The YouTube Snake Is Eating Itself

I didn't realize so many people were going to 100% side with Youtubers. There's fault on both sides, you can just run around in the streets screaming "corporations!"

I guess people get cranky if they don't get their daily dose of ridiculous swedes yelling about rape.

@joshwent said:

@professoress: Exactly. Just because everyone has an opinion it does not mean everyone should get paid for it.

Yeah, I don't think this is as clear cut as people are making it out to be. I've done a couple of Let's Play's myself and I plan to do more so I would obviously like the rules to favor the gamers and let them make their videos, but at the same time, there are certain types of videos that should just not make money for the user.

I honestly don't think that if I sit down and record myself playing through a whole game, I should get paid for it. What have I actually "created" in that video? The game is the game. Granted, nobody else will play it quite like I did with the same timing, skill, strategy, or customized hat, but I don't think simply playing a game is enough of a "creative work" to be qualified under fair use. It would be like filming me from behind while I'm sitting in a chair watching the entire Matrix trilogy with the whole screen in the shot and clear audio and I just sit there quietly and watch it. Should I get paid for that? Should people basically be able to watch the whole trilogy for free just because I'm in the shot?

I think without some kind of commentary, review, satire, strategy guide element (that is explained with your own voice or visuals), tutorial, an introduction or history of a game or series, etc., then you haven't really done anything worthy of monetizing it and all you really did in the end was show footage of someone else's work and get paid for it.

I don't know how I feel about Patrick continually writing Palsson (without å), considering he could just do a search and replace for the entire last name after he was done writing the story.

Seems lazy.

Only the worst of youtube let's players would think otherwise. All of the good ones either provide strategy, some kind of history, or they act as entertainers. I think that people who honestly try to do these thing should be allowed to. If they are simply playing and throw in a comment every couple minutes, that is useless. Of course the only way to police something like that is to watch everything and review it... or slam everything automatically.

Yea, a huge research article means nothing. He was just a big lazy asshole and should be fired immediately by Giantbomb. You, in turn, should also get hired to be the official proofreader of all things foreign.

How are comments like this not considered spam? It completely lacks any and all conversation/discussion purposes.

@patrickklepek This was an excellent article!

This is the kinda problem you run into when your laws are written by disney and warner congrats you've stumbled upon one of the biggest problems with today's society governments being own and ran by corporations.

Well, you're right? That isn't my argument. So maybe calm down a bit, stop slinging insults, and I'll be happy to engage your questions about any points I actually made.

@joshwent: Last I checked fair use is legal and furthermore when the copyright holder doesn't care that you are using their material fair use doesn't even need to be applied.

I think we can all agree that the Copyright system in place is quickly becoming a public annoyance or dare I say a public enemy instead of being a helpful thing as it was supposedly intended to be. Not only is it costing us (humanity) a lot of work and does it make matters infinitely more complicated, expensive and slow (you need entire legal teams and a lot of time to sift through potential copyright problems) and is the system abused by companies (robbing ideas of employees through contracts or to stifle possible innovations from competitors) it is also starting to cost the creators money instead of protecting their income and creating a feeling of insecurity (you can get flagged by anyone) instead of security (nobody can steal my work). On top of that it also makes everyone into a villain. Everyone including my grandma is now doing illegal things (pictures in school projects, copying lines from books in summaries, backing up data that shouldn't be backed up, etc.) In my country, banks and psychologists for instance are doing illegal things too by asking for copies of passports and even keeping those copies, which technically is a copyright infringement. By law I'm not even allowed to give them my passport only to show them my passport, let alone let them copy it. And now we have manhunts by organisations like BREIN and other corporate copyright-watchdogs. It's a complete mess.

Let's put it like this: To quickly fix this system by implementing another temporary patch or law so that it 'kinda' works (yet kinda doesn't work) for another year or so, just, won't, cut it. It's time that creators and innovators all over the world sit down and have a talk. Not everyone in one room, but groups of content creators on Youtube and Twitch and blogs and podcasts and Giantbomb who come together and try to come up with a better way to protect their income while bolstering instead of hampering cultural and technological progress. If the idea is good enough the people will follow. To think about them in groups is the only way to improve them. There's no magical think tank who are going to solve a problem that big.

