Why are songs and movies copyrighted but you can upload a full playthrough of a video game on YouTube?
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Some company allow the user to create gameplay content, while some doesn’t care that their game is being recorded and shown to everyone… not like company that will copyright claim your playthrough of a video game doesn’t exists(*cough* Nintendo)
If i cant see a video of gameplay, i am not buying it. Its basicly free advertisement for the game makers
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If i cant see a video of gameplay, i am not buying it. Its basicly free advertisement for the game makers
Copyright law is generally based on whether or not people can use the thing being shared as a substitute. The video game is still copyrighted, but since watching someone else play it isn’t the same as playing it yourself, it’s not the same.
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but it’s a summary of how things generally work.
Copyright law is generally based on whether or not people can use the thing being shared as a substitute. The video game is still copyrighted, but since watching someone else play it isn’t the same as playing it yourself, it’s not the same.
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but it’s a summary of how things generally work.
Copyright law is generally based on whether or not people can use the thing being shared as a substitute. The video game is still copyrighted, but since watching someone else play it isn’t the same as playing it yourself, it’s not the same.
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but it’s a summary of how things generally work.
Game companies have finally gained the knowledge that they are literally just getting free advertising from let’s players it wasn’t like this for many many years
Because it’s a legal grey area. A lot of people are saying that video game publishers would be entirely within their rights to pull down let’s plays.
This isn’t true, but it may be true. Let me explain. There are similar doctrines in other countries but here in the US we have something called Fair Use which is an affirmative defense against a copyright suit, meaning if they sue you, and your work was fair use, you win.
Fair use is a little complicated and it has four factors: the purpose/character of the use (was it used in a news report, classroom, or a critique of the original), the nature of the copyrighted work (is it something like music? Or a nonfiction book or something?), the portion used (did you play the whole song in your critique, or just little parts?), and the effect of the use on the potential market for the original (does your use substitute for the original and displace it in the market. Note that something like a critique will absolutely affect the market, but a court is gonna ignore that cuz a critique of a shitty work which makes people not buy that shitty work is absolutely fair use, and it doesnt necessarily substitute).
So why do I say that it’s not true, but may be true? Well as others have said game devs are not interested in getting on the bad side of all these YouTubers who basically give them free advertising. So, at least on a large scale, they haven’t tried to take on Let’s plays, which means we do not have good case law on this issue. We don’t know how courts generally will rule because we don’t have previous rulings. So maybe a court rules for let’s plays, maybe they don’t.
Is not super clear where let’s plays sit with respect to the four fair use factors. The character of the use is commercial usually (point against fair use), and nature of the work is creative (point against) but the work and use are different in format and character (point for), the portion of the work is usually pretty large (point against) but is often edited down to highlights (point for?), and depending on the game maybe a let’s play could substitute if you’ve got some story based game with little or no gameplay (point against) or totally could not substitute if there’s gameplay (point for).
So if a studio really did want to stamp out let’s plays they are not guaranteed a win, and a loss could be bad. Even taking up the case would alienate people and turn them into the enemy overnight. Plus, if they loose, they’ll loose whatever coercive power they currently have to threaten to strike people.
I’m not a lawyer, so some of the above probably misses the mark. But if you’re interested in this [Leonard French on YouTube](https://youtube.com/@lawfulmasses) is a lawyer, and I highly recommend his stuff.
I think the bottom line with video games is it’s good for business. If a popular youtuber does a play-through of your game how many new sales does that equate to. How many new copies of 7 days to die were sold because of Glock9 or copies or Ark sold because of Neebs Gaming.
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