While I would prefer that Nintendo leave the Let's Play folks alone, this seems a pretty decent compromise to me. They're not taking down the Let's Plays, and they're not suing the Let's Play creators. They're simply demanding the ad revenue generated by folks streaming their copywritten content while the LP folks go about their business. That seems pretty fair to me, especially compared to when Sega went after the Shining Force fans a while back.

This is MUCH better than taking down the videos alltogether, but we're altering content as Let's Players. We add commentary, and we present a changed product. Furthermore, I hate the 30 second ads before videos. This only turns off viewers.

I wish i could play games all day and get paid.

And then get to complain i don't get paid enough.

As a former video game QA tester, I resent that remark.  ;)

The move has added more bad press on Nintendo in a time when they should hold on to any sliver of good will they can. Makes me wonder how the discussion went or if this decision was quick, messy middle ground (from Nintendo's point of view).

I don't care much as I don't watch LPs frequently and I block ads on YouTube. Still, I don't like the decision; it adds more to the notion that Nintendo is ignorant of the internet and their fans.

I imagine Sony will be much stricter about footage that isn't captured using their official PS4 streaming function.  If it amounts to "records footage and audio from player(s), immediately posts on YouTube," that could be problematic.  I could see there being a dispute over use of that clip outside the initial posting.  Too, developers can choose to not have part of a game be streamable, and that screws with the structure of an LP.

Compared to that, allowing the whole content to be posted with revenue going to Nintendo instead of the person posting is a fair compromise.  Too, Nintendo at this point only seems to be exercising this practice on YouTube (being that's where they're a partner), so if that's really a problem for someone they could post the video on another site like TwitchTV (at least for now).


Post-Thought:  I suppose Fair Use could protect the featuring of official clips outside of the initial post, particularly if the video is a "transformative work" like a Game Grumps or VGA style show.

I think they said PS4 streaming will be restricted by length.

Which would lead PS4 LPs to be broken into clips of whatever the max length is.  And again, according to Yoshida in an interview w/ a Japanese publication, “There will be parts of a game that the maker does not want people to be able to see...The creator may not want to make video of the final boss sharable, for instance."  To the best of our knowledge Nintendo has no such system in place.

So basically the guys that rely on LP's being their job don't get money from playing the Nintendo games? Bummer.

It kind of seems like on okay comprimise, except not really. Nintendo is gradually getting worse and worse at cultivating good relationships with their fans and understanding modern video game culture, and I think that will ultimately hurt them more than not getting whatever pittance Youtube is paying out.

Keep in mind that these videos are essentially free advertising for Nintendo's games.  Now that Nintendo has taken this action, people will no longer make these videos for Nintendo's first-party games as there is no incentive to do so.  Instead, these video creators will focus their efforts on games from less hostile publishers that appreciate the free publicity.  Nintendo will no longer benefit from this free advertising.

This is a classic case of stepping over a dollar to pick up a penny.  With the dismal state of the Wii U, Nintendo should be encouraging people to spread the word about their games and their hardware, not stifling it.

I've seen several people around the web try and compare this to people that post music videos. However that is comparing apples and elephants.  When someone posts a music video, they have posted the entire entertainment experience.  One could substitute a music video for an iTunes purchase and then experience would be identical and complete.  A 30-minute let's play video of a 20 hour game is but a fraction of the total experience.  Even a full playthrough doesn't provide anything near the total experience that you get from playing the game on your own.  It is but a sampling...an encouragement to go purchase the game yourself if you enjoy the video.

I guess video game reviews should be banned too!

because let's play didn't exist until youtube started paying people for videos.

Of courshe!

Evil Nintedo even banned dancing, did you know?

Thanks Iwata!

Your recent spate of "Thanks Iwata" posts have had me in stitches, sir. Well Done! :D

TJ Spyke approves this action.

Not the best idea right now because it's just bad press. But still, no one should really be mad about this.


