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Quote:

Motiva's lawyer stated the company will be taking the case to district court.

@Motiva: I was born, raised, and currently live in Ohio. I have never even heard of you.

Just stop. Rolling Eyes

Nintendo for the win Cool

What is it with all of these lawsuits against game companies over motion control tech in game controllers?

@Motiva, quit while your ahead.

Hijacking this thread (until a proper news post is made) to discuss Nintendo's current actions against LPers/reviewers/commentators/etc on Youtube.

Check this link for what Nintendo claims is now their property (and thus, they are entitled to any and all advertisement money made off any LP/review/commentary/etc) dealing with Nintendo gameplay.

What's worse is that they're using an automated system to simply match up certain audio/images/etc to change the ownership of the video (well, ownership in terms of ad money) over to them.

I think this merits much more discussion than this Motiva suit as the Let's Play/Speedrun/Review community on Youtube shares a pretty big overlap with the anime community I have found.

I was waiting for companies to crack down on Let's Players. I always figured it was a bit off how they made money off other people's games and figured it was a matter of time before companies started realizing they could get a cut of that profit for themselves. Some guy like PewDiePie can make more than a doctor through playing other people's work and screaming into a mic.

TitanXL wrote:

I was waiting for companies to crack down on Let's Players. I always figured it was a bit off how they made money off other people's games and figured it was a matter of time before companies started realizing they could get a cut of that profit for themselves. Some guy like PewDiePie can make more than a doctor through playing other people's work and screaming into a mic.

My god you hate everything fun.

Anyway there's this wonderful thing called Fair Use, might want to read up on it.

Tenbyakugon wrote:

Quote:

Motiva's lawyer stated the company will be taking the case to district court.

@Motiva: I was born, raised, and currently live in Ohio. I have never even heard of you.

Just stop. Rolling Eyes

Patent Trolls strike again.

I make it a habit of knowing as many Ohio-based things as logically possible, and I've even never heard of them.

Chagen46 wrote:

TitanXL wrote:

I was waiting for companies to crack down on Let's Players. I always figured it was a bit off how they made money off other people's games and figured it was a matter of time before companies started realizing they could get a cut of that profit for themselves. Some guy like PewDiePie can make more than a doctor through playing other people's work and screaming into a mic.

My god you hate everything fun.

Anyway there's this wonderful thing called Fair Use, might want to read up on it.

Nintendo also stomps down in Japan, so they're like Disney in this regard. Companies should really chill down on the copyright leash and recognize that stuff like doujin and playthroughs do more good than harm.

Chagen46 wrote:

Anyway there's this wonderful thing called Fair Use, might want to read up on it.

People love to hide behind the "fair use" without knowing how it actually works. If you think that excuse is some magic shield then you should go ask Rifftrax why the have to release most of their commentary as separate audio files rather than as a simple video with the movie, or why Doug Walker can't release proper "The Nostalgia Critic" DVDs for that matter.

enurtsol wrote:

Nintendo also stomps down in Japan, so they're like Disney in this regard. Companies should really chill down on the copyright leash and recognize that stuff like doujin and playthroughs do more good than harm.

If you're saying Nintendo shuts down doujins then you're wrong. I see plenty at Comiket each year.

Besides, doujins are in an entirely different thing than actual source material. One is fan art and the other is using the actual product.

TitanXL wrote:

People love to hide behind the "fair use" without knowing how it actually works. If you think that excuse is some magic shield then you should go ask Rifftrax why the have to release most of their commentary as separate audio files rather than as a simple video with the movie.

Because those are movies. If you see a stream or a video that contains the movie then you have seen the movie. There will be no difference between that and if you were to go buy the DVD and watch it. It's the same movie. It doesn't change. It's not transformative. And that's a key word with Fair Use. Because if a work is considered transformative that means that someone who is watching the alleged copyright-infringed work will not be getting the same experience as if they were to go and buy it and watch/play it themselves. Now, think. Does watching a let's play actually provide you the experience of the gameplay? Are you getting the same experience as if you were to buy the game? Maybe for visual novels and other games which are purely scripted, but the majority of games these days allow for user interactivity to matter and for there to be multiple different ways to play the game.

