YouTuber Angry Joe Swears Off Nintendo Videos After The Company Claimed His Mario Party 10 Take

from the biting-the-hand dept

Tue, Apr 7th 2015 2:03pm — Timothy Geigner

Nintendo's never-ending desire to control how YouTubers review its games or do "let's plays" has been laughable from the start. From the trust-destroying agreement YouTubers had to enter into in order to get access to visual content to the beauracratic nightmare individuals had to wade through just to get a video approved for monetization, the whole thing started off on messy footing. And the biggest issue in all of this: Nintendo still can't seem to grasp that these YouTubers are giving the company free advertising. Gamers love the kinds of videos these YouTubers produce. They use them to make purchasing decisions, to become interested in new games, and to fuel word-of-mouth advertising that no trumped up ad campaign could ever possibly hope to achieve. Why make any of that more complicated by creating an approval system for the videos? And, more importantly, why take away the incentive for fans to promote your games by demanding a share of their YouTube revenue?

Well, the program that's a mere few months old has already resulted in the first major YouTuber proclaiming that Nintendo games will no longer be covered. Angry Joe (Joe Vargas) has one hell of an online following in the gaming YouTuber community and, following a spat over his Mario Party 10 video, Nintendo is dead to him.

Joe “Angry Joe” Vargas, who commands nearly two million subscribers on YouTube, has decided to stop covering Nintendo games, following a dispute over a Mario Party 10 video. Angry Joe’s Mario Party 10 video was flagged by YouTube, and while it’s possible for him to keep the video online, he can’t make money off it. It’s easy to imagine why he’s upset.
He tweeted about the decision a few days ago:

I hope @NintendoAmerica enjoyed the free ad revenue & coverage I generated for em. It will be my last Nintendo video. pic.twitter.com/07797eA7W4 — Joe Vargas (@AngryJoeShow) April 4, 2015

That sort of says it all, doesn't it? Millions of gamers who went to Angry Joe for help in where to spend their gaming dollar will no longer be directed by Joe to Nintendo games via reviews and gameplay footage. For Angry Joe followers, Nintendo might as well not exist. What's particularly insane about this is that the YouTuber Nintendo affiliate program described above wouldn't even have applied to this particular video, since some Nintendo games, Mario Party 10 among them, don't even qualify for coverage under the program. Why Nintendo would seek to piss off a popular YouTuber over a video for a game that wouldn't have been granted the okay under the affiliate program is beyond me.

Here's a case where Nintendo has locked up 100% of the ad revenue on Angry Joe's video, despite the fact that it's not Nintendo's copyright-covered content viewers are coming to watch. That's not only unfair, it's biting the very hand feeding Nintendo's coffers and sending the company new customers. This is the first major YouTuber to jump off the Nintendo ship, but it almost certainly won't be the last.

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Filed Under: angry joe, contentid, dmca takedown, video games, videos
Companies: nintendo, youtube

76 Comments

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That One Guy (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 12:58pm

Pure, endless greed
As Angry Joe noted in the video, what makes the action of Nintendo here particularly galling is how utterly greedy it shows Nintendo to be.

It's not enough that he paid several hundred for the system, $50-70 per game for several games, several hundred for several sets of controllers, no, even after all the money he has given them, they still demand more. Even after all that, they still demand that he pay them for the privilege of advertising their games to the huge numbers of people that watch his videos.

Even other game companies that people (rightly) despise, EA and Ubisoft, seem to have been smart enough to figure out that people making videos of their games is free publicity, which makes it all the worse that a company that so many people love has shown such boneheaded, shortsighted greed.
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- OldMugwump (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:26pm
  
  Re: Pure, endless greed
  Never attribute to greed that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
  
  I strongly suspect Nintendo management has no idea what is going on here. They probably just told their legal department to "protect our rights" and the lawyers go off and do this.
  
  Why? Because they can.
  
  Their reasoning is simple - the law lets us do this, doing it is "protecting our rights", and we've been told to "product our rights", so do it.
  