Honestly, should some random kid get paid to sit around and go through and entire playthrough of a game, with little to no original content?


There are some people who put in the proper work that they shouldn't be affected by this, reviewers and such. But LPers ultimately use Nintendo's material to make money.

Youtube is so quick to take down things randomly, or incorrectly label them as copyrighted with no recourse, that I've been surprised that LPs have gotten this far.  For Nintendo to dissuade them in any way seems illogical.  When people watch them, including all the retro Nintendo games, the reaction is often to want to play them.  Some people put a ton of effort and time into them, which they can only do if they are getting paid for it.

I hope that Nintendo backs off on this.  In contrast, it is becoming increasingly popular for companies to send early games or demos to Youtubers for publicity.  This won't hurt Youtubers much, whether LPers or those that make other forms of content with extended clips.  They will just move to non-Nintendo games.  This will only hurt Nintendo.

The Nintendo apologists on this site never fail to amaze me. This is the latest in a series of poor moves by Nintendo and the widespread negative publicity is greatly deserved.  I don't know what needs to happen for Nintendo to pull out of this nose dive but I hope it happens soon.

I have no issue with Nintendo doing it - but, really, was poor timing on their part.

With that said, the entire Copyright system on YouTube needs to go.  I had four videos of my wife singing the National Anthem, at home, no background music that was posted and unlisted, as the links were only sent out to a few friends.  Some bull-shit company made claims on them.  THAT is the shit YouTube needs to be looking at.

I think this is a bad idea from a PR perspective but I think it's baffling that people are so worked up about making sure these people have the right to profit off of other people's copyrighted work.

Lets Players however do deserve some cut for their part in the way that work is presented in videos imo.

Most other types of media also seek to profit from the use of their content, so it's not that surprising that video game companies should wish to do the same. Having said that, I feel this is bad decision, because these 'Let's Play' videos bring in more revenue simply by advertising the games than Nintendo is ever likely to get from skimming off the top of said videos.

I wonder if anyone has gotten the idea to separate the audio track to get revenue off that. Too much work?

Bad move on Nintendo's part. This was the very anti-gamer, suits behavior I was hoping Iwata/Nintendo would pull away from. If Nintendo wants to improve their position, they need to put their feet in the gamer's shoe once in a while. This is the idiotic stuff they teach in business school to "Maximize" short term profits at the expense of long term profit in order to pump the stock price up. I was hoping by now Iwata had found his own identity as a CEO, but he for all intents and purposes appear to be playing from the same play book as everyone else, but just a lot more slowly.

I really shouldn't have expected otherwise when they had overpriced the 3DS on launch and region locked it for vague technical reasons. Region locking serves no real purpose other than artificially limiting trade. You can't sell what you aren't selling or afford and a sale is a sale no matter where it is.

LP's would fall under fair use and derivative works. The work has been transformed where the LP has their own copyright on the resulting work. In essence it is now Nintendo profiting off other peoples copyrighted work.

It isn't just the audio, there is the editing of the videos and subtitles. There there is the performance art aspect of the video where a player of great skill is demonstrated. An LP is the complete whole, not just what one can strip off into different tracks.

Here is a link that looks into the legal side of things. It doesn't call it either way, but it offers great insight into possible outcomes and motivators behind Nintendo's actions. It's recommend reading.

What I mean is, the LPer posts two videos; straight gameplay footage that Nintendo will pull revenue from, and a strictly commentary video meant to be played simultaneously. One that Nintendo can't make a claim on.

You would still have a problem with Nintendo profiting off someone elses work. There is no definded line where Nintendo's work becomes the LPer's and vis versa.

It doesn't help that Nintendo is in need for good news.

There's a reason something like RiffTrax makes you buy the commentary separately from the movie, and it's the same reason I can't rent a DVD and charge people to watch it in my living room. Playing through a piece of copyrighted work and making a profit off it isn't fair use.