Perhaps we should all reconsider how we think about putting a commercial product out there while still considering it to be 'ours'. Maybe that idea just isn't viable anymore for certain types of products and maybe we should draw a clear line between making something for yourself (keeping it to yourself) or making something for the community (making it part of the community) along with distinguishing developers from let's players, etc. Or maybe progressive or creative efforts should be considered different from competitive ones. Any new system will come with its own set of problems (like providing instantly recognisable proof to a consumer who made what) but I'd be hard-pressed to believe that whatever ideas you come up with would be as bad as what we have now.

I'm a 100% certain that there are many easier and less obtuse ways to deal with ownership and protecting investments than our current out-of-touch and out-of-line copyright system and I consider anyone who actively upholds the current system to be an asshole.

It's a matter of respect. It takes less than a minute to write his name correctly, why not do it?

...which is why I said as much. Like I said, just covering my bases. So go ahead and start talking about these points:

it helps no one, and harms everyone, excepting the big companies who are capable of making these sweeping copyright claims. Your blanket statement is more ignorant than the people you're wrongfully accusing. You act like of course all these Youtubers have no back-up plan, so it's their own fault. What? Sorry, you really believe that? Have you done zero research? Do you guys know anything about the thing you're talking about? Almost every single "big" Youtuber, and a lot of smaller ones, have a website where they upload their content to, complete with custom video players. Youtube is merely their main source of viewers, and they have no control over that because that's where the people are.

Actually, it is not a fact that copyright laws are in any way outdated. That's an opinion. I would say that it is actually the newer parts of copyright law that we have problems with, such as the CTEA in '98. I would argue that the crux of the matter in these cases, fair use, is not outdated. Just because someone wants to profit off of someone else's work on the internet doesn't mean we need to change this.

I can imagine a future where i want to create a dumb video of myself set to some video game music, the fact that i'd want to do something small and dumb like that shouldn't flag me as some kind of copyright abuser.

@rasrimra: There's so much you get wrong in your post.

There's a difference between copyright and patents. Most innovations are protected by patents, not copyright. While you can be innovative in creating an art style, the style itself isn't protected by law - the art piece is protected by copyright.

Copyright doesn't stifle competition, unless you mean this is stopping a competitor from opening their own Mickey Mouse resort. You can argue that the current patent system does, but this is about copyrights.

Copyright doesn't rob ideas from employees. People are able to determine for themselves if they want to enter into a made for hire contract and give up their copyright claims.

Most of the things you list are protected by fair use. A kid adding copyrighted pictures to his poster board display for a school project will more than likely benefit from fair use. A kid selling it online most likely won't. Backing up data that you own doesn't infringe on copyright and isn't against the DMCA.

I don't know what country you live in, but in the U.S. the part of the passport that you may want to copy isn't protected by copyright. Government logos and such are protected.

Finally, calling anyone an asshole that disagrees with you means people are less likely to be convinced of any arguments you might want to make.

@cikame: I can't imagine it would. It's a different thing as soon as you decide to monetize that dumb thing though.

There's a very real difference between a copyright holder "not caring", and a copyright holder giving specific permission. People in this thread have mentioned Valve as a company that's okay with Let's Plays, but let's look at their Licensing Agreement:

D. License to Use Valve Game IP in Fan Art.

Valve appreciates the community of Subscribers that creates fan art, fan fiction, and audio-visual works that reference Valve games ("Fan Art"). You may incorporate content from Valve games into your Fan Art. Except as otherwise set forth in this Section or in any Subscription Terms, you may use, reproduce, publish, perform, display and distribute Fan Art that incorporates content from Valve games however you wish, but solely on a non-commercial basis.

