Mojang Tempted to Claim YouTube Revenue on Minecraft Videos Pages 1 2 3 NEXT | |
Mojang Tempted to Claim YouTube Revenue on Minecraft Videos  Notch was very close to alienating Minecraft's Let's Play audience. YouTube can be a complex place. Nintendo recently earned the ire of the Let's Play community by invoking its copyright power, claiming ownership of Let's Play videos en masse. The big dispute is whether the "owner" of the video is the company that made the game or the person providing commentary. It seems this question is reaching beyond Nintendo, however: Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson announced that he had met with YouTube to discuss taking similar action with Minecraft videos. He and the rest of Mojang decided against it - to the relief of Minecraft Let's Play hosts everywhere - but he came close to taking the deal.
It's not hard to understand why. Minecraft is an incredibly popular topic for Let's Play videos, and the combined revenue would add up to quite the pretty penny. In the end, Mojang decided that it would be better to not interfere with the community; the videos draw plenty of attention as it is, and those views can be considered free advertising for the game. To take the ad money away from popular YouTube personalities could push them away from Minecraft, like many are already doing with Nintendo games. Mojang isn't the only one viewing these videos are free advertising. Notch mentioned that Machinima.com, a host of Let's Plays on YouTube, demanded a cut of Mojang's profits in return for the "advertising" provided by the videos. Expressing his thoughts on Reddit, Notch admitted that Machinima's hosted videos do bring in Minecraft sales, but he also pointed out that Machinima was making money from Mojang's work. "It's the perfect example of a win-win situation," he wrote, "and them asking for money from us was just offensive ... They have amazing engineers and passionate directors, but their business practices are insane." For the time being, it seems the Minecraft community is safe to do whatever it wants with the game and upload the results to YouTube, though it remains to be seen if Machinima will take action against Persson's rebuttal. Hopefully this doesn't mean we're going to see a chain of publishers taking ad revenue from creative fans, because that's one surefire way to kill a valuable source of user-made entertainment. | |
Notch is a dick, should we all be so surprised? Quite frankly, now that I've got Minecraft Mojang could just disappear...Screw the updates as well, all they've done is broken the game, the bloodly engine. | |
I think the important thing here is that even though they were given the option - and probably needed the money much more than Nintendo does - they opted not to take it. | |
Just....wow. Machinma better have some deep pockets to lawyer up if they decide to pursue this beauty later. | |
Good for Notch and Mojang for doing right by gamers and the Minecraft co- ... Machinima, wtf are you doing? | |
So it's dickish of him to be somewhat tempted by more money but turn it down because it's better for everyone that way? Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Sorry, but anyone saying they wouldn't be even a little tempted by the prospect of getting more money is a liar. | |
I don't see Machinima doing anything about Mojang telling them no, there's enough Mojang copyrighted material on Machinima acounts that they could be buried under DMCA claims overnight if they tried to press the issue, but Machinima are like that, trying to strong arm every penny out of everyone at any given opportunity. | |
Nintendo does it because they have enough money not to care. Mojang however, is pretty dependant on this one game, this is all they currently have that brings in steady revenue, so I don't blame them for considering this, however I am infinitely pleased that they didn't. Mostly because it would cut half of my entertainment. I wouldn't hate them more than Nintendo at any rate. I might even defend such a choice, if it was a deal of some sort and not just hijacking all ad revenue.
Sure he is, but why is he a dick for not taking this offer? | |
God, I hope Notch will get his wish. I'm absolutely tired of the endless stream of vomit that is Mincraft videos, clogging up youtube. | |
How about a little less of the DRAMATIC MISLEADING ARTICLE TITLE Escapist? Seems to be happening a bit too much lately, needing more page hits for any particular reason? *stares* How about 'Mojang WAS tempted' - this is really annoying me for some reason that a lot of stories lately are complete u-turns on what the title actually states :< a) Machinima is full of idiots anyway b) If Machinima took Mojang to court, it's pretty obvious who would win c) I wonder if we're going to start seeing a lot of these cases soon: like Nintendo a few days ago. | |
Stop searching for Minecraft videos on youtube and you'll probably find yourself a lot less annoyed about it. Seriously, I rarely see them aside from one or two linked on websites/forums maybe once every other month. If you're seeing so many that they actively annoy you then you're either spending too much time in the wrong communities or actively searching them out for some reason. | |
I think that he didn't RTFA. I applaud Mojang for passing. | |
The greatest harm the copyright industry has ever done with their poularization of the term "Intellectual Property", is how they ended up manipulating even many otherwise well-adjusted, generous, and balanced artists into believing that whatever authority the current legislation happens to grant them as "their right", is self-evidently their moral right to "their property" and giving it up shouldn't even be a question. It's a natural thing, most of them are too busy actually creating works to stop thinking about doctrinal theories behind copyright law. The special ones are those who actually bother to question it, and realize that they aren't actually being "harmed" by letting other people produce new things based on theirs. There are the occasional novelists and musicians publshing under Creative Commons, or software devs choosing open source, but those are exceptions, for realizing that the purpose of the "IP" monopoly was supposed to be to guarantee a certain profitability, not to authorise absolute control over ever possible aspect of the result of their work. | |
Uh... did you read the article? Granted, the headline is worded poorly, but the body of the post makes it clear that it's meant to communicate "Mojang thought about it in the past but decided it was a stupid idea," not "Mojang is thinking about it in the present." OT: I wouldn't have bought Minecraft if not for LPs. Particularly from "professionals" like Rooster Teeth and Cupquake, folks who rely on being able to monetize the videos they make. I never really got the appeal until I started watching the LPs, and I'd imagine there are tons of other people in the same boat. I doubt Minecraft would have been anywhere near as successful without its healthy, enthusiastic community. | |
No, it's not even trolling, it's just not reading the article and taking the title at face value about Notch contemplating to block Minecraft video revenues right now. | |
This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. That said, sooner or later the greed and/or egomania of some Youtuber or other will spur them to actually push hard for this from some developer. After all, e.g. if you read the comments section on some vids (not advisable if you value your sanity) Frictional owes the success of Amnesia: The Dark Descent entirely to Pewdiepew or whatever his name is. Which is ridiculous, of course... but having no case has never stopped lawyers before, has it? | |
So 3 key pieces of info there: | |
I don't often say things like this, but what fucking tools. I sincerely doubt a game such as Minecraft needed Machinima to help them out. I think Notch should have done what Nintendo did, just for Machinima. Sure, it'd be childish, but they'd deserve it, and it'd teach them to take their heads out of their arses.
