Let's Play Legal Issues

[Omeo]

Hey, everyone.

Are there any legal hoops you have to jump through to become a Let's Player or can you just dive right in and start recording and posting videos? I've tried looking for info about the legal side of this genre, but I haven't found anything. What all do you have to do to become a Let's Player? I've never seen a guide that said anything other than "Just get the right equipment and start recording", which leads me to suspect that maybe it really is that easy and maybe there AREN'T any legal hoops to jump through. Am I wrong? Can I just dive right in and not get into any legal trouble or is there a bunch a stuff I gotta do first? Don't you have to get permission from the game developers or anything like that? I've heard Nintendo are real jerks about letting people post videos of their games. What about the music they play in the background of some games or the song you hear on the radio when you drive a car in a game? That doesn't get you a copyright strike?

Thanks guys.

 

[TubeNoobsTV]

Hey man most video game producers are generally okay with it, you can easily find out for yourself by going to developers websites and checking, they usually have a section on this topic for each of there games. Yeah Nintendo are very awkward with it all, i believe they take all money made from ads in your video and essentially profit from your hard work, a lot of big lets players boycott there games for that reason. You're right music is another subject all together, to be safe we always turn any in game music or radios like fallout/gta off before we begin, saves any hassle down the line check out our vids if you like - David

 

[Mishamy]

To my knowledge, you can basically record any game that you want as long as it isn´t from Nintendo and I think Bungie. Not sure, though.

 

[GamingHappens]

To my knowledge, you can basically record any game that you want as long as it isn´t from Nintendo and I think Bungie. Not sure, though.

BAD BAD! read up on your information

Hey, everyone.

Are there any legal hoops you have to jump through to become a Let's Player or can you just dive right in and start recording and posting videos? I've tried looking for info about the legal side of this genre, but I haven't found anything. What all do you have to do to become a Let's Player? I've never seen a guide that said anything other than "Just get the right equipment and start recording", which leads me to suspect that maybe it really is that easy and maybe there AREN'T any legal hoops to jump through. Am I wrong? Can I just dive right in and not get into any legal trouble or is there a bunch a stuff I gotta do first? Don't you have to get permission from the game developers or anything like that? I've heard Nintendo are real jerks about letting people post videos of their games. What about the music they play in the background of some games or the song you hear on the radio when you drive a car in a game? That doesn't get you a copyright strike?

Thanks guys.

So basically this is how it goes. Yes you will want to get equipment that provides you will adequate sound and video but the biggest this is that no you cannot just pick a game and record it at will. This will run you into legal issues such as 3rd party claims (not so serious) and channel strikes (very serious). And so you understand this I will break both of them down.
3rd party claims- you will get these generally from youtubes automatic detection system that picks up audio and sometimes visuals from pre-scanned companies and this is no big deal if you get one all it's telling you is that the video's revenue will be sent to the company instead of you and it will give you the option to agree that this claim is correct and it will remove monetization from that video OR you can fight it in such cases as (a false claim / or you have rights to record the game) and youtube will allow you 15 days to depute this claim or you automatically default on the claim and the monetization on the video will be removed *note company's have up to a month to review your complaint and either deny or accept. If the company denies the claim then you're kind of S.O.L due to youtubes system that basically allows you to move forward to legal matters with the company but in the long run it usually gets people strikes on their channels.

Channel strikes- This is a serious issue but it can be overruled, if you get one of these youtube provides a link so you can try to over turn their decision to give you this strike but I haven't heard too many cases that have won by doing this. The way you get one of these is if a channel or a company DMCA's the video which is also called "video takedown" which allows a company or channel to provide proof that you look or used their property without their permisison and they request it to be taken down and if it's successful then your video will be taken down and it will follow with a channel strike (I have had to do this proccess and it is very easy) and youtube is very strict with this because it's a 3 strikes and your out PERMANENTLY and when i mean permanently I literally mean that you can no longer make an account to youtube to record videos to your channel or you run the risk of that channel being shut down too because you're going against their TOS (I've seen this happen) now although this is serious it can be reversed by waiting 7 months (if this is still the same) and after that time is done then the claim will disappear and you will go from 1 out of 3 strikes to 0 out of 3 strikes used.

Now this is how you protect yourself
you need to make sure you get permission from companies before you record and monetize any of your videos. Some companies have it posted under their TOS,questions, about tab and it will state something like this.
Quote taken from doublefines website page
"Can I publish videos of your games on the internet? Yes! You may even monetize them if you wish! Have fun with your walkthroughs and your Let's Plays and your blogs and vlogs and clogs. That's "cyber-logs", it's gonna be the next big thing"

so as you can tell they clearly state you can "monetize" and "record" your videos.
some companies however don't provide this information so you need to contact them, you usually need to contact their sales team or QA links to get someone that has the permission to shoot you an email and you NEED TO MAKE SURE YOU MENTION THESE TWO THINGS IN YOUR MESSAGE. you're "channel name" the fact you plan to "record gameplay of their game" AND "monetize it" because I don't have to deal with youtubes random checks but I use to have to provide them with pictures of evidence either from their website or email that shows I was allowed to record and monetize their stuff and trust me having your channel name in their makes your life a whole hell of a lot easier.

