>>If you’re dependent on YouTube for making money from video content, that’s disastrous, as even a single strike against your YouTube account can limit the account’s functionality within the site and impact anything from the length of videos you’re able to upload to your ability to monetise those videos with advertising.
Always be very careful when your business depends on the free(AFAIK, uploading to youtube is free) services & regulations of some other company. I can't help but think of the stories on Facebook-platform/API dependency. That said, I still think it's bad how Google isn't a bit more careful when considering that, intentional or not, they now hold several people's livelihood in their hands. Semi-arbitrarily dropping sites' page-rank, marking sites as phishing attempts or messing with youtube-accounts' abilities to continue their business by some automation-script is kinda harsh. It's kinda like a guilty-until-proven-innocent thing where you just wake up one day and find your youtube-channel crippled. You're losing money while trying to contact Google and get everything straightened out. The fact that Google isn't exactly known for amazing customer service adds to the problem. I certainly don't expect Google to manually check all that content, but how about instead of immediate penalty... they send an email with a warning that action will be taken in 20 business days if alleged-offending content isn't removed. At least give the uploaders a chance to fix the issue or plan for an "outage" of sorts. Perhaps even for websites & youtube channels that are well known high-traffic & monetizing, Google makes sure to white-list them so they can never be auto-penalized without a human confirming. Instead, it just triggers an alert to all parties involved so people can look at it.
Except that The DMCA requires immediate removal upon complaint. Granted, the automated youtube-internal identification isn't exactly subject to that, but it was created in response to a lawsuit from the media companies about how hard it was for them to find and report infringing content.
At least the DMCA requires the submitter swear under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate. The current YouTube system has no penalty for false claims.
i say for monetized accounts, there needs to be more accountability from google's end to prevent loss of monetization. A rogue DMCA takedown is detrimental to a youtuber's livelihood. If you haven't, check out these following opinion pieces :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgoDDh4kE0
I highly respect content producers on youtube - they deserve as much protection from rogue elements who intend to exploit them as possible. Unfortunately, there isn't any competition for youtube, and so the problem will only get worse.
Because in this particular case, the producers (game developers) are actually pretty much OK with people using their "content" in Youtube videos, and indeed, probably benefit from it.
Unfortunately the Youtube system is structured mainly to handle the opposite case, where the producers are insane jealous spawns of evil who will scream shrilly at the top of their lungs at even the merest hint of faint resemblance (if you look with your eyes blurred while drunk) between a video and their "content."
So basically Youtube's automatic system is being over-eager in tagging a bunch of stuff as potential copyright violations, when it's probably OK to not do so for much of it....
As somebody else said, there's likely a technical solution to this by improving the ability to whitelist content from consenting producers.
In this video, they go in-depth about the different youtube issues going on at the moment, both the recent content-ID massacre, and the new status for network/partners that's coming.
Worth spending time on if you are at all interested in these issues. (Description has shortcuts to the different parts discussed as well, but I recommend watching the entire thing.)
Some people on YouTube play entire video games start to finish without even adding any kind of commentary. On the other end of things, you have things like some of the stuff mentioned in the article, or that TotalBiscuit/Garry's Incident blowup in which a company was clearly just trying to squelch negative reviews. The latter is clearly fair use, while the former is at best a very grey area.
While there are some games where videos are clearly not a substitute for playing the game (puzzle games, multiplayer games), there are others where they might be (low-difficulty games with a lot of FMV cutscenes)
Publishers who own the IP to titles can claim copyright to the gameplays. Since it is basically free promotion for their games, it's against their best interest. Hence, you see them offering their blessing and support to YouTubers.
The problem is that a lot of videos are being taken down because of copyright claims on press materials and game footage from trailers, not gameplays. This material is classified under fair use.
They're also attempting to claim copyright on game reviews. Which in short, puts reviewers in a bad position where someone is trying to monetize their opinion and are easily silenced if that opinion is unpopular.
For reviewers its grossly unfair for publishers to make money off their reviews, because while they will reference their game, the opinions expressed are entirely the reviewer's, and writing a critique is certainly nothing at all like showing a dry gameplay video with no commentary or editing.
