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[MorleyDev]

Yes, they are out there! Now a lot of free games do by virtue of being released under permissive licenses, but "professionally released games" have this tendency to have EULA's that forbid commercial usages like youtube monetization.

But not all of them. So, I think it'd be a good idea to somewhere maintain a list of companies/games which explicitly permit this practice. These are games which you can record and upload yourself playing and even monetize without fear of being taken down or suffering claims of copyright infringement.

I'm putting together such a list. So here is the list as it grows (I'll also host it on my website once I've done some more work on it):

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Google Spreadsheets:

• Companies that allow Monetization for all game they own the rights to
• Individual games that allow Monetization

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If you find or know of any more companies, post here please (or PM me or something) because like I said, list goes on website, be available for whole world

[MrWiggles]

I cant think of any company that has tried to stop Let's Play. So, I'd say, most of them.

[MorleyDev]

I cant think of any company that has tried to stop Let's Play. So, I'd say, most of them.

True. But I'm talking about monetization, which means Youtube is more skitty. They'll sometimes not permit monetization or even take the video down, it's happened before and will again, and you risk losing your monetization privileges. You need to be able to demonstrate written permissions, which is what this list provides.

So these are companies and games for the copyright aware who want to avoid risking stepping on anybodies toes but still maybe get some money out of the LP =)

 Big time content providers like the Yogscast, Totalbiscuit and Jesse Cox have partnered with The Gamestation who do the negotiating and claiming of permissions to allow them to monetize content. Small fish who aren't with such people, not so lucky. Hence this list, to give people some awareness of who likes the little fish.

[MrWiggles]

Then not only should the list provide who has known Policies, but it should also include a list of companies that have given permission when asked. Encourage folks to send a letter of intent or inquiry. And folks like Blip TV or Twitch, are more friendly with Lets Play to my knowledge.

[burningpet]

You can add "towns" / SMP to that list. we didn't even thought about needing to say its ok until people asked. we quite naturally thought that if they earn money by showing our game, its a win-win situation for both of us.

[MorleyDev]

You can add "towns" / SMP to that list. we didn't even thought about needing to say its ok until people asked. we quite naturally thought that if they earn money by showing our game, its a win-win situation for both of us.

Oh yes, I remember reading that when looking at it actually. Added, and must I say that Towns looks to be an amazing game and I will be purchasing it myself as soon as I get my PC back from repairs

[MorleyDev]

Added Mount & Blade to the list, as Taleworlds recently posted saying it was cool. Not sure if that includes Warband and Napoleonic Wars or not...

[Sergius]

A pity that Fair Use is but an urban legend these days.

Also boggles the mind the mentality of some companies. "Advertising my game without any cost to me? How dare you make money from that!"

Still, pretty cool that some companies at least make an effort to clear up the rights that anybody already has.

[chaoticag]

Well, I'd like to point out that Fair Use is a very vague term. Basically, if you remove the reason for someone to experience a story, then fair use doesn't count, even if all you did was use one sentence. There is an actual legal precedent to that.

Though they cannot get the rights to your playing the game, as that would be copyrighted under you as a performance, but is still a derivative work. (So speed runs might be kosher).

[Sowelu]

This isn't anything like fair use.  It's /similar/ to ripping a movie and putting it up on the web.  It's more similar to performing a cover of a song.

Of course it's not exactly the same thing because people play games instead of just watching them...or do they?  I've had plenty of friends/girfriends who honestly enjoy just watching a singleplayer game instead of playing it, and there's plenty of games that are really good for that.

Even posting a free LP isn't "fair use" by any definition, but anyone with a little common sense would be fine with it.  Making a profit off of someone else's work is...definitely entering sketchy territory.  Totally fine for some people, not so fine for others, and it also depends on the game: some games are very very linear and only a little bit interactive, to the point where they blur the line between movie and game, and profiting by posting a movie someone else made is definitely bad.  So this is a good thread.

[Fanofgaming]

About a year ago, I submitted a Shogun 2: Total War video for monetization after YouTube sent me an automatic suggestion that I do so. It got accepted and I've never had any problems with it (and it even has a couple thousand views, too!)

...

Best $2.35 I ever earned.

[MrWiggles]

A pity that Fair Use is but an urban legend these days.

Also boggles the mind the mentality of some companies. "Advertising my game without any cost to me? How dare you make money from that!"

Still, pretty cool that some companies at least make an effort to clear up the rights that anybody already has.

What's companies have stopped Lets Play?
And if Fair Use was a legend, then how can folks thatguywiththeglasses.com or Angry Video Game Nerd exist?

[Farmerbob]

Wurm Online can almost certainly be added to this list.  It's one of very few games that allows players to buy and sell ingame things between players for real life money.  Provided that you give Rolf credit for the game, and don't claim it for your own, he'll probably be happy for the extra publicity.

[fenrif]

This isn't anything like fair use.  It's /similar/ to ripping a movie and putting it up on the web.  It's more similar to performing a cover of a song.

Of course it's not exactly the same thing because people play games instead of just watching them...or do they?  I've had plenty of friends/girfriends who honestly enjoy just watching a singleplayer game instead of playing it, and there's plenty of games that are really good for that.

Even posting a free LP isn't "fair use" by any definition, but anyone with a little common sense would be fine with it.  Making a profit off of someone else's work is...definitely entering sketchy territory.  Totally fine for some people, not so fine for others, and it also depends on the game: some games are very very linear and only a little bit interactive, to the point where they blur the line between movie and game, and profiting by posting a movie someone else made is definitely bad.  So this is a good thread.

Watching a game is akin to listening to a movie. Nothing wrong with it, but it's essentially removing the defining aspect of the medium (though that's ignoring that most modern games are designed to ape movies for better or worse). Games that are so linear to almost be a movie are just terrible games. At least that's how I see it.

Also, from the wiki page on fair use:

Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship

I'd say LPs fall into commentary, criticism, and arguably teaching. So definatly fair use. Maybe it's one of those things where the law hasn't caught up with technology yet? But it seems to me if you can post detailed walkthroughs of a game, with screenshots and videos to help guide people from start to finish, and you can write detailed reviews and criticisms of every aspect in the game, actually showing the game itself doesn't seem like going that much further.

And I second MrWiggles on wondering what companies stopped LPs. That'd definatly be interesting to find out.

[MrWiggles]

Commentary and Criticism involve using portion of the Works for either, but LP's don't use a portion of the Works for either, they use a majority of the Works. These clauses are about reviewing the Work, and discussing the work in a publicly available forum. They are not about displaying the entirety, or almost the entirety of the Work in a public forum. 

And the Teaching, is more about academic teaching. Using the Works as examples for Teaching Aids, not teaching you to play game, and this again using a Portion of the Work, not a majority of the work.

For Fair Use, the amount of the Work you use, and how it was used, and what kind of work it is, and the Fair Use impact on said work, few other factors fall into weather your use if Fair Use, and it can only be really decided in Federal Court.

I dont believe LP fall under Fair Use, they to much of the Work, and aren't about parodying it, using it for teaching aids, or reviewing the work.

That being said, I dont see it as a challenge to their Copyright either. And most companies are perfectly fine with LPs. It's probably closer to all companies, but I'm sure there some company out there not cool with it. Quantic Dream, I can totally see not being cool with it, since their games tend to be closer to interactive novels/movies, (or Neo Adventure games), and the LP would be providing a great deal of the games conveyance.