  Lawyers are not business people. They don't think about what's good for the company or for profits. They just think "if the law lets me screw up other people, I should do so". Because to a lawyer life is a zero-sum game. And the law lets them.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:55pm
    
    Re: Re: Pure, endless greed
    It's not because they can. It's because the more things they do, no matter how inane, or counter productive, the more people they can hire and the bigger their empire is.
    
    Corporate Executives know it's all about building and protecting your empire. The company be damned. It's one reason why techies and executives have so much trouble communicating.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - charliebrown (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 10:44pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Pure, endless greed
      Ironically, this sounds like a dozen different phone games. Build your empire in Kingdom of Lawyers!
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 6:17pm
    
    Re: Re: Pure, endless greed
    --Lawyers are not business people. They don't think about what's good for the company or for profits.
    
    Humm, if I hired a lawyer to do work for my business and his actions negatively affected my business....well I'd hire another lawyer to sue the idiot lawyer.
    
    A lawyer who ignore whats in the best interest of his client has no business representing anyone.
    
    I'd have no problem with a lawyer pointing out that the requested action is stupid and the client still insisting they follow through with the stupid action. But I would have a problem with a lawyer just blindly doing whatever is asked of him.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2015 @ 6:07am
    
    Re: Re: Pure, endless greed
    "if the law lets me screw up other people, I should do so"
    Is a bit to the harsh side. It is about setting a precedent to avoid the erosion of the rights. If one person is allowed to do something you cannot go after another doing the same thing and it weakens cases of related types of use too.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - OldMugwump (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 11:21am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Pure, endless greed
      Then grant them permission.
      
      But you don't screw over your best and most enthusiastic customers. That is stupidity in action.
      
      And it does not benefit anybody, except maybe the lawyers.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Mark (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 11:36am
    
    Re: Re: Pure, endless greed
    As I said in the comments on another article about this the problem seems to be Japan.
    
    By all accounts Nintendo America understands Youtube and Social Media and how they can be beneficial. It's Nintendo Japan that is being all draconian about this.
    
    Let's look at another example that also involves Angry Joe.
    
    Capcom USA sent him a press package to promote the most recent Street Fighter release. He made a video about it that included clips from the promotional video provided to him by Capcom. It was slapped with a takedown notice by Capcom Japan.
    
    With these sort of incidents it always seems to trace back to the offices of the Japanese game publishers.
    
    Perhaps it's a cultural thing I don't understand but there are many examples of Japanese companies being somewhat hostile to the internet.
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    - That One Guy (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 12:26pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Pure, endless greed
      Brilliant. Worse than the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, they are in fact actively hostile to each other, with the fans and customers caught in the middle.
      
      Hopefully he told them that he'd be giving a pass to any similar offers unless they could reign in their trigger happy colleagues in the future.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - John Fenderson (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 3:04pm
    
    Re: Re: Pure, endless greed
    "Lawyers are not business people. They don't think about what's good for the company or for profits."
    
    Correction: Bad lawyers don't think about what's good for the company. Good lawyers think about little else.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Haley, 13 Apr 2015 @ 2:21pm
  
  Re: Pure, endless greed
  Except he didn't pay a single cent for that Wii U. He said himself that his subscribers bought that Wii U for him. And then when his video gets claimed, even though the video is still playable, he decided to throw an enormous bitchfit because he can't profit off of it. He expects to make money off of other people's work with absolutely ZERO investment on his part. What an entitled asshole.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - nasch (profile), 13 Apr 2015 @ 3:53pm
    
    Re: Re: Pure, endless greed
    He expects to make money off of other people's work with absolutely ZERO investment on his part.
    
    The time and effort he put into making and editing the video is zero investment?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:12pm

Can someone please explain...
How these types of videos do not fall under fair use?
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- Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:17pm
  
  Re: Can someone please explain...
  Corporations are the only type of people allowed to make a profit, real people should work to make profits for the corporate person.
  
