I'm the only one who's had games brought to my attention in such a way.
 

Kajin

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Apr 13, 2008
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Vigormortis said:
Except, just as Shamus explained in the article, they're worse than EA and Activision on this matter.

The mental gymnastics on display are on par with the complex acts seen in Cirque du Soleil.
Great. They're worse than EA and Activision in ONE area. I think the full weight of EA and Activision's crimes still places the scales firmly on their side. No mental gymnastics there. Just a whole lot of twinkies and ice cream.
 

Vigormortis

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Kajin said:
Great. They're worse than EA and Activision in ONE area. I think the full weight of EA and Activision's crimes still places the scales firmly on their side. No mental gymnastics there. Just a whole lot of twinkies and ice cream.
There are other areas which I would argue Nintendo is worse than EA or Activision in, but that's irrelevant. The point I was making is that people are excusing this particular action because EA is supposedly "the bigger bad guy".

No. That's a bullshit excuse to just shrug off the egregious nature of Nintendo's actions. Just because a serial killer may have killed dozens of people, it doesn't excuse the guy who killed his wife in a fit of rage. He's still just as fucking guilty.
 

Tarfeather

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That's like accusing me of music piracy for singing off-key oldies in the shower.
Shamus, if you made a youtube video of yourself singing off-key oldies in the shower? Chances are someone would sue you. :p
 

CaptainMarvelous

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May 9, 2012
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... God, you gotta love confirmation bias.
"I don't like Nintendo, this article says they're crappy for no reason, APPROVED/LINKED/EVIDENCE"

So, I'ma play Devil's Advocate and go through why Nintendo might not be so evil.

Nintendo isn't obliged to protect their copyright

So, I decided to do some cursory research on this: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=super+mario+world+let%27s+play
It doesn't seem like they're defending it THAT militantly. Maybe this is about that Nintendo affiliate program that I only heard of in this thread, but it looks like they aren't in fact cracking down on Let's Players.
So... maybe... maybe that isn't the issue here? That seems like a reasonable conclusion.

The videos weren't infringing on the copyrights

This is a bit of a false equivalence, the paper air-planes made of books aren't a good comparison. Nintendo's copyright will be on elements of the code as well as the literal images involved and this is why they don't crack down on sprite movies or artwork or the fact literally everyone covers the theme-tune. The equivalent here in Harry Potter terms would be writing the entire book and replacing wand with 'penis'. Funny, it'd have merits, IS infringing on IP. Of course, you aren't obliged to ENFORCE the copyright, but it clearly is infringing given it's a cobbled together edit of their own game.

These videos aren't even proof piracy took place

Is this... are we switching focus? I mean, yeah, this might not be proof but unless he made the hack himself (I haven't tried checking the videos so can't rule that out, but I'd imagine they came from a separate site, again, can't check that) it's still downloading a ROM which is in a legal grey area. And this means either it IS Nintendo's property (in which case it's piracy) or it isn't and it's a mangled collection of their assets sculpted into a game but using their framework which one could argue is infringing.

No proof of wrongdoing

Well... the ROM is already illegal, the hack is done on a ROM so... they kinda do. It might not be the Youtubers wrongdoing but wrongdoing HAS occurred and is being advertised. This is only further backed up by the sheer amount of videos NOT taken down. How many Mario Maker videos are there right now? https://www.youtube.com/results?q=mario+maker+let%27s+play looks like quite a lot from quite a few different accounts. This is going to lead into the next point...

Nintendo's position is morally reprehensible

Alright, THIS is the big problem child for me. Because I don't know enough about the channel. Was it monetised? I doubt I can check right now but if so then it was making a profit which is one of those copyright issues which really needs working out. Like, doing a youtube video reading out a book and getting say $28 on ad revenue per chapter. Where does that sit in the legal area? Because linking back to the Mario Maker thing, a buncha these guys have Patreon.
So for example... if I read out this column on youtube, in it's entirety, and got money from ad revenue? Even if I sourced Shamus, is it fair to get money of that?

