Today felt like a typical day. I opened up my laptop, powered it up, and went straight to Youtube to see what dropped into my sub box over the day. While scrolling down through it, I noticed this. After following the link in the video description and looking on reddit, ultimately discovering this thread on r/gaming, I can't help but be concerned.
While I do understand that Nintendo has the right to take monetization that Youtubers gain from the former entity's content (i.e. Let's Plays, which can fall under Fair Use, of Nintendo games and so on), I almost wonder why they didn't do it sooner and why they suddenly want to do it now of all times, at the potential peak (or one of them) of Let's Playing and generally all-around high activity related to video-gaming content on Youtube.
As fallacious as this might sound, with such a big name company like Nintendo enforcing their copyright claim to drain huge amounts of ad revenue from Let's Players and god knows who else uploads Nintendo-related content, what's stopping other big name companies like Sony, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard (even though Blizzard Entertainment, at the very least, gives limited permissions for users to "profit" off video content related to their games), and so on begin to exert their copyright claim rights (rightfully, but still).
But this might not even end at Youtube. What if this begins to affect streaming sites like Twitch? What if Riot Games caves and suddenly starts taking down all League of Legends content not related to them (or pro streamers)?
I am really hoping public outcry will cause Nintendo to rethink taking such a huge step. I would love to see someone like Totalbiscuit give their take on this situation. While Nintendo does potentially deserve some royalty, taking 100% of the income of Youtube videos on their content will ultimately give them nothing as people realize there's little reason to upload, even if additional commentary (and so on) at least entitle them to some of the income.
(God forbid this was all some sort of Youtube error...)
Update: Totalbiscuit has given his take on the situation in the latest Content Patch.
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