SDM2: There may or may not be touhou involved

[Mischlings]

(Standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice)

This is a myriad of problems, really. Copyright laws for three different countries could get involved (Canada, Japan, and the United States), and in the one that I even get close to understanding (US), this is anything but clear cut. (Also, YouTube being based in the US, it is probably the most relevant)

Basically, there are two legal ways that you can use material that you don't have the copyright to:
1) Explicit permission from the copyright holder
2) Fair Use Doctrine

Problem is, the first is definitely not the case here (raocow doesn't have explicit permission from Nintendo or anyone else who owns anything in this hack), and the second is a real pain in the ass and anything but clear and consistent, being extremely subjective.

There are four factors (not all of which need to be met, but more is better):

1) Purpose of the work
2) Nature of the work
3) Amount and substance
4) Effect upon value

Basically, the first comes down to "Does it do anything new with the work?". The second has to do with whether or not the work has already been published. The third is "How much of the work has been used?", and the final is "Does this affect the value of the original?"

As for raocow's LPs, he does do something other than just show himself playing the game (commentary counts for something), though I don't know if he could use the usual excuse for LPs (educational value), he definitely does something different with them. The second is obvious; yes, the game has been published, which is a strike against fair use. The third is really weird, as SMW is barely present in its original form in his works, so I have no idea what to do with it. As for does it affect the value of the original, I don't really think it would, as he's not really playing Super Mario World, but I think with the recent arrival of the virtual console, it's possible that Nintendo could claim (kind of stupidly) some loss.

Not explicitly in there is the profit motive -- if you're making money off of it, it suddenly becomes a lot more thorny, as its the copyright holder's right to make money off of it, and somebody making money off of it without their permission really starts to piss them off, and the legal monkeys might start to attack -- hence the reason that it's actually an issue right now.

Let's not even get into the fact that not everything in these games is owned by Nintendo...

I think he'll be fine (really, Chuggaaconroy, NintendoCapriSun, and ProtonJon, all of whom are much more popular and also partners, haven't gone down (there may be more LPers who are partners, but those are the ones that I watch)), but it'll be a real pain in the ass before it gets there.

...Wow, that turned out to be a lot longer than I'd expected, and I haven't even gotten into any other country's copyright laws...

[InsaneIntentions1]

I hope collecting those dragon coins has some king of payoff

[McGack]

I think raocow should should be fine as long as those stupid trolls dont show up again
Man the freezing is much more Obnoxious in this level.
I presume more knife based fun time will be in order for the Blue switch?

[Sebby19]

chuchino is a good dude. I have chatted with him for years in the past back on the Helix forums.

[Ziv]

it's possible that Nintendo could claim (kind of stupidly) some loss.

I doubt it. Nintendo had plenty of years to go RIAA style on ROM distributing websites, and instead they released the virtual console. I think they have enough sense to see that cracking down on it would be a waste of time and just get legitimate customers angry.

[Test Pilot Monkey]

Well, that secret exit was kind of a let down.

[Argumentable]

Yeah I was expecting the ground and blocks to be like on/off hurt blocks, but oh well, still kind of a neat idea I guess? I love the whole "same level, different tune" idea, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed as well.

[Mischlings]

it's possible that Nintendo could claim (kind of stupidly) some loss.

I doubt it. Nintendo had plenty of years to go RIAA style on ROM distributing websites, and instead they released the virtual console. I think they have enough sense to see that cracking down on it would be a waste of time and just get legitimate customers angry.

I doubt it as well. If anything, they would go after the ROM sites now since they have the virtual console, as they could make a legitimate claim that it hurts their business (not by a large amount, but the claim would be legitimate), not one person who makes videos of games often only tangentially based on their games.

On the topic of the hack, it was disappointing but also kind of expected that the secret exit was another path entirely.

[Punisher]

it was disappointing but also kind of expected that the secret exit was another path entirely.

What if it's an april fool's joke, and raocow cleverly edited that in? It was really having to jump on the few blocks that were available.