  /S
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- Watchit (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:20pm
  
  Re: Can someone please explain...
  They probably do. But, the way Youtube works is the copyright holder, or rather anyone who claims to have copyrighted material in a video is given the benefit of the doubt. Regardless of fair use, or if they even have the copyright they claim, or even if the copyright they claim to have has anything to do with the video, anyone can send a copyright claim like nintendo did.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - RD, 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:03pm
    
    Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
    They probably do. But, the way Youtube works is the copyright holder, or rather anyone WHO IS A BIG CORPORATION WITH LOTS OF MONEY AND LAWYERS who claims to have copyrighted material in a video is given the benefit of the doubt.
    
    ftfy
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- David, 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:42pm
  
  Re: Can someone please explain...
  They do, but unless you are willing to go to court and then battle the strike against you with Google, you risk losing your entire YouTube channel. Joe is angry in part because the crap-shoot here is likely loaded against him.
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  - anony, 8 Apr 2015 @ 3:27am
    
    Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
    If only all of these content creators could take one week to boycott all of youtube, take down all of their content they previously put up on youtube and let youtube lose all the income they had.
    Maybe this will not be a lot of money , maybe it will, but no matter how much it is youtube should take note that they are easily replaced if all content creators for games decide to support a third party website and point all consumers to this website.
    
    Eventually it could actually be a situation where youtube was losing millions of viewers a day to a third party website who had fair use as their main discipline and protected consumers and content creators.
    
    I just dot understand how Youtube can go after content creators as they are more tha coverd under fair use here.
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    - PaulT (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 3:42am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
      "if all content creators for games decide to support a third party website and point all consumers to this website"
      
      What makes you think that the new website will be immune from the legal attacks and other pressures that forced YouTube to put ContentID and their DMCA processes in place to begin with, let alone the constant stream of demands for content to be taken down outside of these systems?
      
      "I just dot understand how Youtube can go after content creators as they are more tha coverd under fair use here."
      
      Oh, you don't actually understand the issues and are just assuming that YouTube are the ones attacking content creators here? Never mind, carry on with your fictional version of events...
      
      (Hint: Nintendo are the ones attacking here, not YouTube. That's why Joe is boycotting Nintendo, not Google)
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- kog999, 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:47pm
  
  Re: Can someone please explain...
  "How these types of videos do not fall under fair use?"
  
  Perhaps they do. All you need to do to find out is hire a lawyer, pay them a crazy amount of money, take time off work to go to court, defend you case, wait possibly several years for a finial non-appealable judgement, pay more money in court costs and fees, dedicate all your free time to the case any maybe you can get the video rules fair use. or maybe not and your be counter-sued for copyright infringement. All so you can post a free video online. easy right.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:54pm
  
  Re: Can someone please explain...
  Let's Play ad revenue: $250
  Lawsuit to defend Let's Play ad revenue: $8,000,000
  explicit fair use law: priceless
  
  There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there is the Supreme Court.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 8:08pm
    
    Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
    ninja assassins charge fewer billable hours than lawyers and produce a more satisfying result.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Almost Anonymous, 8 Apr 2015 @ 9:16am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
      Unfortunately, there is a marked lack of reviews for reputable ninja assassin's on Angie's List, and I don't know where else to look.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - nasch (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 1:18pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
        Unfortunately, there is a marked lack of reviews for reputable ninja assassin's on Angie's List, and I don't know where else to look.
        
        Ask a Ninja? He is a ninja so he may not respond to questions. They tend to be mysterious and elusive after all.
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    - RonKaminsky (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 9:42am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
      Was that a stealth "Ninjas vs. Pirates" joke?
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - alternatives(), 9 Apr 2015 @ 5:59am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
      ninja assassins ... lawyers
      
      And yet - only Lawyers advertise.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 10:53pm
    
    Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
    "All are equal before the law" if they can afford to get infront of a judge.
    That's the one thing I hate about capitalism, you can buy everything... even justice.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2015 @ 5:15am
  
  Re: Can someone please explain...
  Fair use is a test against four factors:
  (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
  (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
  (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
  (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
  
  It's points 3 and 4 that are most likely to weigh against the fan making the video. A Let's Play is likely to cover most of the playable parts of a game, especially if it's very linear. As a result, it's a much more reasonable argument that a viewer could "get the whole experience" of the game by watching the Let's Play instead of by buying and playing the game. (I don't buy that, myself—I've even bought games because of having seen them in LPs—but I'm not the one making fair use rulings)
  
  Points 1 and 2 don't counterbalance that much. Getting ad revenue for the videos even seems to make it worse, although I would hope a reasonable judge would realize that that revenue is earned not on the basis of playing a specific game but on the viewers wanting to experience more of the player's personality.
  