So now that's out of the way you need to also watch out for companies such as "nintendo and konami" these are the two biggest examples of companies that have made it clear that they are just out for money and will not think twice of striking or claiming your videos for the revenue so it's possible to send them an email but I highly doubt you are going to be able to record their videos "atleast when you start maybe at like 1m or something" so try to stay away from them at all costs. But there also companies that I have personally tried to reach out too such as 2k games for their bioshock series and they have told me that they cannot provide me the rights to record their games so consider the fact that not all companies will be willing to allow you to monetize their stuff but this is actually a great example of a double edged company. And by that I mean that they don't allow you to MONETIZE your video's but they will allow you to RECORD the games and post them to sites that don't charge users to watch the video. So make sure you keep up on your permissions and you should be ok, I've been doing this for almost 3 years with almost 13k subs and I've stayed strike free on my content so hopefully I explained everything for you and you now understand what the risks are.

 

[Tarmack]

List of devs and links to their permission status.
http://letsplaylist.wikia.com/wiki/"Let's_Play"-friendly_developers_Wiki

 

[V3XL0R]

Hey, everyone.

Are there any legal hoops you have to jump through to become a Let's Player or can you just dive right in and start recording and posting videos? I've tried looking for info about the legal side of this genre, but I haven't found anything. What all do you have to do to become a Let's Player? I've never seen a guide that said anything other than "Just get the right equipment and start recording", which leads me to suspect that maybe it really is that easy and maybe there AREN'T any legal hoops to jump through. Am I wrong? Can I just dive right in and not get into any legal trouble or is there a bunch a stuff I gotta do first? Don't you have to get permission from the game developers or anything like that? I've heard Nintendo are real jerks about letting people post videos of their games. What about the music they play in the background of some games or the song you hear on the radio when you drive a car in a game? That doesn't get you a copyright strike?

Thanks guys.

Theoretically, let's plays are covered via fair use, so you could legally do let's plays on YouTube. Everyone else is doing let's plays because of fair use. They give commentary while they're playing it and that's what makes it okay. And with fair use, you don't have to have permission from the developers. As for the music, the music can be a problem, in some (but rare) cases. This is because the music and such from the games gets picked up by content id (but this is not the case for every game sounds/music). When I do my let's plays, I mute any sounds/music coming from the game. This is for a different reason, but it's not the only reason. The simplest answer to your question: yes it is as simple as plugging it up and playing/recording.

 

[Omeo]

List of devs and links to their permission status.

Excellent. Thank you for this list. I'm glad this is a thing.[DOUBLEPOST=1447795196,1447794824][/DOUBLEPOST]Thank you, everyone, for your replies. The consensus seems to be that it's okay to just record, post, and monetize most Lets Play videos, except for GamingHappens who says it's more complicated than that. So be it. I'll use the wonderful list posted by Tarmack and make sure the developers are okay with it before I start recording any videos.

Again, thanks, everyone. This has been very helpful. This should maybe be a sticky somewhere. I'd be surprised if I'm the first person who's wondered about this, but then, as I said, I went looking for this kind of info before posting here and I couldn't find it anywhere else.

Cheers, everyone.[DOUBLEPOST=1447797534][/DOUBLEPOST]Wait, getting back to Nintendo, for a moment, how do they know how much money to take from you if someone's watching your Lets Play on their YouTube Red account? My understanding is that, under YouTube Red, YouTube pays you based on the amount of time people spend watching your videos. How does Nintendo know how much time people spent watching your Nintendo-based Lets Plays? Do they get access to the analytics for those videos?

 

[GamingHappens]

Theoretically, let's plays are covered via fair use, so you could legally do let's plays on YouTube. Everyone else is doing let's plays because of fair use. They give commentary while they're playing it and that's what makes it okay. And with fair use, you don't have to have permission from the developers. As for the music, the music can be a problem, in some (but rare) cases. This is because the music and such from the games gets picked up by content id (but this is not the case for every game sounds/music). When I do my let's plays, I mute any sounds/music coming from the game. This is for a different reason, but it's not the only reason. The simplest answer to your question: yes it is as simple as plugging it up and playing/recording.

this is basically incorrect. People believe this is under fair use but good luck using that option when it comes to 3rd party claims and strikes. And yes you always ask for permission from the developers or you will run into possible issues it's like saying I'm going to take all of your videos off your channel without permission and just slap some commentary over it and because its under fair use you cant do a single thing about it.[DOUBLEPOST=1447839863,1447839746][/DOUBLEPOST]

Wait, getting back to Nintendo, for a moment, how do they know how much money to take from you if someone's watching your Lets Play on their YouTube Red account? My understanding is that, under YouTube Red, YouTube pays you based on the amount of time people spend watching your videos. How does Nintendo know how much time people spent watching your Nintendo-based Lets Plays? Do they get access to the analytics for those videos?

they claim the video and receive the revenue from it, they don't have to figure anything out because it just goes off what youtube would pay you. They can even slap their own ads on the video if they so wished at that point

 

[V3XL0R]

this is basically incorrect. People believe this is under fair use but good luck using that option when it comes to 3rd party claims and strikes. And yes you always ask for permission from the developers or you will run into possible issues it's like saying I'm going to take all of your videos off your channel without permission and just slap some commentary over it and because its under fair use you cant do a single thing about it.

