YouTube Blocks Game Videos, Industry Offers Help
rockpapershotgun.com
rockpapershotgun.com
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.)
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"
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.
You can also choose to split the revenue with the uploader.
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)
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.
Although, maybe the Twitch guys will compensate their awful technological lateness by showing some humanity (which Google seems less and less able to do).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>Music is not just about how much money you throw at it
That doesn't make much sense.
I meant that because someone else mentioned the usage of orchestra as a sign of good music. It is not.
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.
[1] http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/nine-legitimately-a...
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.
Anyhow to lighten up the mood, here, have some great music that might (hopefully) make you change idea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlNhwnssA8g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88_PGUa69aE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4BP42FzKRI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LB7LZZGpkw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMhcyzQ7mKw (I could go on for hours, better not spam the thread though)
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.
#1 There's as much art to an effective & supportive game theme music as there is to the mind numbing pop "music" that sells millions.
#2 GOD YES. The sheer amount of anti innovation power these companies hold is offensively revolting.
#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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law
> ninety percent of everything is crap.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en5hWeodMws
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.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2e5pheJJvno
It's definitely not fair use to film the gameplay of the entire game, just add commentary, and then make money off it.
That being said, if the publishers give permission, it's fine.
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.