05-21-2013, 12:14 AM
In all honesty though, it isn't smart to make a job out of this. The gameplay may be unique but the game itself is still theirs and making a lot of money using a product that you didn't make... eventually legal issues would be coming. Yes, there are some Let's Players that do put work into their videos like editing, scripting, reviewing the game before heading in... but a lot of videos just have somebody playing a game and talking over it. When you see those kind of videos, which are recorded poorly and have commentary that doesn't relate to the game, you can see why Nintendo might be cracking down on them. Nintendo may have the wrong notion that there are people that make a lot of money over their content and all they do is slap their voice on it and call it day, letting the money roll in by ad revenue. And to me, personally, I find those types of LPers reprehensible and I don't feel sorry for them one bit.
Don't get me wrong, what I think Nintendo is doing is not a good move as it'll only give them a small amount of profit with bad PR looming over them for a while. The company may have the rights, but the true argument comes from it being the smart thing to do or not. We can't deny that a move like this is alienating for these people and it would cause them to trust the company less. If they could come down on them over LPs, then what else could they get them over? What would finally draw the line? Moreover, I'm vehemently against the ContentID system since it has caused thousands of videos to be indiscriminately removed. There's no human factor in that system and Youtube has never bothered to add one. It's a terrible system and it should not be supported.
In terms of the law, I think Nintendo does have the right to do this. But the real question is this: is it the smart thing to do? Personally, I don't think so and this is going to bite them badly later.
Don't get me wrong, what I think Nintendo is doing is not a good move as it'll only give them a small amount of profit with bad PR looming over them for a while. The company may have the rights, but the true argument comes from it being the smart thing to do or not. We can't deny that a move like this is alienating for these people and it would cause them to trust the company less. If they could come down on them over LPs, then what else could they get them over? What would finally draw the line? Moreover, I'm vehemently against the ContentID system since it has caused thousands of videos to be indiscriminately removed. There's no human factor in that system and Youtube has never bothered to add one. It's a terrible system and it should not be supported.
In terms of the law, I think Nintendo does have the right to do this. But the real question is this: is it the smart thing to do? Personally, I don't think so and this is going to bite them badly later.