[Pink]

Well huh, today's video was a pleasant surprise! The music in the switch palace, from what I could hear of it, was really nice! After so many songs that really do not sound very good at all, it was nice to hear one that was much more pleasant overall.

This hack is so weird... Definitely one for the "fun to watch, but no interest in playing" pile. XD

[Isocitration]

Yeah I was expecting the ground and blocks to be like on/off hurt blocks, but oh well, still kind of a neat idea I guess?

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. Would've made things a bit more interesting I think. Though I still love the 'everything is just an outline!' graphics even if it's not that original anymore.

Also thought the switch palace indoor rain thing was pretty cool for whatever reason.

[Cup]

It's interesting to note that if you switch the world to red then back to blue, the extended time limit stays and thus negates like 80% of the difficulty of that level. Instead of the 99 you get that 230 or whatever it was. Probably would have prevented some headaches, but it'd prevent a lot of fun too. So it's just a matter of deciding if 'fun' is worth some head pain.

[Daarkbuu]

raocow you stupid jerk, I was able to jaump on plants all day

April fools!

[S.N.N.]

I'm one of the ones who thought the level itself would flip and you'd have to try and jump on the "red-but-now-blue" blocks. So yeah, the secret exit was a bit of a let-down, but still pretty neatly designed. At least it's something original and actually cool for a change.

[Test Pilot Monkey]

Regarding the DK barrels: "It's not a bug, it's a feature" is not a valid excuse :p

Regarding the privatised videos: Seems like YouTube's content recognition is screwed up.

[Yonowaaru]

Wow, that rendition of Luna Dial was actually pretty good. Apparently he got better at porting in the end!

[Somepartsareme]

i liked how he read the message box that said to press b to fire from the barrel and that the barrel might not shoot immediately, then goes on to wonder what button to press and why it isn't firing

[S.N.N.]

I made these sprites which act like trampolines - however, they only spring you about 10% of the time. Here's a message box so you can't complain about the bug while playing.

Also, bleh at the brambles level.

[megamario]

So was the brambles level taken from anything else like Trauma Tower?
Beyond DKC2, I mean.

[Punisher]

Wow, why was Lunar Clock ~ Luna Dial used here and not in the other Sakuya fight? That wasn't bad of a reinterperetation!

[Oracle of Wuffing]

Regarding the privatised videos: Seems like YouTube's content recognition is screwed up.

Well, if there's some BEEP I AM A ROBOT going on, what's setting it off would be the Automatic Closed-Captioning, which haha is more random than raocow haha boy is this joke funny haha, or it's the tags for the videos setting it off (example, this video is tagged with "Mickey Mouse" so that means it probably contains Mickey Mouse, who is copyrighted). So, if that's the case, unprivatizing those videos would be perfectly nice because nobody can copyright tags. Yet.

Or maybe this whole dealie was just an early extended April Fool's gag that overstayed its welcome by a couple of days.

[Money]

My theory is those videos were flagged by people who were all like "lol we gonna flag dis guy's videas they'll be taken down" not knowing that theres a system in place and stuff. You'll probably be safe unprivitizing them.

[Un Gato]

The saddest part of raocow's videos all going private is that it seems to have broken all of the playlists that used them. I'm not sure if they'll be back up properly once everything's public again, and then we won't be able to auto-play through a whole series anymore!

[kilon]

The saddest part of raocow's videos all going private is that it seems to have broken all of the playlists that used them. I'm not sure if they'll be back up properly once everything's public again, and then we won't be able to auto-play through a whole series anymore!

everything.raocow.com?

And I see no problem either. And even if they claim a video has copyright, they just remove that video and you get a warning (or de-partnered? Don't know).
And if things really get serious, which is very unlikely, you can always make a backup channel.

[Yonowaaru]

WATCH OUT GUYS! raocow HAS LEARNED FANCY VIDEO EDITING SHENANIGANS.


Also 1337