Of course, this situation is more complicated but I'm going for a hyperbolic response (much like Shamus is), because this account wasn't taking down just because it used a bunch of ROM hacks (and it's frankly disingenuous to pretend so)

These videos don't affect Nintendo's Bottom Line

Really though? You don't think a bunch of ROM hacked Mario Levels won't affect their bottom line when

THIS just got launched?

Because if we're being honest, this is why they started raising flags. Except there are still a bunch of videos that are also ROM hacks. So... Nintendo did something against a youtuber, they don't appear to be cracking down as hard on others.
... and we're assuming there was no motivation.

This is the one thing I'm not getting from Shamus' article, he doesn't go into the WHY but asserts that their behaviour and what it might affect aren't factors. It's just Nintendo being 'a bully'. But as with real world bullies, they have a motivation. It might be a shitty one, it might not even be what I speculate it IS, it could just be one particularly overzealous staff member with a Youtube account (or a rival youtuber with a fake one for all I know, I'm not in a position to speculate).

But without knowing the motivation, it's a little impossible to decry them.

I mean, I could accuse Shamus of shame-LESSly pandering to a rising anti-Nintendo crowd for hits like a dirty, dirty sell out (I don't actually think that's true, but I need a hyperbolic point to compare to 'Nintendo are morally worse than EA'). Because I don't know the motivation behind this article (I mean, I'm pretty sure I can GUESS but that's neither here nor there.)

TL;DR The motivation does not appear to be as simple as 'muh copyrit' given Pangea was singled out, Mario Maker is a thing and could very feasibly be affected by prominent advertising for ROM hacks.

Even Activision and EA don't behave this way

I kinda wore myself out with the earlier rant but I can sum up the case here

Morally- The youtuber was advertising an illegally made version of something Nintendo are now selling, much like if they did a translation for Mother 3 they might suddenly have a problem with the fan version floating around as a ROM hack (which they've never taken down, to my knowledge). Morally, they aren't in the wrong here, and we also don't know the exact reason why this channel was taken down (as I showed quite a few different ones are still up.)

Legally- I'm not a lawyer but I think given the above events they'd have a leg to stand on.

--

ADDENDUM: This is Devil's Advocate, I have no idea if Nintendo really did just take it down because they're 'Evil' but it seemed fair and balanced to actually... y'know. Examine it.
 

Kajin

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Apr 13, 2008
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Vigormortis said:
Kajin said:
Great. They're worse than EA and Activision in ONE area. I think the full weight of EA and Activision's crimes still places the scales firmly on their side. No mental gymnastics there. Just a whole lot of twinkies and ice cream.
There are other areas which I would argue Nintendo is worse than EA or Activision in, but that's irrelevant. The point I was making is that people are excusing this particular action because EA is supposedly "the bigger bad guy".

No. That's a bullshit excuse to just shrug off the egregious nature of Nintendo's actions. Just because a serial killer may have killed dozens of people, it doesn't excuse the guy who killed his wife in a fit of rage. He's still just as fucking guilty.
I'm not saying Nintendo isn't being a massive dick here. It doesn't excuse them. Still doesn't stop me from saying you're wrong here. Nintendo is NOT worse than EA and Activision. I mean, seriously. How many people has EA put out of work after buying their studios just to get the IP rights? Your analogy is way off. This isn't like a serial killer compared to a wife murderer. This is a serial killer compared to someone that's pushing a kid's face into a birthday cake or pantsing them in front of their crush. Still a massive dick move, but is in NO WAY a fitting comparison.
 

kompadre

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Aug 26, 2015
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YouTube has been slowly degrading from a great "free content hosting" into a mediocre mass media sewer channel and I for one, find people questioning integrity of their policies amazing. Of course they will block any kind of content that even by a mile threatens them with a lawsuit! They are the middle man. They don't stand behind any content they provide - they just play it for ads and giggles.

Also it is funny when complaints come from the YouTubers themselves - this very rare and special bunch who sit in front of TV all day playing games and receive money from it. And now Nintendo wants to cut into these special peoples' profits? - this culmination shows the absurdness of it as a whole and highlights very specifically Nintendo's puniness, greediness and bastardness.
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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Ugh.