So, cool. If you've purchased the license to, say, Portal 2, you can make a Chell portrait, a sexy GlaDOS costume, and even probably (even though this is still unclear) upload a let's play of the whole damn game to YouTube. BUT, if you're a YouTube partner, than you're using their IP on a commercial basis, which is a breech of the agreement.

It doesn't matter if Gabe Newell is toats cool with it, the written agreement is what matters. Valve can of course just not pursue legal action against you, but you are still breaking the agreement, so you're still culpable if any charges are ever brought up.

Also, as @sergio has pointed out numerous times, Fair Use isn't just some category of using copyrighted material that makes you immune to the law. It's a defense that you can attempt to use if you're accused of copyright infringement, and it has to be argued and proven on a case-by-case basis. Only then is it legal.

But isn't that for assets and stuff? Lets take a look at Dota which is very commercial. Valve is totally ok with monetization for streaming and let'splays. Also most of these claims DO NOT COME from publishers or developers. They are comming from totally different companies

You know whats funny? The guy you are refereeing to is managed and has no consequences whatsoever

@video_game_king: God forbid we don't have perfect grammar on the internet.

@luck702:

I only brought it up because he used both versions of it's/its, but only used it's. It's an error that draws attention to itself.

Lets be honest, this was bound to happen eventually and it will get much worse before it gets better.

I worked in the entertainment industry for a number of years and have mates that still work for a number of big record & film companies. The method that was in use for nearly a century of make something, put it onto a physical medium sell it and hopefully recoup more than the cost afterwards does not stand up anymore. It is made worse that in the CD/DVD era they become inefficient and bloated and refused to adapt quickly when the internet hit so they are striking out in any which way they can to catch up.

Its not right that content is being taken down on lets plays but at the same time it is not right that you search for most albums and hear the full thing on youtube. There is DEFINITELY something positive about having access to a global engaged audience, hell giant bomb alone is responsible for at least 1/3 of my games purchases these days, but the attitude of a large proportion of the internet is that of self entitlement. Expecting everything for free and if it isn't free crack it open and make it illegally available anyway. Unless you live on your own private self sustaining island with no outside contact you are dependent on capitalism and market trade between countries. Musicians have to eat just like the rest of us. You wouldn't walk into a restaurant and expect to eat for free so why should you be able to listen to an album or watch a whole game without commentary for free.

It gets more cloudy if you consider context, there was a case earlier in the year where a popular band, I think the black keys, song was used for a particularly right wing political advertisement. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be associated by proxy with a cause I didn't agree with. Yet if we hand the rights solely over to the content producer at the expense of the artist then who knows what could happen.

In my eyes offering your art up without any sort of control is not the best approach, nor is an attitude of ban all non authorised use and sort the mess out afterwards. There is a middle ground where the public can talk about and criticise art without fear of prosecution or it costing a fortune to set up but at the same time an artist can be in control and can make an honest living on the back of it.

Patrick is not a reporter or newsman, he is an editorialist who practices advocacy journalism. Nearly every article of his that I read contains his opinion, right or wrong, good or bad, on the subject. I'm not saying that's wrong, but it is disingenuous to present yourself as a "news" man. News is what is happening, not what is happening and your biased opinion of it. It just bugs me because he presents such a holier than thou and ultra judgemental persona, as if he is an arbiter of what is moral or ethical in the games universe. He's the Bill O'reilly of this site.

Or it was just an editing mistake. I dunno. Who knows, though?

Jeez, Even Google isn't immune to the botched launch in 2013. First the + comment integration, now this. I hope this all gets ironed out because these examples Patrick pulled are pretty ridiculous.

From where I sit that seems to me to be the biggest misunderstanding here. That Fair Use is some catch-all that makes someone innocent until proven guilty.

To be frank, I just don't think most monetized "Let's Play" videos, that stream a game from start to finish will win in court. I don't think they would be deemed "transformative" enough to warrant the massive amount of content they're showing.