It's not only grossly unfair to reviewers, but that copyright's fair use clauses specifically allows for fair use in critiques! These copyright claims are bogus.
Isn't this the same as with product placement in TV shows?
Sometimes you see the characters using a Mac complete with logo visible and sometimes the logo gets covered.
The reasons for this may also come from both ends. Either Apple can say "We did not authorize the use of our trademark" or they could just enjoy the free exposure on TV. On the other hand, the TV shows producers could say "What we would do with displaying the logo in that way would be advertising, therefore Apple would have to pay us to show their logo. Otherwise we just cover it up"
And this sort of crap is why I've just decided to make my most major video release in 5 years Vimeo-centric, not YouTube. *
I'm about to release a significant Machinima movie - significant in that it's doing a bunch of things that haven't been done before. (I'm the guy who came up with the term "Machinima" originally.) I've been strongly considering putting it on YT, but the extreme lack of customer support and the automated, often error-prone takedown systems mean that it really doesn't seem like a great platform for anything important.
This could actually become a serious problem for YouTube. They've got some real competitors in the video space, notably Vimeo but also Blip and others. If working with YouTube starts to become overly risky or onerous for creators, the others could start to catch up fast.
* Also, to be fair, I'm going for Vimeo because they support 2.35:1 aspect ratio video. But that's not the most major reason.
Not until Twitch manages to fix their downlink connection problems. I haven't been able to watch a single HD cast without major lags and stuttering in months even though I'm on a very fast connection (granted, not by a major provider so no direct peering).
Twitch has promised to build new data centers here in Europe but I have only noticed it becoming worse. I'm not the only one too, I'm part of the Team Fortress 2 competitive community and get to talk to a lot of other Twitch viewers. Also, don't get me started on VODs on Twitch, they're even worse.
Have they fixed the issue where the same ad will repeatedly play back-to-back over the free version? It's been a while since I've tried to watch a Twitch stream because of that.
Since the Twitch player feels like it was written by monkeys in the 90s (while YT is finishing to roll-out its neat HTML5 player), I believe this is clearly not for the best.
Although, maybe the Twitch guys will compensate their awful technological lateness by showing some humanity (which Google seems less and less able to do).
Is Twitch monetized as well as YouTube for content creators? This isn't just about some place to post a video, it's about a place to post a video where you have 500k subscribes, get 500k views for every video, and make a decent living off your content.
I don't think that will last. It shouldn't take too long for rights holders to figure out that there are videos and live streams on Twitch that contain music and cut scenes, as well. Might be that Twitch is not receiving as much take-down notices, just yet. Imho that's not going to last. Since there is already people on their making money with their "property".
What stands out most about this issue is the open-mindedness of the Video Games Industry. The fact that they've stood up for someone's ability to not only record their gameplay, but on top of that, make money from it just shows how understanding they are (unlike neighboring industries that take down amateur remixes from Soundcloud and YouTube).
They're one of the few industries that generally:
● Don't Sue Pirates
● Don't claim copyright infringement on uploaded video game soundtracks to YouTube or gh.ffshrine.org (except Square Enix because their Final Fantasy OST still sells big)
● Don't send DMCA notices to people who remix their content (make mods)
● Allow unofficial communities to sprout up using their IP's name in the domain name url
I'd say they're going above and beyond to support fair use & infringement in order to please customers, grow communities, and grow their fan base through crowdsourced content infringement. Genius I'd say.
When we were revising our Terms of Use recently we wanted to make sure there was a provision about monetising gameplay video being allowed. This is because previously we were getting a fair amount of email users who required us to give written permission so that Twitch would allow it.
We actually got a fair amount of push back from our lawyer who advised us against it.
We did include it it though I feel he added a lot of extra weaseling to the clause that probably wasn't needed.
I've seen companies come in and present at Google IO about how awesome it was for them and players both when they added upload of game moments to YouTube. It was a huge word of mouth advertising win for them that users were sharing and promoting videos of playing their game. If anything this is a case of Google hurting games, probably due to some lawyer of theirs forcing them to.