  Absent a ruling, we may never know whether it passes the test, but it's not a given.
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  - nasch (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 1:21pm
    
    Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
    As a result, it's a much more reasonable argument that a viewer could "get the whole experience" of the game by watching the Let's Play instead of by buying and playing the game. (I don't buy that, myself—I've even bought games because of having seen them in LPs—but I'm not the one making fair use rulings)
    
    I don't think even judges are that dumb for the most part*. You only need the vaguest understanding of what a video game is to know that watching a video of one is not a substitute.
    
    * there could be county judges somewhere that are but *mostly*
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- Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2015 @ 8:36am
  
  Re: Can someone please explain...
  They almost certainly do fall under fair use. However, Youtube is entitled to decide for themselves whether or not to keep this up, provided it does not infringe on copyright. So, there is no penalty for taking it down when it is fair use, but huge legal liability to keeping it up if it's not. Thus, even though it is almost certainly fair use, the fact there is a small chance it is not is enough to make giving the benefit of the doubt to Nintendo the logical response, given the current legal framework.
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- dstruct2k, 9 Apr 2015 @ 6:25pm
  
  Re: Can someone please explain...
  They do. YouTubers need to ask a lawyer a few things instead of just saying "omg I give up". Nintendo doesn't have the legal rights to take down this video, even if YouTube has mistakenly granted them the ability to do so. Nintendo specifically signs away their rights to Mario Party 10 videos in the mentioned agreement.
  
  Nintendo's action here is not just insane, it's unlawful.
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  - John Fenderson (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 9:55am
    
    Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
    "YouTubers need to ask a lawyer a few things instead of just saying "omg I give up"."
    
    That option is not always available. It depends on how much money you have to spare for lawyering.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Explainer, 18 Aug 2015 @ 9:44am
  
  Re: Can someone please explain...
  Fair Use only applies when you don't profit from it.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Explainer, 18 Aug 2015 @ 9:44am
  
  Re: Can someone please explain...
  Fair Use only applies when you don't profit from it.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - nasch (profile), 18 Aug 2015 @ 10:02am
    
    Re: Re: Can someone please explain...
    Fair Use only applies when you don't profit from it.
    
    That is not correct. Commercial / profitable use can be fair use.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:15pm

what do you expect? Numbtendo is part of the entertainment industries, and they think that we cant exist without them. i for one one would be willing to take the chance and try!
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:24pm

He's certainly not the first. A lot of YouTube LetsPlayers have quietly shed off Nintendo content for the same reason.
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V. Smith, 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:44pm

Whether Nintendo is right or wrong, the fact stands that Angry Joe BARELY discusses Nintendo anyway, He either plays/reviews PC games, or games from other consoles. Why doesn't anyone do journalism anymore?
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- sabata2, 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:56pm
  
  Re:
  He expressly bought a WiiU and PS4 because he wanted to branch out away from his prior brand of "an XBox Fanboy".
  
  Now he can't cover one of the brand new consoles he bought because he can't use it for his job (creating content for youtube)
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- That One Guy (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 4:12pm
  
  Re:
  You think that might have something to do with Nintendo's reputation as greedy control freaks? Just maybe?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 4:24pm
    
    Re: Re:
    To be fair!
    IIRC, Nintendo saved us all from the great video game crash by coming up with the thrilling idea of not letting random people make games for your consoles without you knowing about it.
    
    This is probably not as applicable to the modern internet, though.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 5:33pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Any largesse Nintendo accumulated by giving the North American videogame market a jumpstart has long since been exhausted. I was willing to put up with their doucheyness (for lack of a better term) while it also resulted in great games and gaming hardware. But now that they seemingly don't know how to do a single thing other than spew out the same three or four franchises every year and their hardware is a never-ending cavalcade of gimmick-ridden poorly made garbage I've moved on to greener pastures.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2015 @ 3:05am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Yeah. I mean, you can just make any old game you want on a PC, and there's no games industry to speak of on that platform. Nintendo's implementation of DRM on all of their consoles dating back to the NES sure showed everyone how futile an open software platform can be.
      
