Why are songs and movies copyrighted but you can upload a full playthrough of a video game on YouTube?
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It’s all about whether the thing in question (the youtube video) is a decent substitute for the product you pay money for (the game).
In the case of a song, listening to the song on youtube is pretty damn similar to listening to the song on Spotify or CD, so there’s a reasonable argument that the youtube video can be a substitute for actually paying for the song.
A Let’s Play where you watch someone else play through a game is *not* a substitute for playing through the game yourself, because the gameplay elements are entirely missing.
Some companies are touchier about this than others.
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