Not related to Youtube, but I recently read that Valve owe the success of Team Fortress 2 to the people who play 6 vs 6 tournaments, and that now those have died down, the game is starting to die off as well. Apparently the people who play 24 player matches on 2Fort and such are playing it wrong. The internet is fully of some very stupid people. | |
Hehe, no. Even going to Youtube with the intent of laying down the law is not a nice move, him denying the offer was a way of saving his arse. A potential backstabber is still a backstabber. | |
If I were to search, let alone watch those videos, I wouldn't have no problem with them popping up. The thing is, they appear everywhere. Even on a clean private browsing session, I see at least two simultanous mincraft casts appearing on the front page. | |
So what if it was just for public relations reasons? Our backs remains unstabbed. I think that's the point you're missing. He could have taken then greedy Nintendo route, but he didn't. I could probably steal everything that isn't nailed down in my office building, but I don't. Thinking about something, even thinking really hard, isn't the same thing as doing that thing. | |
Again, so? Watch something else. Go to a different website if it bothers you so much. Going offline is pretty much a guarantee to avoid Minecraft LP's | |
No, I think you're missing the point. He is willing to exploit so long as he keeps his PR, that's sleazy. If someone nearly/tried to kill you, you don't greet them with flowers but with mistrust...Unless you're like some worshipper. | |
I also wouldn't call someone an attempted killer for thinking about it & deciding not to He realized it would displease the fan community, which is where his money comes from, so he decided against it. That's not sleazy, that's smart business | |
I can see this issue being even more sticky for Mojang with Minecraft than with Nintendo. You can argue that Nintendo claims ownership of their games and their stories so someone just playing through the game has a fairly weak argument against that claim. However, people showing minecraft videos aren't showing single player campaigns but their own creations. Minecraft in this situation being more of a platform for creativity than a copyrighted object. I would see this as Lego claiming ownership of peoples' models or Microsoft claiming ownership of novels written in Word. | |
So it took that long to bring death into the debate about Youtube adverts... What're you going to do next time they update Minecraft? Compare him to a rapist? | |
Eh I don't think they would lose any money by taking ad revenue from LPers. It's a loss of free advertisement sure, but there are so many Minecraft videos and Minecraft's been around for so long I doubt it would make a significant impact. TBH if I was Notch I would have taken the deal out of pragmatism, but clearly Notch likes doing things out of the goodness of his heart. | |
Turns out he's not such a bad Persson after all. | |
I don't think you understand. Youtube approached THEM. Of course they're going to be tempted by more money. | |
I'm willing to bet that fans of Minecraft posting videos on YouTube contributed to about 95% of Mojang's success. I think it'd be interesting to see stats on that. | |
Good job notch! Honestly when minecraft first started the beta I never paid much attention. To my embarassment | |
Thank goodness Notch isn't a dick. Yeah, ok, he came close to taking it. But he chose not to. Good for you, Notch, and thank you. And I SINCERELY HOPE that this does not carry over to all other companies. That might very well kill a lot of lets plays. And screw over a friend of mine who literally relies on the youtube money his lets plays get him as his main revenue (he's got a metric [email protected]#$ton of physical issues that prevent him from doing pretty much anything else as his job) | |
Here's the part of this I was interested in:
Like him or not, I have to admire him saying that bolded part openly. If only more sensible people would take note of it and correct it in the future. Who am I kidding? Greed rules the roost... | |
That's because Indie developers are gamers and dependent on their fans. Get into the big leagues and you've got people in charge who have never touched a video game in their lives and wouldn't be caught dead talking to their community unless it was a publicity stunt. As a result you get out of touch, over paid, walking bags of pig excrement sitting around dreaming up new ways to %&^& people over for more money. I honestly don't understand all the corporation worship that goes on in this country. We've seen time and time again that corporations hate you. You are nothing more than a inconvenient barrier between them and your wallet. It baffles me how many people stand up and defend them. | |
| Pages 1 2 3 NEXT | |