Nintendo is entirely within their legal rights to do what they're doing, and I find it astonishing that people don't see how Nintendo has a point here. I still think it's a bad move, as it does more harm to their public image and perception than the money they'll get is worth, but legally and ethically I see no problem with what Nintendo's doing here.

Rifftrax is different. There is no transformation. The commentator's work is clearly definable. Games aren't movies that play exactly the same everytime. It's not like a Rifftraxer can jump in to a movie to change the resulting events without destroying the movie and the entire purpose of the Rifftrax.

I just don't think it is as black and white as you make it out to be. I see it as a donut hole in copyright that needs filling. If you have a read through the link you will see where the LPer has their legal footing.

I've never seen a Let's Play that involved what seemed to be significant creative input from the person playing. I could see there being some games where you could make that argument, for instance something competitive where the product is the players' strategies and tactics, or maybe something like speedruns where there's creativity in devising the plan, but for most games, or at least most of Nintendo's games, I can't see the player being enough of a participant in it to be deserving of pay. They are wholly dependent on the work of Nintendo.

Part of the problem is that there is no definition as what "significant" is. If the player isn't deserving of pay, the question then moves to why should Nintendo be deserving of pay? Maybe it's one of those situations which neither are deserving of pay. Also there is a question of how far this extends. Currently it is confine to YouTube, but what happens if your website you are hosting your LP on and you are recieving Ad revenue from that? Is Nintendo deserving in this case? If it wasn't YouTube allowing this, it wouldn't be an issue.

Given the astronomical amount of work needed for a video LP to meet your criteria, I don't think there is a matching video example of this screenshot LP of Animal Crossing.

For certain games you can make that argument. Something like Minecraft is so open ended that each playthrough can be a creatively unique experience.


But what about a game like Portal? Can anyone really make the claim that it's a unique work when player X puts the blue portal before the orange portal, but player Y does the opposite?


There are plenty of games that are so linear that you can hardly consider a slight deviation to be transformative work.

That is a self solving problem. A game like Portal is linear, but if the LPer can't make it interesting enough, it's not going to get enough views to get monetized. Any good LP of a game like Portal is either going to be a speedrun, glitch/tool-assist run or a complete secret + alternate solution + commentary run. Then there are your internet stars that have their own fan bases that do things like drunk runs or non-gamer blind/fail runs that can be quite funny and different. Plus for videogames we don't really know where the line is when something becomes a transformative work.

While previously the problem by in large solved itself by using the number of views as the base metric, the new framework makes no distinction how unique something is. While the previous regime might have been sided somewhat towards LPs, the new one is completely onesided for Nintendo. If you were to look into the "Justness" or "Fairness" of the situation the former is more fair than the latter.

I would give my opinion on this, but some butt-hurt posters (including a certain bully in this thread) would accuse me of being a corporate white knight. I will just say that Nintendo profiting off of their copyrighted videos is vastly better than their legal right to have the videos removed from YouTube (like most companies do).

i think they have a right to do this but at the same time people depend on those videos for their livelyhood,

I don't think there are any people making their sole income from advertising fees on YouTube videos. And even if they were, it's their own fault. Nintendo is within their right to have the videos just taken down because they are copyright violations, but Nintendo isn't doing that (a lot of game publishers and media companies in general are not so generous). If anybody is focusing on posting copyrighted videos on YouTube as their only way to make money, maybe they should try doing something original to make money.

I can't do something like buy DVDs and charge people to watch it, then expect to not get sued by the studios.

Stop being passive agressive and just spit it out.

You have literally just ignored every post made in this thread so far. You have learned nothing.

Big surprise, less than a day after I really return and the bully returns to spout BS and attack me for no reason. I have read the thread and I have not ignored it, you are just bitter because I disagree with you.

TJ, like it has been said before in this thread, what an LPer adds to the game is the "original content". This could mean a different playstyle or just the commentary. If an LPer sucks, they fade into obscurity.