We're used to thinking of Nintendo as the "good guys", at least in a relative sense.
We shouldn't, though. Nintendo has been anti-competitive since before most of the users on this site were born. They've abused third parties, and they've gone after their own consumer base for way longer than YouTube has been around.

We will excuse any practice if there's a likable face or a cute mascot.

"Sorry J.K. Rowling, you wrote those Harry Potter books but now you don't own the copyright anymore. It turns out that back in 2004, Timmy Jones from Akron, Ohio made photocopies of Prisoner of Azkaban and handed them out at his high school. You didn't sue him, and so now everyone can make copies of your books for free forever!"
Which also likely wouldn't end up in a lost of trademark for Rowling, because that's an insane and undue burden and even Apple couldn't control their intellectual property in that situation.

If PangaeaPanga owns a copy of Super Mario World, then they are allowed to have a backup copy.
US law is very grey on this area.

This is one of the most basic and fundamental elements of criminal and civil justice in the modern world: You can't be punished until you've been proven guilty.
US law allows for you to (theoretically) temporarily seize assets which may pertain to a crime with sufficient evidence, or to restrict the use/sale until the end of a proceeding, however.

But we're not talking about a court anyway.

If this notion were upheld, it would mean Nintendo could decide who was allowed to talk about their games on YouTube.
I fail to see how. Further claims and illustrations don't make that point.

If you wanted to go this route, you claimed this guy altered the ROMs. At least argue "transformative works" and you'd have something.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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SecondPrize said:
What are you transforming? Everything you can do in a game is the output of the developers' code. When you broadcast your gameplay you are broadcasting their animations, their character models, their back and foreground and their music. This is a medium built around player input creating output. If you want to own your gameplay, you need to figure out a way to broadcast it without using any of their shit.
That's the ultimate problem; most Youtubers getting hit claim their work is "transformative"...when in fact it's not. 90% of the time it's either them just playing games, sometimes with a (very shitty) commentary. It's not informative, it's not satirical, it's just them posting video of an IP they do not own and did not get permission from the copyright holder. In fact, I believe the Youtube Partners EULA forbids just playing games as content unless you have permission from the IP holder. But since Youtube is a freaking expansive frontier it's nearly impossible to reinforce. Though if they ever DO get their stuff together, I say that all the gaming Youtubers need to watch out, because their little niche might suddenly become extinct if they don't evolve.
 

CecilT

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Aesir23 said:
It really is a shame that Nintendo can't seem to grasp this.

While it can be argued how much of an effect Let's Plays and walkthroughs really have on sales, they do certainly have an impact event if it is small. I've actually bought several small games on Steam recently that I would have never known existed if I didn't see them being played on certain channels and thought they looked like fun. I'm not about to pretend to speak for others but I highly doubt I'm the only one who's had games brought to my attention in such a way.
I'm not even an avid Let's Play viewer but still have managed to stumble onto videos for games I've never heard of and bought them because they looked like so much fun.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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kris40k said:
Which I don't have a problem with. They are still selling those games and they don't condone use or promotion of ROMs, which, while they do have legit uses, they are also a source of piracy.
Do you have a CD/DVD burner? Even with the decline of physical media, these are still a serious source of piracy.

SecondPrize said:
You really think video game copyrights holders don't have the rights to broadcasts of their games?
I would say there's a difference between the right to broadcast and the right to exclusively control all appearances of your media in all circumstances.

CrystalShadow said:
My youtube channel could have... At a guess, 90% of everything taken off it if Nintendo were to take issue with what I do.
I have better things to worry about, but it does make me wonder every time I upload a video...
Is this going to get flagged for something stupid?
When making videos with music, I usually use smaller artists or even ones I've got explicit permission from. One of my favourite videos I've done, however, uses a Weird Al song. I really do worry any time I upload something like that. So I feel your pain.

