Let’s Play videos, and gaming videos more generally, are awesome. I started playing Minecraft thanks to Seananners’ very early videos about his love of what was then a quirky indie half-finished game just beginning to gather fans; I’ve played many games (and laughed a lot) thanks to the Let’s Play videos of my friends (and clients) at Yogscast; I enjoy video reviews of games from people like my friend Matt Lees at Videogamer.com; several clients of mine got their big break thanks to Let’s Play videos popularising their games. But to many people the legal status of gaming videos is unclear and getting pretty controversial, too.
Some early gaming videos were taken down; Nintendo said they wouldn’t permit them at all (though they may have changed their mind later); and most recently and infamously, some licensing companies used the YouTube system to issue many IP infringement notices to gaming videos (more on that later). To try to clarify what’s actually happening here, I thought I’d write this legal guide. Continue reading A legal guide to Let’s Play and gaming videos
