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[Stworca]

I cant think of any company that has tried to stop Let's Play...

Rockstar.

[MrWiggles]

I cant think of any company that has tried to stop Let's Play...

Rockstar.

Is that why I can watch Bully and San Andreas LPs? 

http://www.youtube.com/show/gtasanandreasletsplay?s=3

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA8737DEF045EA30D&feature=plcp

[fenrif]

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.

I see your point, but I still think gameplay is the defining characteristic of a game. Especially when you get into games like Dwarf Fortress where every playthrough is different and the player has a lot of input on what happens. Also I think that the quantity of the work you use doesn't necissarily matter in the UK? Not to sure on that but I'm sure I read it somewhere.

Out of curiosity, what does the law in the USA say regarding streaming only the audio from a film?

[MrWiggles]

This is the harder aspect of Fair Use. It can be pretty subjective. Can you give better context for your question?

[ductape]

wait, how exactly can i make money by having videos on YouTube?

[MrWiggles]

wait, how exactly can i make money by having videos on YouTube?

First or Second: Make a Youtube Account

First or Second: Make a series of videos that get 100k hits in a few months.

Third: Request a Youtube Partnership.

Forth: Get approved or Denied.

Fifth: Collect Monthly statements from ad revenue generated.

[Fanofgaming]

wait, how exactly can i make money by having videos on YouTube?

First or Second: Make a Youtube Account

First or Second: Make a series of videos that get 100k hits in a few months.

Third: Request a Youtube Partnership.

Forth: Get approved or Denied.

Fifth: Collect Monthly statements from ad revenue generated.

You're also allowed to submit specific videos for monetization if you have a half-decent number of subscribers. I got the ability to do so at around 300, I think. Didn't submit any other than the one, though.

[Sowelu]

Games that are so linear to almost be a movie are just terrible games. At least that's how I see it.

The Secret of Monkey Island and Loom would like to disagree with you.

There's one meaningful path through the game (though you can faff around with talking to other people, other dialogue options, clicking on funny things).  If you know how to follow it, you can do it quickly, and spoil literally all challenge and plot.

For MANY players, there's no reason to play a graphical adventure game after you've watched a full LP of it.  If you own the third game of a series but you want to see what happened in the first two, you could buy and play them...or you could watch an LP and get basically the full experience for free (and for less effort of clicking things).  Hell I'm guilty of that.

[fenrif]

Speaking as someone who is playing through DoTT for the umpteenth time, no adventure games aren't very good games. They can be well written interesting narratives with compelling characters and hillarious jokes, but they're pretty terrible games for the most part. Any game that you can experience compeletely without actually playing it is a bad game. And while yes, that one genre is the exception, nearly all other genres of games have SOME level of player agency... Which means that someone watching a LP isn't experiencing the main draw of that particular game.

This is the harder aspect of Fair Use. It can be pretty subjective. Can you give better context for your question?

I mean if I uploaded to youtube the complete audio track from say the Matrix... With or without MST3K style commentary.

[MrWiggles]

Then yea, you'd be violating their copy write on The Matrix.

Fair Use, is about using portions (generally smaller the better), with transformative elements.  Plainly just hosting an unaltered, entirety of the work, for nothing other then hosting the entirety of it, is bad form.

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/  This is a great resource for Copy Right, Fair Use and Public Domain. And its in plain language. 

[fenrif]

What about with an MST3K rifftrack over the top of the audio? Also if the audio is considered the entirity of the work dispite being only a fraction of the finished product, then surely that could be applied to everything in the film?

(Did you study law, or am I just badgering you with questions you have to go look up? If so feel free to just tell me to find it out for myself )

[Sowelu]

The keys here are "no transformative elements" and "more than (a handful of seconds OR a large part of the work, for short works)".

If it's short, and transformative (you MST3K some parts of a 15-second snippet), you're good.
If it's long and transformative (you MST3K the whole movie), go license it first.
If it's short and non-transformative, go license it first.

It's not like licensing those movies was expensive for the MST3K people.

[fenrif]

Ah fair doos. It's all academic for me anyway as I'm not from the US

Also I don't think MST3K actually licensed any movies, they were all just ones the TV station had lying around so to speak. Kind of a unique case I guess. Sad to think that it's not possible to do that without large sums of money for licenses and such, considering that MST3K actually makes those movies watchable and popular, but oh well.

[MrWiggles]

What about with an MST3K rifftrack over the top of the audio? Also if the audio is considered the entirity of the work dispite being only a fraction of the finished product, then surely that could be applied to everything in the film?

(Did you study law, or am I just badgering you with questions you have to go look up? If so feel free to just tell me to find it out for myself )

Well, assuming Your Own satire, and parody of the Works, overlaid the Audio.

Then we go into a few areas.

If The Works audio track is heard in its entirety under your Work.

Then since you're using the Work in its entirety, it's not Fair Use.  Though the Parody does add transformative elements, and your none commercial intentions for posting it on youtube, aren't probably enough to make a claim it's fair use.

Now, MTS3K, for their show, they had to buy rights for the movie, so they could do their Riff Trax dubbing on top of the audio. Which is why MST3K used old, bad movies. It was cheap.

Now, if you look at their modern reincarnation, RiffTrax. Their audio  parody is no way attached to the Works. You have to buy them separately, then play them separately (though concurrently). And the Synch Checks for the Rifftrax is about four lines. Those Four Lines are not Key Moments in the Film. And its audio for this check is done without using the audio from the Movie.

[MorleyDev]

Enjoying reading the discussion on fair use laws etc. This is exactly why I think we need a list like this, so people know the "safe" options that aren't in a mirky or grey area.

As for MST3K, they either bought the rights or used videos in the public domain (a few old movies are). You could legally repackage and sell a rifftrax of the original Night of the Living Dead complete with video, for example, because that is in the public domain. But for The Matrix they have to sell their riffing separate and leave you to sync them up.

wait, how exactly can i make money by having videos on YouTube?

If you have a video with a few thousand hits, or so many videos, or something (not sure how exactly they are determining it) you can get invited to join a monetization program. Basically you get to monetize your videos, but don't have enjoy full benefits of a partnership.

My games channel (TheMotleyBrit) is valid for monetization, so I have an interest in this list. Some of the Third Age ones have ads, but they aren't from the monetization program. It's just the music trips the youtube auto-detect at times.

I consider it a professional, or at least "amateur" courtesy, to not try and profit from someone elses work without an explicit legal right, but I'm too small a fish to get the permissions from those who don't already explicitly grant it. So I have my own reason for putting together this list, but no reason to keep it to myself