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Soleron on 15 October 2012
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kain_kusanagi said:
...

This is from the US Copyright Office:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

"Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair.

  1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
  2. The nature of the copyrighted work
  3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
  4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work"

Playing an entire game while talking is not a legit fair use.

"The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”"

You can't use the whole thing. Only a small portion and you have to have a damn good reason for it. The reason can't be, "I to talk on youtube."

It does say "such as" all those examples, not "limited to". The exact definition of what is fair is left to court rulings. I think YT game commentary would stand a good chance in a Federal court but who knows.

And personally I think showing 10mins of gameplay, or even better of machinma with the models, doesn't count as full reproduction of the work because games are for playing. But it still doesn't set a limit on what is "short" or "excerpt" or "summary".

So, I don't think you are necessarily wrong, but I don't think you can just state you're right either. Needs to go to court.