If you are going to argue against let's plays/speedruns/etc being a transformative work then you are going to have to do more than cite precedent regarding movies and other forms of passive entertainment. Video games are active entertainment after all, just watching a screen is not the same thing as buying the game. Which is why so many developers are actually thankful for the Youtube community which have gone out and bought games after a popuar Youtube user featured such a game in a Let's Play/review/commentary/etc.

TitanXL wrote:

enurtsol wrote:

Nintendo also stomps down in Japan, so they're like Disney in this regard. Companies should really chill down on the copyright leash and recognize that stuff like doujin and playthroughs do more good than harm.

If you're saying Nintendo shuts down doujins then you're wrong. I see plenty at Comiket each year.

Plenty also get targeted. And it's not just doujin.

TitanXL wrote:

Besides, doujins are in an entirely different thing than actual source material. One is fan art and the other is using the actual product.

Both are copyright violations. America has the advantage of "fair use" argument in court if done for scholarly, teaching, commentary, criticism, and news reporting, among others. Japan has the advantage of many not enforcing it as tightly, although if they wanted to, they could like some Western multinationals do. America should do the same as Japan here too. No one benefits from copyrights too tightly enforced.

Megiddo wrote:

Maybe for visual novels and other games which are purely scripted, but the majority of games these days allow for user interactivity to matter and for there to be multiple different ways to play the game.

You are assuming everyone plays games for the same reasons. A big part of RPGs for me is the story so if I have already experienced that there isn't very much in the way of playing it myself if I was already shown the entire game from start to finish in a YouTube series. For every sandbox game like Minecraft with zero goals or story, you have plenty of linear games that can only be played one certain way; especially in this era where more and more games are trying to be like movies and be as cinematic as possible.

Even something someone might claim is open ended like Zelda. You just watched someone get all the heart pieces, solve all the puzzles, and get all the secrets.. so now you can just go and do it yourself if you want, but you pretty much lost all the enjoyment of figuring it out for yourself or it being a new experience of being exposed to the levels for the first time and are just going to copy what you saw them do.

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Which is why so many developers are actually thankful for the Youtube community which have gone out and bought games after a popuar Youtube user featured such a game in a Let's Play/review/commentary/etc.

Which developers? Indie ones, maybe, like the ones cited in that article who are lucky to sell 10,000 copies of their game, but I somehow doubt franchises like Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon need any advertising from some random YouTube personality. Aside from being iconic franchises, they have actual marketing departments. An indie developer who has zero budget will obviously be thankful for any kind of attention they can get.

I don't have anything against Let's Players personally (aside from thinking it's an incredibly unstable thing to base you income on), but they pretty much get by on companies not caring enough to go after them. Once more companies do start thinking "You know, I wonder how many people just watch these guys play our 5 hour cinematic game and don't buy it" and decide to do something about it. Especially as more and more companies start getting deeper into financial trouble. This is a new technology and area for lawmakers and people to take in and we likely won't see laws about it for some time, but it doesn't make them any less well within their rights to protect their IPs.

Though it's worth pointing out the person who started this stink is doing so for the sole reason he won't be able to make money off playing Nintendo games anymore. Is he in it for the fun of it or the money? If you Let's Play for fun then you shouldn't care if you can't get ad revenue from your videos, because you can still make them.

Why do they have to choose if they do it for fun or they do it for money? Do you honesty think a person's motivations is so completely black and white?

Megiddo wrote:

What's worse is that they're using an automated system to simply match up certain audio/images/etc to change the ownership of the video (well, ownership in terms of ad money) over to them.

If it is their content, why shouldn't they?
http://www.youtube.com/t/contentid