Nintendo is hoping to wrap up its lawsuit against gamer Jesse Keighin, aka EveryGameGuru, after he failed to answer the complaint. The game giant seeks $17,500 in damages for copyright infringement, including streaming pre-release games and sharing links to emulators. In addition, Nintendo requests a broad global injunction to prevent future infringements, even for games that do not yet exist.
Do they, though? They create the world, but the player is the one controlling the action.
If I publicly read a book, I replay the contents verbatim. Basically an exact copy. But playing a game IMHO is more like fan-fiction. I’m making my own story and thus there should be no way to get any legal case against showing/publishing this to others.
That being said, if you monetise your videos and make money from them, it becomes a whole different story.
Yes, the streamer adds to the experience (i.e. how he plays, commentary, …), but a narrator put their own spin on a story. Intonation, the timing of pauses, etc. all requires skill and changes the end result.
Good point about fan fictions. I think fan fics are more like mods in the way that they expand on the world/media without distributing the original media itself.
But yeah I also think it’s dumb that playing a video game could be considered copyright infringement. The same goes for small clips from movies, which are the exact opposite of detrimental to the popularity of a movie.