By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Kane1389 on 15 April 2015
Edit Thread
marley said:
Kane1389 said:
marley said:


I'll let you in on a little secret

...

You're wrong.  When you pay money for this type of product (in this case, buy a game) you own only the physical product.  The characters, artwork, story, music, etc are all still owned by Nintendo.  You are not buying the intellectual properties or the explicit rights to use them however you want.   

Let's play videos are making money while using someone else's intellectual properties.  It doesn't matter if one causes the other.  It doesn't matter if every single viewer on their channel is there to watch their personality - they are still using someone else's property in the process. 

Nintendo's decision might not be the best business decision, but they are in their legal right to make it.  

They are not profiting out of their intelectual properties, that would be something like re-modding the game slightly and then reselling it or making mods based on nintendo characters like Link and Zelda in Skyrim and charging money for it.

Here, they are recording the gameplay of the game they bought, edit it and put it online. 

 

I'm not sure why you think it matters that the profit is from ad revenue and not from a direct sale.  It makes zero difference.  They are still profiting while using someone's intellectual properties.  The gameplay might belong to the youtuber, but the characters, music, artwork, story, logos, etc still belong to someone else.    

It's no different than a director using a song in a movie.  It doesn't matter if they use a small snippet of the song, make simple edits to the song, or use the entire song.  They could merely sample part of the song's melody with different music dubbed to it.  It makes no difference.  It doesn't matter if every single person purchased a ticket to see the movie and nobody wants to hear the song.  Every single one of them could loathe the song entirely.  It doesn't matter. The directors/producers are still using someone elses creative works while making their own creative works (and profiting from it).  That requires permissions and almost always some form of licensing.  

Hell, you can't even sing (or hum) a copyrighted song on youtube legally (not even a short segment).  It doesn't matter if people are watching the video to see your performance - it's still illegal.  It doesn't matter if people are there to watch someone's gameplay - so long as that gameplay features someone elses copyrighted work. 

Purchasing a game, cd, literature, or movie does not grant you rights to use (in this case distribute) the creative works however you see fit.  Adding your own content on top of someone else's work does not give you free reign to distribute that work (especially in a commercial use).  How strictly these things are enforced is up to the owner of the IP.  

I wasnt talking about jurisdictional aspects of the case, i was talking from a moral and logical point of view. Like Joe said, just because nintendo can take down videos of their game doesnt mean they should. All other companies are profiting greatly from free advertising and youtube publicity, but Nintendo has its head so far up their asses they cant even see whats good for them, they are so out of touch with todays gaming scene (which is even more evident by their sales performance) it's actually kinda fascinating to see a company trying so hard to harm itself unknowingly .