Don't claim copyright infringement on uploaded video game soundtracks to YouTube (except Square Enix because their Final Fantasy OST still sells big)
Because most video game music is crap, really. Of course, there are exceptions, but nothing that would really sell anyway if they were marketing it.
Don't send DMCA notices to people who remix their content (make mods)
Huh... you haven't heard about Nintendo I guess? They just closed the site of someone who made a Mario clone (a 20+ years old game) in the browser, and they also sued Great Giana Sisters in the 80s because it was too similar to Mario.
Allow unofficial communities to sprout up using their IP's name in the domain name url
I can't remember which site right now, but I clearly remember Sony or other big players making it difficult to use some of their brands as domain names.
It's clearly not as nice an industry as you seem to be considering it.
Nintendo is and has always been an outlier when it comes to clamping down on "their" IP. This is the company that tried to sue Blockbuster for renting games (the fallout from this suit is why rental games didn't come with the official manual). They also tried to sue Game Genie out of existence. If you were bothered by the Super Mario JavaScript thing or Nintendo leading the charge on this YouTube drama, it's nothing new.
1) Are you really going to make a hot-air blanket statement like "Most video game music is crap"? You do realize that even mid-budget games like Resident Evil 5 & Remember Me (both with really good soundtracks) record using Hollywood sized orchestras.
2) A "CLONE" of a game is different. Especially when you clone an iconic game that Nintendo still sells.
It's clearly not as evil an industry as you seem to be considering it.
1) it's not because you record with an orchestra that it's not crap, sorry. Music is not just about how much money you throw at it, if there's no art in it, it's just crap. And when I say "there's exceptions" I dont know how you can say i make a blanket statement.
2) Sorry, but a 20+ year old game should be in the public domain, period. Why do we apply copyrights which are longer than what we apply on drugs? Sorry but I consider that especially Evil, in the same way that Mickey Mouse is still not in public domain even though it's been 75 years+ since its first appearance.
>And when I say "there's exceptions" I dont know how you can say i make a blanket statement.
Honestly, calling most videogame music crap is a bit ignorant imo (even though you mention "exceptions"). A lot of videogames, even minor ones and some indies, have amazing music and OST. This is because sound is one of the most important aspects of game development, even though most people don't really understand that.
It is up there, style-wise, with graphics and gameplay. A good OST can make or break a game and it's surprising how unnoticed this goes until you find a game with actual crap/out of place music, and then you notice.
I often listen to several game soundtracks and I own a few albums just of pure videogame music, there is a huge market from fans (and even non-fans) directly buying music CDs of videogame OSTs. Plus they are often sold with collector's editions and similar.
Let's give a few examples of games with great music (great, not just "good", for most of them are at least good and far from "crap"):
Final Fantasy, Halo, Monkey Island, Zelda, Civilization, Silent Hill (by far my favorite), Castlevania, Portal, The Elders Scrolls, Metal Gear...
I could go on, but you get the point[1]. As a musician I can say for sure that game soundtracks are among the most entertaining and fun to play, there's a lot of people on youtube recording covers and re-arrangements of famous game OSTs.
Really, claiming that "most videogame music is crap" is just being ignorant.
> Really, claiming that "most videogame music is crap" is just being ignorant.
It just means I have probably higher standards than you have when it comes to appreciating music. I've been playing video games for 30 years+, so I wouldn't consider myself ignorant, I just find most video games music very dull and uninspiring.
But yeah, to each their own I guess. I'm just a bit riled up because calling it "crap" is a very offensive and ignorant statement. I've seen much much worse dull and uninspiring "crap" being sold commercially as pop music, and that's a huge industry nowadays.
What's ignorant is your belief that the videos you've linked would change the parent's mind. It's all competent derivative tripe or sub-competent derivative tripe.
It's not offensive to call crap music crap. You should stop trying to be offended at things and try growing up and accepting that the universe is full of people with opinions you don't like.
Ninety percent of all music is crap. In that good 10 percent there is some videogame music.