Some companies don't want you to do gameplays of their games and such. I get that and you should respect their wishes. But to tell me that this is basically incorrect is an overstatement. You took it to an extreme with the commentary bit. I've known people who have gotten past those 3rd party claims and strikes and won from them via YouTube. I'm not saying to just say whatever you want as commentary and that makes it fine. It needs to relate to the game and not just blabber on about life and stuff. Commentary and critiquing is all a part of fair use. RayWilliamJohnson won a court case recently over videos that he used in =3 to do the videos that he does all under fair use. And he won the case because it was covered under fair use. You pick and chose stuff that I wasn't implying when it came to asking permission. No, you don't have to always get people's permission. That's what fair use covers. If you can prove it was fair use and have a strong argument (keyword: strong argument), then you'll win every time. And that's how RayWilliamJohnson won his case. In cases like this, you end up winning, unless that commentary and critiquing had nothing to do with the game. Trey Parker and Matt Stone pushes fair use as much as they can as well. You seriously think they get permission for all the stuff they say? No. That's why people's names and such aren't made up on the show/games; the show calls them as it is. So when you make another let's play video of The Stick of Truth, you're playing a game created by people who strongly use the case of fair use.

 

[GamingHappens]

Some companies don't want you to do gameplays of their games and such. I get that and you should respect their wishes. But to tell me that this is basically incorrect is an overstatement. You took it to an extreme with the commentary bit. I've known people who have gotten past those 3rd party claims and strikes and won from them via YouTube. I'm not saying to just say whatever you want as commentary and that makes it fine. It needs to relate to the game and not just blabber on about life and stuff. Commentary and critiquing is all a part of fair use. RayWilliamJohnson won a court case recently over videos that he used in =3 to do the videos that he does all under fair use. And he won the case because it was covered under fair use. You pick and chose stuff that I wasn't implying when it came to asking permission. No, you don't have to always get people's permission. That's what fair use covers. If you can prove it was fair use and have a strong argument (keyword: strong argument), then you'll win every time. And that's how RayWilliamJohnson won his case. In cases like this, you end up winning, unless that commentary and critiquing had nothing to do with the game. Trey Parker and Matt Stone pushes fair use as much as they can as well. You seriously think they get permission for all the stuff they say? No. That's why people's names and such aren't made up on the show/games; the show calls them as it is. So when you make another let's play video of The Stick of Truth, you're playing a game created by people who strongly use the case of fair use.

you kind of rambled on at the end of your statement but basically.

But to tell me that this is basically incorrect is an overstatement. You took it to an extreme with the commentary bit

I'm not saying to just say whatever you want as commentary and that makes it fine. It needs to relate to the game and not just blabber on about life and stuff. Commentary and critiquing is all a part of fair use.

I never stated you could say anything and get away with it but honestly when you think about it, it wouldn't be an over statement but since you want to bring up a huge "overstated" case then let me ask you this do you plan on taking on a multi million dollar company due to copyright issues? and do you think you're going to dish out all the money in legal and court fees? or would you just go through youtube? because fine I will give you the fact that certain things can be used under fair use for educational purposes but gameplay is generally NOT used in fair use since you're using different examples.

You pick and chose stuff that I wasn't implying when it came to asking permission. No, you don't have to always get people's permission. That's what fair use covers. If you can prove it was fair use and have a strong argument (keyword: strong argument), then you'll win every time.

not sure how I "pick and chose" things that you didn't imply, because fair use is generally NOT covered with gameplay there are only a few exceptions to this and if it was widely excepted then we wouldn't be seeing so many issues with 3rd party claims and strikes from huge company's because they would know its "under fair use" and it would be pointless to waste their time.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone pushes fair use as much as they can as well. You seriously think they get permission for all the stuff they say? No. That's why people's names and such aren't made up on the show/games; the show calls them as it is. So when you make another let's play video of The Stick of Truth, you're playing a game created by people who strongly use the case of fair use.

Basically I looked up these two people because I've never heard of them and from I can tell their voice actors and have been on tv shows, but the point is you're kind of going off point with fair use and "freedom of speech" you haven't shown me even one case yet that deals with gameplay related wins just the ray one that uses viral videos for educational purposes and freedom of speech. I mean unless you can explain that then I really have no idea how to explain anything further to you.