To be fair, youtube itself is complicit in this.
Not complicit, so much. They're the primary driver. Much of what you describe later is not based on copyright law but upon YouTube policies made because there are entire industries with money and YouTubers who mostly don't have it. They opted for this model not because of laws, but because of expediency, both political and fiscal. The reason? We can't afford to fight back.

Well, some of us can. I do YouTube as a hobby and any legal battle I would have to go through for my content would take away from the jobs I hold down to not die and stuff. Even people doing it for money don't have the resources to fight while they're being undercut by the exact people they're fighting.

martyrdrebel27 said:
they clearly don't. the moment you interact with the title, any video of it becomes a "transformative work".
The internet likes to claim that, but it's never been successfully legally argued that simply playing a game is sufficiently transformative. Transformative works have criteria, and being transformative is only one criteria of fair use.

I mean, you could argue it should be, but should be doesn't equal "is," or "they clearly don't." You have to make a better case than "it's transformative" for that to be the case.
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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Don't you kind of have to issue copyright claims if you want to continue to protect your IP? It's a fairly standard business practice, especially when speedruns do typically portray the whole game. It's little different from a Movie company issuing a copyright infringement if someone posts their entire movie.

Are they still the bad guy? Sure. But not for this specifically.
 

martyrdrebel27

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Something Amyss said:
kris40k said:
Which I don't have a problem with. They are still selling those games and they don't condone use or promotion of ROMs, which, while they do have legit uses, they are also a source of piracy.
Do you have a CD/DVD burner? Even with the decline of physical media, these are still a serious source of piracy.

SecondPrize said:
You really think video game copyrights holders don't have the rights to broadcasts of their games?
I would say there's a difference between the right to broadcast and the right to exclusively control all appearances of your media in all circumstances.

CrystalShadow said:
My youtube channel could have... At a guess, 90% of everything taken off it if Nintendo were to take issue with what I do.
I have better things to worry about, but it does make me wonder every time I upload a video...
Is this going to get flagged for something stupid?
When making videos with music, I usually use smaller artists or even ones I've got explicit permission from. One of my favourite videos I've done, however, uses a Weird Al song. I really do worry any time I upload something like that. So I feel your pain.

To be fair, youtube itself is complicit in this.
Not complicit, so much. They're the primary driver. Much of what you describe later is not based on copyright law but upon YouTube policies made because there are entire industries with money and YouTubers who mostly don't have it. They opted for this model not because of laws, but because of expediency, both political and fiscal. The reason? We can't afford to fight back.

Well, some of us can. I do YouTube as a hobby and any legal battle I would have to go through for my content would take away from the jobs I hold down to not die and stuff. Even people doing it for money don't have the resources to fight while they're being undercut by the exact people they're fighting.

martyrdrebel27 said:
they clearly don't. the moment you interact with the title, any video of it becomes a "transformative work".
The internet likes to claim that, but it's never been successfully legally argued that simply playing a game is sufficiently transformative. Transformative works have criteria, and being transformative is only one criteria of fair use.

I mean, you could argue it should be, but should be doesn't equal "is," or "they clearly don't." You have to make a better case than "it's transformative" for that to be the case.
yeah, you're right. to me, the argument really boils down to the experience. if you watch a movie on youtube, it's the exact same experience as if you bought it. but people who are going to watch gaming videos are interested in GAMING. people interested in gaming aren't content being passive observers, they want to play the game themselves. watching someone play a game is nowhere NEAR the same experience as your own interaction with the game.

we don't watch let's plays so that we don't have to play that game, we watch let's plays because it's yet another form of entertainment based in our hobby and culture.

you will not find a single person on planet earth that watches a playthrough of Metal Gear Solid or Grand Theft Auto who then decides they don't need to buy the game themselves, as they've already seen it. that's just not how gaming works. if they watch a gameplay video and decide not to buy the game, they were never really going to be a customer anyways, making any potential loss of sales non-existent.

I feel that anything that requires consistent input from the operator to function is inherently transformative.

the only way it wouldn't be transformative is if you sat the controller down at the beginning and did absolutely nothing. that is the function of every game without the necessary inputs from a user.