True. I guess it depends on the individual cases.

That was my take too.

In many cases they do -- melodies and beats can be covered by copyright in many circumstances, yet if those melodies and beats are used as part of a parody, it's generally ok.

The whole concept of fair use is using copyrighted content without permission, and parodies fall in that category by legal inclusion.

Hah, the last time I even gave a damn about a Microsoft-published game was, let's see... The Movies, and that was a looong time ago (Lionhead, I do miss your old potential...) So no biggie here.

A parody is a parody, the same way a review is a review. That's why Nostalgia Critic videos weren't (and still aren't, though they aren't made any more) illegal even though they do contain quite a lot of original copyrighted material and he profits from them.


But on the other hand, I would argue that he doesn't profit from them nor do the YouTube partners profit from their videos. They profit from advertisemants added to their videos.

Ok, but that sounds pretty discretionary. It seems to me that if I owned some copyrighted video game assets and someone wanted to do a live-action parody of that content and use the actual theme song I might be ok with that. However, if they use my game engine and all of my copyrighted assets to make that parody and then sell it then they are profiting off of quite a bit of very expensive work that I own without my permission. I'd be a lot less cool with that.

I still feel like this is a non-issue.

I'd say that Nostalgia Critic probably squeaks by because they're not a very big target.

So, if I make a mask that looks like you and then sell videos of me sleeping with your wife pretending to be you I'm technically not profiting off of your likeness...?

I'm thinking more in terms of using, say, a multiplayer aspect of a game to parody a part of a story so then you can use similar characters. This is no different than some of Weird Al's videos like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI, where he purposefully picked background people that matched the ones from Jackson's videos.

To note: I have no qualms about Let's Play being forbidden from generating profits, it's just the potential loss in parodies that I care about. I've seen some good ones in the past and have enjoyed quite a few.

This will have quite the effect. There are many people who are "famous" or at least "known" who do simple things such as play Call of Duty and either spout political opinions, talk about random things or post cool stuff. What keeps these guys going is the fact they make ad revenue so quality and consistent content can be released. This is a shame and I'd like to see how much substance this will have in the court of law.

If this is indeed true, it is a sign that the end times are upon us. We must escape Microsoft's eyrie and land in the clutches of safety of PC Gaming! On a Windows PC no less!

Awaaaaaaaaay!

And you're free to say that. I say what he's doing is fair use.


Nice try with the reductio ad absurdum or whatever the hell that argument was supposed to be, but I will do my best to treat it seriously, even though I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and leave a better one in the toilet.

If advertisemants are embedded in your videos and you make profit solely based off of those advertisemants (i.e. how many people see or click the advertisemants), then no, you're not making money off of my likeness, you're making money off of the advertisemants.

I would still beat the [censored] out of you for sleeping with my hypothetical wife, though.

This isn't very nice at all.

Fair use went the way of the dodo years ago, sadly. At least in the U.S. That said...I'd say a review of the original content is different than an derivative work using the original content.

Yikes. No, it's a serious argument. It's called an anology.

Ok, if I steal wood from you and use it to make billboards and sell the ad space I'm technically not profiting from the stolen wood? Better?

How about if I use your copyrighted artwork on that billboard ad without your permission? I mean, I'll draw mustaches on all of the people in the pictures to make sure it's parody, of course. You could do that same thing with films. I could re-edit a copyrighted film without permission (for the sake of parody) and sell admission. I'm technically only profiting from the ticket sales, though, not the content, so that's ok?

Well, that should be the US residents' problem then, no?


A failed anology. You've stolen my wood and I don't have the wood you've stolen from me. That's stealing.

When someone uses a video recorded in a video game I made and places advertisemants in that video, that's not stealing - I still have the video game and the money you paid for purchasing the game (presuming I sell it), so I lose nothing whatsoever.

Yep....and MS is an American company, so...

Only if we're being pedantic. The stealing vs. copyright infringement aspect of the anology isn't the operative part. I added a second one for you anyway, though.

If I put money into creating content and then someone uses my copyrighted content for profit without my permission it's pretty close to stealing.

Oh well, M$ will just lose out on the free advertisemant and publicity youtubers give.

But I don't live in the US. US laws don't apply here. If they want to stop me from making an LP using their products they will pretty much have to make the products available only within the US.


I disagree - I think it's crucial.


That's very debatable. "Pretty close to stealing". What does that even mean? It's either stealing or it isn't. If it isn't, it isn't.

So the generally gist is Microsoft do not want people to profit from Microsoft related content via a stream.I was never one to get off on watching someone play a video game when I could be playing a game myself, anyway isn't making money off someone else's work generally stealing?

Well, they can't stop you either way. It's just a matter of whether or not they can prosecute you.

We'll have to agree to disagree. The point of the anology is that saying you're not profiting off of something because the profit in question is conceptually separated from the wrongdoing by one degree is silly. To that end it doesn't matter if said wrongdoing was copyright infringement or physical theft.

It's not debatable at all. That's the whole point of copyright. You can't profit from someone else's work just because the product doesn't happen to be a physical object. If you don't believe in copyright then this debate is a non-starter anyway.

For the record I'm playing devil's advocate here. I think what Big Content has tried to do with the internet is ridiculous and that they will eventually have to give it up or go bankrupt (or both). That said, most of the other large content owners have already made statements/motions regarding this same issue, so I don't see what the point is in singling out Microsoft. They weren't anywhere close to being the first to do something like this.

Not quite. Again, see the whole Kim Dotcom thing.

I know. But that only depends on how much the country I'm currently living in wants to svck up USA's ass.

Whew... well... at least we can find consolation in the fact that Microsoft games are terrible.

Yeah, I don't really disagree with Microsoft here.

gamesas been the same, you're not allowed to create mods with the Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim editor to sell them. Nor are you allowed to create fan-fiction to sell it.

Ba$tard$.

Am I the only one that keeps roflmfao at this thread title?