      Yup. No games on PCs. Or any software at all, on any platforms except publisher-controlled, DRM-laden, proprietary console hardware.
      
      That's definitely how things are, and how they have been ever since Nintendo saved the world of software development...
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Ven, 8 Apr 2015 @ 2:44pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      
      IIRC, Nintendo saved us all from the great video game crash by coming up with the thrilling idea of not letting random people make games for your consoles without you knowing about it.
      
      I own a copy of 10-Yard Fight. Anything Nintendo did to save or revitalize the home video game industry it had little to do with quality control. The stepped into a void left by companies that pursued short term profits over long term viability. It's sad to see that Nintendo may be on the other side now.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- PaulT (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 1:08am
  
  Re:
  "the fact stands that Angry Joe BARELY discusses Nintendo anyway"
  
  In a sense, that actually makes this worse for Nintendo, especially if the comments elsewhere about him deliberately trying to branch out are true.
  
  By that, I mean that a channel devoted to Nintendo fans might be essentially seen as preaching to the choir and not gain significant extra sales/revenue for the company (I still think they'd be wrong, but bear with me).
  
  However, if the channel is 90% Xbox and PC games, with the occasional Nintendo product showcased here and there, that's additional exposure to people who wouldn't normally consider the Nintendo product. Some of whom might see the games and decide to impulse buy a console or game they hadn't previous considered.
  
  Companies like Nintendo spend millions trying to work out how to advertise to these kinds of markets effectively, but here they are rejecting those who do it for them for free.
  
  "Why doesn't anyone do journalism anymore?"
  
  What constitutes journalism in your mind? Do you usually visit opinion blogs for your investigative journalism?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
RD, 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:48pm

This is the result
This is the result of your "ownership culture" where every scrap of anything created by anybody MUST be "owned" and MUST be monetized and "protected" at all costs.

Protectionist policies that only serve huge, entrenched corporations must be repealed and content given back to the public, as it SHOULD have been.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:50pm

Check out the "Pokemon Shuffle" game that is free to play on the 3DS for a sign of things to come. It's basically a slot machine for kids fueled by in-app purchases. Nintendo is going to make a bunch of money launching apps like that on cell phones, but it's going to destroy their brand long term. Did their management change? Or have they just decided to cash in their chips? I am sad to see them slip into greed mode. They used to have the highest quality video games around.
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- Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:05pm
  
  Re:
  I don't know what alternate universe you've been living in for the past five years, but Nintendo is a shadow of its former self. Are they still profitable? Probably. Would I buy another Nintendo-branded hardware product ever again? Not a chance in hell. After the Wii I'd had quite enough.
  
  I'm pretty sure this latest move shows they're the next Sega.
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  - PRMan, 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:17pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I have a Wii U and the few games they have made for it have been outstanding (New Super Mario and Luigi, Mario Kart, Super Mario 3D World, Captain Toad).
    
    That said, this kind of greed makes me never want to support Nintendo again.
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Anon, 7 Apr 2015 @ 2:52pm

I had a video not using monetization on youtube using a track from Nine Inch Nails - The Slip (2008) which to this day on their site says "the slip is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.". I had them in the credits, links to their site, about all you could ask.. Got a notice just like that. Disputed the notice with info including the quote of the licence from their site, they responded still saying I was breaking copyright, without giving any details of how.. Anyway I just stripped the Audio and cut the credits short where it mentioned them and stopped buying their music.
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- Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:20pm
  
  Re:
  Much of the blame goes to Google for its inept handling of infringement claims / fair use.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - That One Guy (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:48pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Yes and no. Google certainly shoulders a great deal of the blame, and their terrible customer service certainly doesn't help matters, but they also have a rather large gun pointed at their heads on the matter. Copyright law is such a gigantic freakin' mess, that they basically had to do something unless they wanted to be mired in legal fights for years to come.
    
