Nintendo Hijacks Ad Revenue From Fan-Created YouTube Playthroughs

mcleland writes "The BBC reports that Nintendo is now using the content ID match feature in YouTube to identify screencap videos of people playing their games. They then take over the advertising that appears with the video, and thus the ad revenue. Nintendo gets it all, and the creators of these videos (which are like extended fan-made commercials for the games) get nothing. Corporate gibberish to justify this: 'In a statement, the firm said the move was part of an "on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media."'"

Comments

Nintendo's Right, but being Jerks about it...

[trims]

I've looked at a couple of those videos, and the amount of content which is copyrightable Nintendo (or whomever the on-screen game author is) is WAAAAAY beyond anything allowable for Fair Use or similar exception.

I'm certainly not in favor of Nintendo or the like suing these folks for copyright infringement. The "unique performance" issue is certainly one which can be discussed, but I liken this to plays - sure, the individual performance of a play is unique, but since you didn't write the script, you can't expect to be profiting from the performance without the author's permission.

Thus, I can't see why the authors of these videos are complaining that Nintendo gets the ad revenue. I think that's an entirely reasonable compromise - Nintendo essentially implicitly licenses the video authors to show those derivative-work videos, in return for the publicity and the ad revenue.

Nintendo, of course, could be much less tone-deaf about saying the preceding, of course.

But, in the end, those videos are derivative-works under copyright law, and they can't be shown without some sort of license.

Re:Not going to help them

[RyoShin]

Nintendo are apparently trying to lose money by discouraging people from uploading videos that promote their games.

While I'm sure that people liked the ad revenue that they got from their video being viewed (anyone have any idea how much they get?), my understanding of LPs is that they are almost always a labor of love, not of cash. So Nintendo taking away the ad revenue might discourage some that were using it as a business (though if your business relied entirely on one company's completed product, protected under copyright, you need to rethink your business plan), but the majority will probably continue doing what they do.

In fact, this might even increase LPs: while I don't imagine it was a huge group, there might be some worried about a lawsuit for using Nintendo's IPs. By Nintendo taking the ad revenue, this is explicit permission to use video of their properties, which may bring more people to the table who just wanted to share but were concerned over copyright.

On the face of this, I'm of two minds: on the one hand, the videos don't exist without the users who spent their time to edit and upload them, and they do act as free advertising (or the opposite, if the game turns out to be bad and the videos show that off). On the other, the user would have nothing to upload if not for Nintendo's product, and they do properly own the copyright on those games. Personally, I think it should be split (50/50 sounds good, though I'm sure both sides would prefer a larger slice,) but the power is all with Nintendo here (the big company, the copyright holder, etc.), so that's not going to happen.

Full disclosure: I've done one basic LP (Bioshock Infinite), posted to Livestream, got no ad revenue. (And it doesn't exist anymore since I had a free account.)