New Youtube policy forces A LOT of game play related videos to go away

I completely respect a creator's right (and, by extent, its distributors / publishers) to protect their content: that's a fundamental part of copyright laws. If they don't want it on YouTube, they should have the right to request its removal. I've said it before, but the likes of the 100+ part playthroughs of entire single player campaigns are simply ripping the piss (as well as being profoundly uninteresting, IMO). I see no reason why that sort of blatant copyright infringement should make money for the video makers and not the content creators. I'm all for critical commentary (although I wouldn't consider a lot of gaming video commentary particularly critical :pac:), but you can do that without having to use dozens of hours of content someone else - or indeed hundreds of other people - have created. People aren't allowed upload whole films with their own commentary attached - and while that's not directly comparable to games, it just shows that in other mediums no-one would get away with republishing the same amount of content game video makers would under justifications of criticism or fair use.

An interesting person to note here is Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Super Smash Bros. He's decided against creating a story mode or in-game cutscenes for the next installment as he felt all the surprises he'd planned were ruined after they were uploaded to video sites within hours or days of release last time around. Now, Super Smash Bros. Brawl's story mode wasn't exactly the best thing since sliced bread, but I think it's a shame his artistic intentions were compromised, regardless of whether the results were particularly inspiring or not. I can't imagine he's alone in that sort of view, either.

That said, I definitely think some genres and games benefit from a heavy online video presence - fighting games, stuff like Minecraft, highscore based games etc... I'd be surprised if many of those companies were opposed to the capturing community, which helps keep the games relevant and popular. There's also something to be said for reviewers who use a sensible amount of illustrative footage without taking advantage.

There's a compromise to be reached here, and I don't think existing copyright law is cut out for it (further complicated by the interactivity of games). It would also be a shame if the whole situation turned into a copyright cluster**** with everyone attempting to grab a piece of the pie, as seems to be the case in some examples from the last few days. I do think developers and publishers are entitled to some control over how much content is used, and certainly are entitled to financial earnings when their work is helping create a sizable revenue stream. Stuff like the upload and streaming features on the new consoles is a good example of a partial compromise, allowing the developers to have some control over what's uploadable, and handily restricting the amount of content that can be used in one go.

Just for the record, I find a vast majority of Lets Plays incredibly dull and pointless, and wouldn't be particularly concerned if they disappeared tomorrow. But I recognise there's an ever-growing audience for them, illustrated by the fact many game publishers feel the revenue is significant enough to actually do something about it.