    US copyright law, as it stands now, is pretty much entirely weighted on the side of copyright owners(or those who claim to be ones), with essentially no real rights on the side of the public, and both sides know it(absolutely no punishment for even the most obviously bogus DMCA claims, Fair Use theoretically exists, but anyone can sue, and the odds of getting your money back after that happens are all but non-existent, making Fair Use a very expensive 'right' to exercise, and so on).
    
    Now, Google could have fought back(and in the long term they probably would have been better off doing so), arguing for stronger protections for those posting on their services, in this case YT, and doing just as much as the law demanded, and no more('You want something taken down? File a DMCA claim, otherwise, tough'), but this would have lead to years upon years of lawsuits, because maximalists are never satisfied with what they have, and will always demand more. Rather than deal with that, they folded, and decided to throw the maximalists a bone, ContentID, in hopes that it would appease them, if only for a bit(and make no mistake, it won't, not for long).
    
    So while Google certainly is partially to blame, an equally large chunk of that blame can be laid at the feet of the insane laws they were faced with, and decided would be too much trouble to fight back against.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - art guerrilla (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 6:37pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      he said 'google' and 'customer support' in the same sentence...
      prima facie evidence of incipient insanity...
      
      do not try and bend the google. that's impossible. instead only try to realize the truth. there is no google. then you will see it is not the google that bends, it is yourself...
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - avideogameplayer, 7 Apr 2015 @ 8:26pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        No one wants to admit that Google has them...
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Ruben, 8 Apr 2015 @ 9:04am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Google has great customer support. Most peoples' problem stems from the fact that they don't realize they're not customers. They're google's product.
      
      Advertisers are google's customers.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:01pm

How can Nintendo claim the copyright of a video made by someone else? That would seem more like a potential licensing violation of Nintendo's hardware and/or software used to create the video. Licensing violations do not fall under DMCA.
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- Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 4:28pm
  
  Re:
  No, but the assets used in the game do fall under copyright. Using those assets in a video is a legal gray area, should be fair use, but Nintendo doesn't want to admit it and few can/will fight it. Hell, Google doesn't want to deal with it. Easier just to bow than to fight.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:08pm

Is it bad that I despise both the parties in this story? Does anybody else get that "no one left to root for" vibe more and more the longer they live?
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- John Fenderson (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 3:17pm
  
  Re:
  Personally, whether or not I like the parties involved in disputes doesn't enter into it. The thing that matters is the issue involved, not personalities. I don't feel the need to "root for" anybody, so I don't get bothered by this sort of thing.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 8:57pm
    
    Re: Re:
    You've never had need of a "hero"? Not even once?
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    - John Fenderson (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 8:32am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      It depends on what you mean by "hero". There are people who I admire greatly. I would call them my "heroes". However, that doesn't mean that I think they're always right. If I don't agree with them, then I won't defend their position just because I admire them.
      
      The flip side of that coin is that there are people that I find incredibly objectionable who have taken up positions that I agree with. I will defend their position when I agree with it, even though I dislike them.
      
      I don't have to like or dislike someone in order to agree or disagree with them.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 5:13pm

Perhaps if everyone who did Nintendo lets play's took them down, it would solve the problem.

Nintendo might end up noticing the drop in their sales and in the mad dash of corporate drones they might finally look down from the tower and notice the peasants aren't buying their games because no one knows if they are any good. Nintendo will wonder why and then maybe notice they slit their own wrists by launching attacks on reviewers who promoted their games at no cost to them. That the ZOMG IP Protection charge has protected their IP so well no one is seeing it anymore.

It is these tone deaf charges from above without any consideration or allowances for what is actually good for the business.

The powers granted by YouTube to corporations are well in excess of what the law requires, and merely serve as deterrents to 1000's of meritless lawsuits trying to make corporations wishes law. They are the big kid on the block, but so rarely is there a story where they stand up for those who are in the right rather than default to corporations are always right without even looking at it.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2015 @ 5:37pm

Can someone please explain why this isn't a type of fair use? Unless Youtube bans fair use... (I don't think they do)
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- Watchit (profile), 7 Apr 2015 @ 6:57pm
  
  Re:
  Another AC already asked. Check the answers he got.
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Peter, 8 Apr 2015 @ 12:25am

Greedy ?
And using Nintendo's content to make thousands of dollars by streaming it on youtube with some idiotic commentary is not greedy ?