@fonzinator: Yeah, so I guess the answer is to try to find some kind of system to weed out the non-transformative ones. Maybe like a system integrated into the steps of posting a new video that includes acceptable sub-categories within the general ones that you must choose and if your video doesn't match then it gets flagged and reviewed? Maybe crowd source and let the YouTube community police themselves.

I mean, otherwise they MUST go with the blanket copyright claims on everything, never bother to verify it, and nobody gets to post videos anymore. It's bad for everyone, because gamers get less interested in the games and know less about them, making them purchase less which hurts the whole industry, and YouTube loses a whole category of videos that generate millions of hits for them, bringing in ad revenue.

I think this will all just get worse and worse and then come crashing down and go back to being good. They'll never outlive the backlash they'll deal with on a daily basis until they cave and change the rules. Either that or someone else will pick up the pieces and we'll all move over to a different site with a comprehensive and fair system in place that benefits all parties.

I read that it's a conspiracy and the real Patrick was beamed up by aliens and replaced with a doppelganger with a busted clavicle that has to make mistakes every once a while in an attempt to avoid blowing it's cover. What they didn't realize is that we'd catch on. We're pretty savvy Duders. The real Scoops never made mistakes, especially missing funny characters that go above or below letters. He also monospaced all of his articles. I read what I wrote on the internet, so it must be true.

Wow, great article @patrickklepek. This is a situation that just keeps getting weirder and weirder. How has this affected Giant Bomb and hosting Quick Look videos on YouTube?

It seems like the next step in the evolution to circumvent the copyright issues based on monetization on the total number of views on videos is to create a business model of paid subscribers. It seems like YouTube will create a business model around the personalities and hosts. Instead of "free" money based on the total number of views (which is the contentious part), subscribers pay $2 for channel access for the personality and their opinion. It doesn't matter then if the video gets 2 million or 15 million views, the monetization is for the personality and opinion, not the gameplay footage/gameplay music.

Due to some extremely obscure music on my playlists, I'm afraid I'll never be leaving youtube.

Imma go down with the motherfucking ship!

I'm not convinced this ship is going down any time soon. The brig may be full and it may be getting low on escape pods and panic rooms but the hull seems to be well intact.

Here, i fixed that one for you!

Yup, PewDiePie may be number #1, but the vast majority of videos and views have nothing to do with video games. And since games seem to be the ones who are hit hardest by all this copyright bullshit, youtube will continue with the success it has for a long time.

The only thing that will kill it is a better website.

Edit: Just checked some numbers.

18,233,036 subscribers

3,092,070,312 views

That's a lot.

I agree, Fair Use isn't what makes someone innocent until proven guilty. Because it's a basic human right. Fair Use isn't a catch-all that makes someone innocent until proven guilty because Fair Use doesn't need to do that. The presumption of innocence is an essential part of democracy and has been around longer than any copyright law and I believe shouldn't be thrown away just because of copyright "issues".

Video games are an interactive medium. You are not playing a videogame if you watch someone else do it . The mere fact that viewers are watching instead of playing the game transforms it into something else. It is a completely different experience. I believe that anyone who says that they've played The Last of Us because they watched a lets play of it is incorrect. It's not the same in the slightest. You may have seen the plot and know the characters (which you could also find by looking on forums or wikipedia) but you did not play the game. It would be like saying you've been on the Top Thrill Dragster because you watched this video:

Or have gone to the Louvre because you watched this virtual tour of it:

All of these videos can be entertaining and provide a good representation of the experience but they are in no way similar to actually participating in the experience. The fact that a lets play is a video and not a video game has transformed it into an entirely different medium.

That's the irony for me.

There was a bit of a row in comments of "Scoops & The Wolf featuring TotalBiscuit" about how TB allegedly pointed out that a single user was insignificant and meaningless when you consider that he gets "8000 new subs a day".

Yet when Google says he is insignificant when you consider the 800 billion hits they get a day* it was all "arm in the air with disgust at the arrogance",

(*yes, yes, citation required. I don't have one)

If anything ever happened like this, I think it would be the absolute last resort, and I doubt it would work at all.