I also think that, although there are some exceptions, most videogame music is environmental or helping to establish a mood. This makes it very contextual to the "game level" where it plays.
> This makes it very contextual to the "game level" where it plays.
Totally agree, that's why VG music cannot be considered real music, most of the time. It would not make sense to listen to it outside of the game context.
#1 I just want to say that I own a good number of video games OST and that there are some rare gems, but frankly in my music collection the video game's part is a small, small minority. I think people here reacted strongly to my statement because when you think about good video game music, sure you can come with great examples (I love the OST for Castlevania Symphony of the Night, for example), but in the thousands of games I have played since my childhood, I can't seriously say, with a straight face, that there's more art in there than anywhere else. A good number of video games have been (and remain) sub-par in terms of production quality, and just like you don't have that many good stories/scripts in video games, you don't have many good musics either in the industry as a whole. Sure, you can have a catchy tune here and there, but is that really good just because it sticks in your head? I'll let you ponder.
Zelda and Mario series, pretty much every Square game, Halo, Star Wars games (though that's cheating), Minecraft, Castlevania games, Skyrim, Journey, Bastion, and many others.
Video games have about as much chance of having awesome sound tracks as other media such as cinematic films.
You do realize that the games you quoted represent 0.0001% of all games being marketed ? (regardless of popularity). I could just say you are being biased.
Besides, if you are an extremely talented musician, it's not in videogames that you'll get widespread recognition nor the best salaries either. Can you name any of the musicians who worked on the games you mentioned, by memory ? Good try.
So of course, people who are talented tend to move to other industries.
Do movies have awful music in general, just because there are lots of shitty movies and movies with a music budget of at least $1000 represent .0001% of all movies?
> Can you name any of the musicians who worked on the games you mentioned, by memory ? Good try.
That's a bit unfair. Movies tend to put the composer's name in big letters right before the movie starts, while in games the name usually comes "buried" in the credits only.
Also I personally find that the best soundtracks come from Japanese games, and I'm not very good at dealing with Japanese games.
And do you seriously expect me to list a significant fraction of all games to satisfy your needs? That's ridiculous.
Here's my claim: a significant fraction of the most popular games have excellent sound tracks. I provided evidence to back up my claims, you have provided none to back up yours.
"Open-mindedness"? Please. It's free publicity for them, that's why they are doing what they're doing. Nothing wrong with that, but let's not pretend they're sticking up for these guys out of the goodness of their hearts. This is the industry that tries to screw consumers every chance they get with crappy DRM and them trying to kill off the used game market.
Why is it that video games are not filmable? I cannot imagine Grand Illusions' (https://www.youtube.com/user/henders007) videos being flagged for not owning the copyright for the toys he does "let's plays" of.
Actually, it is fair use. It's a derivative work. This is no different than taking a car and doing a video showing everything about it along with a running commentary.
Anyways, what's happening is these guys are getting nailed for using unlicensed music as part of their videos. That's a copyright infringement unless it has been paid for YouTube distribution.
Always be very careful when your business depends on the free(AFAIK, uploading to youtube is free) services & regulations of some other company. I can't help but think of the stories on Facebook-platform/API dependency. That said, I still think it's bad how Google isn't a bit more careful when considering that, intentional or not, they now hold several people's livelihood in their hands. Semi-arbitrarily dropping sites' page-rank, marking sites as phishing attempts or messing with youtube-accounts' abilities to continue their business by some automation-script is kinda harsh. It's kinda like a guilty-until-proven-innocent thing where you just wake up one day and find your youtube-channel crippled. You're losing money while trying to contact Google and get everything straightened out. The fact that Google isn't exactly known for amazing customer service adds to the problem. I certainly don't expect Google to manually check all that content, but how about instead of immediate penalty... they send an email with a warning that action will be taken in 20 business days if alleged-offending content isn't removed. At least give the uploaders a chance to fix the issue or plan for an "outage" of sorts. Perhaps even for websites & youtube channels that are well known high-traffic & monetizing, Google makes sure to white-list them so they can never be auto-penalized without a human confirming. Instead, it just triggers an alert to all parties involved so people can look at it.