Sorry mate, they are not "anti-youtuber" - you are using, streaming and making money of copyright protected content. Nintento is right to take you down.
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- PaulT (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 1:17am
  
  Re: Greedy ?
  Nintendo are also therefore right to lose any additional exposure, sales revenue and existing customers as a result of their actions.
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  - That One Guy (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 2:15am
    
    Re: Re: Greedy ?
    The funny thing is a while back I had actually been considering turning to them as my gaming platform of choice. Due to Sony and Microsoft's actions, I'd decided to avoid them in the future, so no PS4 or XBone, leaving me looking into maybe having Nintendo's systems make up for the slack. Boy am I glad I never followed through on that though, the more I learn about the company, the more it becomes clear they are just as bad as the other two in how they treat their customers, and are actually worse in some areas.
    
    Oh well, more money for books and music I suppose.
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- That One Guy (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 2:10am
  
  Or idiotic, pick one
  'Thousands of dollars'? Yeah, I rather doubt the profits he'd make from a video covering one of their products would even be enough to cover the money he spent buying the system.
  
  He's already spend hundreds(I think he estimated close to $900 for just the Wii-U related stuff) on them, and then they have the gall to charge him for providing free advertising? Something companies spend piles of money creating and trying to get to as many people as possible, and something he was doing for free.
  
  They're either greedy, incredibly stupid, or both, take your pick.
  
  And hey, while we're at it, in some of his previous videos he's talked about how work intensive it is for him to create his reviews, and it is not an easy or short process. And yet, at the end of all that work, here comes Nintendo to claim all of the revenue from it, as though simply showing their product is enough to earn them all the money from his work.
  
  You want to get angry that he was making money from 'Nintendo's content', well where's your anger at them taking all the money from his work, his content, hmm?
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  - Kode (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 7:24am
    
    Re: Or idiotic, pick one
    You would be surprised, with 2 million subscribers he's probably not doing bad, people have been able to make a full time living and support on a family with that amount of subscribers
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- anony, 8 Apr 2015 @ 3:50am
  
  Re: Greedy ?
  When i purchase a musical instrument i can sell the content i create with it, this is exactly the same thing, no difference at all, everyone one has the right to do with their purchases as they wish unless it is a big business who are covered by copyright laws and patent laws. An individual has more rights under first sale laws than any other institution.
  
  The law is very clear on purchasing rights and that once you purchase something you have the right to do as you will with it, that means reselling and giving it away to someone or lending it to them or even hacking it, the law is very clear on this and ensures that big business cannot take advantage of these laws.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2015 @ 2:25am

To be fair, a lot of console games are just interactive movies. Ofcourse they dont like it if you can watch it on youtube for free.
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David, 8 Apr 2015 @ 2:58am

Just another day on Corporate Planet Earth
How is a company chewing off the arm that feeds them news? Isn't that the point of the directorate? "A shotgun in the hand is worth two birds and their bush"?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2015 @ 5:21am

how much of a movie could I show on youtube with commentary? let's say we should the whole thing, but I talk over parts of it. is that fair use?

what percentage of the movie do I have to make commentary on?

does my commentary even have to be about the movie? could I, instead, talk about the weather?

the idea that you can show these extending video game clips and it somehow be different is odd. this isn't even machinanima, which at least has a significant creative portion involved.
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- BigKeithO, 8 Apr 2015 @ 1:56pm
  
  Re:
  Video games are not movies. No one purchases a video game, interactive media, to watch someone else play it. The comparison is not valid.
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Sheogorath (profile), 8 Apr 2015 @ 6:06pm

Angry Joe only just realised? Nintendo became a no-go consumption zone to me the day they released the Wii.
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Somerandomguy, 9 Apr 2015 @ 8:03am

Pure, endless greed
Nintendo is on a downhill slide. This sorta tactics and impossible to find Amiibos, that some how eBay scalpers get large crates of. Then sell them for big bucks. Underpowered hardware, Crazy game gimmicks that don't work for the better. All this leaves a terrible taste, and ultimately runs fans off.
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