Nintendo ID Claims Youtube LPs

[Kriven]

Athletes devote their lives to the game.

I really don't see the difference between devoting your life to a physical sport and playing thousands of hours of video games.

But no matter how the players go about it, it is STILL the same game, with the same framework, same characters, same story, etc. all of which are copyrighted and rightfully owned by Nintendo. When you Let's Play through the whole thing, you're basically giving all of those factors out for free. The only thing you aren't giving out is the interaction, since that can't be given. This is reason why the money regarding the game belongs to Nintendo.

I get that. Soccer is still the same game with the same framework and same team positions and same goal. It's still the same.

Interaction is a huge part of the gaming experience. I actually find it ridiculously boring, sometimes infuriating, to watch other people play games because they play it differently from myself. The experiences are very different.

Also, trademark is what you're looking for, not copyright, and that is a legitimate point and really the only one that matters. Whether or not Nintendo made the game is irrelevent because of fair use, which protects Let's Play as review and satire. Trademark laws, however, are different and do not protect Let's Play videos.

Which is a point I've been trying to get across since the very beginning. It doesn't matter what Nintendo made, that's completely irrelevent. What matters is that they own the trademark on the Super Mario title and character, meaning those titles and characters can't be used to sell product without proper license. This is the same law that prohibits LPers from making Let's Plays of fan games featuring Mario.

It doesn't matter who made the ball, is what I'm trying to get at. All that matters is whether or not the ball's logo is being used to sell a product.

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Since apparently I have to,

As much as Korean television would like you to believe, playing a video game is not even close to playing a sport. I'm no sports expert, but the legal definition of sports (as used in the case of Noffke v. Bakke) is "[a]n activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs," and before you attempt to pass button-pressing and joystick-wiggling as "physical exertion". The legal/medical definition for "physical activity" is "any bodily movement produced by the contraction of skeletal muscle that increases energy expenditure above a basal level" (using a controller, typing on a keyboard and flicking your Wii Remote do not consume enough energy to get you from rest to your basal level).

This means Wii Sports and Kinect Sports are indeed legally sports.


However, most games are not sports. Now let's review what a copyright infringement is. Here we see the legal definition.

"As a general matter, copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner. "

This means you were wrong in saying they've "legally created a derivative work". They've actually illegally created a derivative work. And they're performing/publicly displaying it. That's already breaking copyright law. Nintendo can sue those making Let's Plays. Did they do that? No. Should they? It'd be too much work and not worth the hassle, especially when Nintendo can make money off of literally every Nintendo Let's Play on YouTube.



Feel free to argue with the United States Government, but I'll warn you that they've not a good reputation.

You can legally create a derivative work. You can not legally profit from it. So I'm right when I said they legally created it, but had I said they legally performed it, I would be wrong... but I didn't.

Homage, parody, satire, and review are all exempted by the fair use clause, and Let's Plays fall neatly into all of them.