Remember, Google has built its empire on providing completely free services and monetizing them through ads. They know that people want free shit, and I'm sure they also know that only a fraction of a percent of viewers would ever intentionally subscribe to the type of content on YouTube. Not that there isn't amazing stuff there, and not that lots of things don't deserve to make money, but asking people to pay for short-form sporadic content that was all free before for years, just seems like an instant failure.

@spraynardtatum: If that game has more than five minutes of cutscenes that you, the player, can not effect your instantly back into grey area.

Fair Use is a little more complicated than "basic human rights" - this falls within the "misunderstanding" I was talking about.

Innocent until proven guilty is a right reserved for some people in most civilized nations involved in criminal cases, and even then there are some fairly serious exceptions.

It's not really a right you have when it comes to making money as a content creator on a privately owned service like youtube. Being able to stream skyrim and making money off it is not a human right, and it shouldn't be. There are more pressing issues to worry about than if angry joe loses 3 days of monetization on his latest unfunny rant. When they start rendition of people accused of copyright offenses you can make that weak ass argument.

Or maybe even one minute, or none, the idea that a game is fundamentally transformative because it's played differently each time has zero legal precedent. The point is, that it doesn't matter.

A copyright dispute doesn't negate an individual's right to the presumption of innocence. The prosecution still has to prove to a judge that you are infringing on their IP. If they satisfactorily show that you are using their content in an unauthorized way, you can then claim that it fits in some allowance of fair use, and maybe therefore still be allowed to display and distribute your whatever.

Human Rights really aren't part of this issue.

NO PATRICK! YOU MUST REPENT FOR YOUR SINS

I find it amusing (read: sad) that the guy demanding respect be shown, in turn shows none himself by calling people names.

I am glad you can find it amusing in some way. It just infuriates the hell out of me and makes me frustrated even when it has nothing to do with me!

I guess I just hate seeing good people get put down all the time.

I didn't say fair use is a basic human right. I said the presumption of innocence is. Fair Use is your best defense.

Youtube basically solved the problem of video on the internet, and for that I am very grateful. But now that technology is everywhere and well... yeah I don't really need Youtube anymore. Hell even at work we run our own streaming site to share things that are work-in-progress.

I suppose on a surface level there is a difference but I look at the why not the what.
Copyright is like patenting a way to control a revenue stream and preferably in the direction of the USA. They both serve to make life more difficult for creative people and to threaten small competitors, turn the public into villains who have something to hide etc. etc.

You may not believe that we are doing illegal things all the time but let me give you a good example of how stupid the system really is. Singing Happy Birthday in public, is illegal.
From Wiki (potentially illegally quoted): "In 1988, Warner/Chappell Music purchased the company owning the copyright for $25 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at $5 million.^[6][7] Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claims that the United States copyright will not expire until 2030, and that unauthorized public performances of the song are technically illegal unless royalties are paid to Warner. In one specific instance in February 2010, these royalties were said to amount to $700.^[8] In the European Union, the copyright of the song will expire no later than December 31, 2016.^[9]"

I wouldn't call anyone who disagrees with me an asshole, but I do highly dislike figures that represent or protect current copyright laws and I would love to see them publicly humiliated. Suppose the best way to do that is to let them speak, but I still think they're assholes.

I'm saying that it doesn't even matter that a video game is played differently by different people (though they are), a video game is an interactive medium and a Lets Play is not. You can't fully represent a interactive experience with no way to interact. Video games are made to be played. Participation is the point of their creation. Someone watching someone play a video game on youtube isn't playing the video game. They're getting an different and bare bones representation of the experience.

And in the case of Content ID, a copyright dispute is negating an individuals right to the presumption of innocence. The damage is done immediately by removing monetization and the defendant must then explain their case for the penalty to be revoked. It has everything to do with Human Rights because it involves human beings with real jobs that are no longer able to make a living even though they've done nothing wrong.