Can I advertise my gaming videos?

Burning Typhoon

Burning Typhoon

Member
I know monetizing gaming videos is a no-no, unless your have a gaming partnership, but wasn't sure if paid promotions fell in the same boat. So, I was curious if it would be okay for me to promote my videos via the youtube ad campaign feature.
 
Partnerships don't really do much for you in terms of "allowing" you to post certain types of videos, many people go without partnerships and monetize gaming content because they know what they're doing.

In addition to the fact that most developers don't care about monetized gaming content because it supports their game, most gaming content falls under fair use as they're usually commentary, news reporting, criticism, parody, etc. If anything goes awry, you'll have to put on your legal pants and deal with it yourself, haha. In fact, I often times have to do it myself as my partnership won't do jack-diddle. Usually you'll get it sorted out in some way or another, but before anything it's always nice to just do your research and find their EULA, or contact the developers directly to avoid conflict in the first place. In terms of paid promotions, I'm sure it'll fall under the same boat. Assuming your content is more about you than the game, then it can usually be argued as fair use once again. If you're ever unsure, just shoot them an email, better safe than sorry!
 
MeLikeBigBoom said:
Partnerships don't really do much for you in terms of "allowing" you to post certain types of videos, many people go without partnerships and monetize gaming content because they know what they're doing.

In addition to the fact that most developers don't care about monetized gaming content because it supports their game, most gaming content falls under fair use as they're usually commentary, news reporting, criticism, parody, etc. If anything goes awry, you'll have to put on your legal pants and deal with it yourself, haha. In fact, I often times have to do it myself as my partnership won't do jack-diddle. Usually you'll get it sorted out in some way or another, but before anything it's always nice to just do your research and find their EULA, or contact the developers directly to avoid conflict in the first place. In terms of paid promotions, I'm sure it'll fall under the same boat. Assuming your content is more about you than the game, then it can usually be argued as fair use once again. If you're ever unsure, just shoot them an email, better safe than sorry!
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I have heard a lot of big YouTubers, namely TotalBiscuit say that the whole fair-use argument is completely wrong. It won't stand up when a developer decides to take down your video for using their game. The only way to avoid this is to just cover games that give you open permission to use their content.

Also, your network is unlikely to get involved because of the size of your channel. There is no point them arguing to save one of your videos against a big developer, but they are likely to go all out on a channel with 100k or 500k+ subscribers because of the amount of money it brings it. It is a bit harsh, but they have to way up the risk and rewards of fighting a company.
 
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CallumVlogs said:
I have heard a lot of big YouTubers, namely TotalBiscuit say that the whole fair-use argument is completely wrong. It won't stand up when a developer decides to take down your video for using their game. The only way to avoid this is to just cover games that give you open permission to use their content.
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No, he's never said that to my knowledge. Nor would he, as it would be extremely brazen for anyone with even a smidge of legal training to make a claim which has yet to actually be tested in court. What he said, was that the YouTube system is designed with only the content owner and DMCA protection in mind, so even those with a proper fair use defense in all of their content, such as Joe Vargas, are penalized first and have to fight in order to keep otherwise entirely legal content online. It remains to be seen whether a Let's Play video of the standard "play the game, talk about the game" format would make it through a fair use defense in court. Personally, I think there is a good chance of it's success, so long as the first court case is against someone with a bit of intelligence.

The "play a game, talk about your life" format has far less likelihood of success.


Now, on the topic of the thread, which has been addressed in at this point, thousands of threads on this forum which are hard not to trip over yet apparently the search function is too hard to find.

You do not need a network for game content. There is no special license for game content that networks provide. There never has been on a grand scale and there never will be. At most, there are singular event based agreements for pre-release or sponsored content.

As a result, you can monetize game content just fine with really only a few notable exceptions. Ideally, you will find that removing cutscenes and in-game music will make your life easier in the long run because those are the things that sometimes get registered into ContentID and will be flagged.

And since you can use this content in your videos, it follows that you can use the content in your ads.
 
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