Mario Karts away YouTube Uploaders’ Revenues

Mario Karts away YouTube Uploaders’ Revenues

Although they may not be loved at the moment by the gaming community, Nintendo has made matters worse. Today, news came that Nintendo would be enforcing copyright on “Let’s Plays” and even walkthroughs of their games that appear on YouTube. They have started claiming ad revenue from YouTubers who have videos featuring any of their games, according to reports from YouTube users. However, Nintendo have no intention of blocking or removing videos containing their content, suggesting this is about the ad revenue rather than the exploitation of  Nintendo games. From now on the ad revenue received from YouTube videos featuring Nintendo content will no longer go to the creator behind the video, but to Nintendo instead.

Yeah guys, we can’t believe it either.

Nintendo issued a statement earlier today to GameFront saying:

“As part of our on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media channels in an appropriate and safe way, we became a YouTube partner and as such in February 2013 we registered our copyright content in the YouTube database. For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips. We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property.”

Sadly, although many YouTube partners and uploaders have started complaining already, Nintendo has rights to protect its copyright as it’s both legal and in YouTube’s copyright guidelines. This guideline states that although you have purchased a product, you don’t have the right to upload any content from it. With many YouTubers making a living off of these Let’s Plays and other Nintendo content, this may become a disaster for them soon.

It’s all about the money these days…

As more and more YouTubers begin to lose money due to this copyright, I feel Nintendo games will be seen less and less on YouTube in the days to come, especially from big names on YouTube that have a channel based around Nintendo franchises such as Pokémon or Super Mario. While Nintendo may feel the copyright will monetize videos for them on YouTube, it will only hurt them in the long run. As less Nintendo games will be noticed on YouTube, there will be less gameplay and hype around certain games and possibly systems that Nintendo intend to produce in the future. Some have bought Nintendo games after seeing videos on YouTube, and after creating this hurdle for uploaders, this copyright may come back around to haunt Nintendo.