I follow a few very awesome LPers and I'd hate for them to be out of a job because a corporation wants to get rid of free advertising.

Find me anyone who makes a living off of these videos (and for the record, they are still using copyrighted content). Nintendo is not forcing these videos now (like they legally could), they are just making sure others don't profit off of Nintendo's IPs. People can still make these videos and post them.

Ultimately, I agree. But at the same time... No one has any reason to play or buy portal after having watched an LP of it. So regardless of original content or fair use or any of that stuff, it's most likely detrimental to sales in the case of certain games.

If you are watching an LP, you probaly weren't going to/couldn't/wouldn't buy/play it in the first place or have already brought it and watching it for the unique experience the LPer offered. That is certainly why I watch an LP. So if I was never a possible sale in the first place, it was never determinatel to sales.

The point is that with certain games the LP can be seen as an alternative to buying the game, much like watching a movie online for free is an alternative to buying the movie. And if that's the case, they can't really be considered fair use regardless of how much original content they have. So, should LPers be allowed to make money off of those videos, or even put them up in the first place?

Then we come back to the point where the LPer's work isn't like a movie at all and we all go around and around again. It stops being fair use issue and becomes one of transformation/derivative work.

Here is an interesting example. It is "almost" the complete run of the FMV game Critical Path with the few "Interactive" elements that youtube can't emulate stripped out of it. The uploader has basically ported the game to a new format.

We just don't have a line in the sand to say one way or the other. It's neither legal or illegal. It's currently only exists as policy on Youtube.

Just to add to discussion i sometimes watch Let's Plays when i stuck in the game. It's faster than reading up on wikis or playthroughs or something.

I've watched many Let's Plays from this console generation.  Youtube and Twitch are the only ways I get to see the content from these games because I am strictly a handheld gamer these days.  I don't ever play on owning a console or TV ever again.  I know it's my choice to not buy a console, TV, and game to see these games, but I was never a potential buyer in the first place.

I guess my point is that if Nintendo shuts down all Twitch streams featuring Nintendo content, I guess I'll just have to hear about games through podcasts.

Podcast Idea: A retroactive type podcast that features newly released games, fully spoiled, advertised as a spoilercast.  I know The Axe Factor has begun doing something like this ("Postmortem") and a Twtich channel named A-Move TV has begun doing this with less recent titles ("Campaign Round Table"), but they focus on story.

I would be interested in listening to this podcast exclusively for Nintendo games if it were ever made.

my copy of kirby super star ultra says hi
same with mario rpg on the vc(with 1.50 added on for the Wii U upgrade)
links awakening also says hi
donkey kong 94 sends its regards as well

honestly some of the biggest names in this whole lets play deal are nintendo gamers.

Hey guys,
Have you heard? RayWilliamJohnson, reviewer of viral videos, is having his videos tagged by several Youtubers whose videos he has reviewed. This way, instead of him getting paid for his work in reviewing the videos, the Youtubers will get all of the money that he used to be paid for =3. Their argument is, without their videos, he wouldn't have a show.


Oh wait, sorry. That's not happening. Because those Youtubers actually appreciated the added publicity =3 gave them.


To all those defending Nintendo on this, do you NOW see why this is unfair after I gave that example?

Actually, it's not unfair at all. Why should people get paid for someone else's work? Whether you think it's fair or not, those people are committing copyright violations. Instead of having YouTube take those videos down (which is within Nintendo's legal right), they are just rightfully getting the ad revenue from them (not that it's much anyways). The videos can stills stay up. And your example is faulty because you can review something without breaking the law (fair use doesn't apply when you have 20+ minutes of copyrighted content).

Did Nintendo claim Content ID on all videos, or just the ones that the creators had already agreed to have ads put on?

