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

Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth...

[AdamHaun]

(For those who don't know what this Let's Play thing is all about, it's where you add commentary to a playthrough of a game, either in speech or subtitles. It started on SomethingAwful several years ago. If you want a good example, check out the Jurassic Park: Tresspasser LP by ResearchIndicates, which is one of the best. Okay, helpful part's over, back to ranting.)

So a big media company discovers that people on YouTube are posting full-length video playthroughs of entire copyrighted works, but instead of immediately sending out takedowns, they decide to support it -- yes, actively *support* it:

In a statement, the firm said the move was part of an "on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media". "We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube," the company added. "That is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property."

[emphasis mine]

And in exchange for totally legitimizing these flagrant acts of copyright violation (most of which are completely half-assed and not at all good advertisements for the games), all they want is the ad revenue from the videos. And you're telling us to *complain* about this?

What kind of whiny ungrateful shit-for-brains idiocy is this? Nintendo has every legal right to sue the bejeezus out of LPers, and they chose not to, using the same reasoning we've been using for the past fifteen years. *They gave us what we wanted*! Why are we not celebrating? Because all these whiners got out of making a video was fandom and ego gratification? Poor babies!

Also, "corporate gibberish"? It's three simple sentences that are logically connected to each other. Can we save the insults for where they're deserved? It's not like it's hard to find legitimate criticisms of our favorite multinational corporations.