Actually, Nintendo themselves saw nothing wrong with it when they outright complemented "TheRunawayGuys" on their work (free advertising etc.). The backstabbing which we are discussing now came later. Plus, Youtube themselves has no problem with allowing partners to gain ad revenue from gameplay which has commentary, graphics and other things that makes the experience unique as opposed to JUST gameplay.

It's not backstabbing to not want moochers to financially benefit from playing games that are copyrighted by someone else. If anything, you should be praising Nintendo for allowing these copyright violating videos to stay up. There is no justification in thinking these people should profit from them. It's enough that they are allowed to keep the videos up.

And you mention YouTube not having a problem? DUH. YouTube doesn't care about legality of videos and only remove copyright violations when the owner files a complaint. Hell, when YouTube started the owners gleefully told each other that having illegally uploaded videos would help the site grow.

TJ - you keep making a claim, but I'm not sure I agree with it.  Is Nintendo only putting content ID claims on videos where the video maker already had ads on them?  I.e.: If I put up a Let's Play with no ads, will Nintendo still Content ID it?

Based on the original story, it sounds like Nintendo could do it with any video that features their copyrighted content, not just ones with ads already in them (which makes sense because ones without ads are still violating copyright laws).

This is your considered legal opinion, is it? Come to think of it, you have made a lot of claims in this thread about so-and-so violating copyright laws. I think maybe the basis of Nintendo's decision pre-supposes this,  but I submit to you, learned friend, that the issue is open and wholly arguable for either side.

TJ part of the issue is that many Lets Plays have long since passed the line where they can possibly be considered 'Transformative Work'.

Fatty, you really think having 20 minutes+ of copyrighted content is not violating copyright laws? Please explain how it is "fair use".

Games are interactive, but just playing the content already in the game is not transformative work. Adding commentary doesn't change that.

But you keep name calling - like "moochers".  If I made a Let's Play and did not monitize it, how would I be mooching?

omw, who cares. Who even has time to watch a video of a whole videogame besides final fantasy fans

I'm sure by now you have been told (although you insist on ignoring it) that this is transformative work. You take an established product and do work on it and it is then okay to make money from it. LP-ers actually have to do lots of work to be successful. It is NOT an easy thing to do. (Investment, recording, syncing, converting, etc.) Although Nintendo IS within their rights to do this, it is a slap in the face for all the work that they once upon a time complimented. It is like they are saying, "Remember all the days and nights you spent on your custom intros, your commentary, your editing, etc. just to advertise our products for us and help our clientele grow? Well, WE now want ALL of the money for that work."

I don't know how else to explain this to you, TJ. Yes, Nintendo CAN do this but they should NOT do this cause of the repercussions. Yes, having them deleted would be better if anything.

Well, Zap, millions upon millions of Youtube viewers are subscribed to LP-ers. Maybe you don't have the time but clearly many others do.

How would having their "work" deleted be better than having it stay up? In another thread I saw people say "true" artists would perform for free. These people should not get to profit off of someone else's work, period.

It's NOT a slap in the face, if anything Nintendo is showing their appreciation by letting the videos stay up. They rightfully feel people should not be able to profit off of Nintendo's work. What these LP'ers do is not all that hard, and I have seen plenty of more people put in more work on stuff that ISN'T technically illegal, all for free. I am all for these people doing these videos, but don't think they should profit from it since they are doing little more than adding audio commentary to work they don't own.

I can't possibly fathom that the number of man hours Nintendo puts in to its games is any where near what goes in to making a YouTube video.

All right! All right! Fine. Greed wins in this case, clearly. I can only imagine in a few years what companies will be able to get away with thanks to support such as this.


If you do your research, you'll be surprised to hear that reviews are being targetted as well. Yup! They are clearly going by the mentality, "If you get paid by doing ANYTHING related to our products, we do not want that. We want your money." So yeah, TJ, I guess Nintendo believes in your philosophy, "... people should not be able to profit off of someone else's work, PERIOD." This is why I used the RWJ example. It's only a matter of time before they find a loophole where they can attack sites such as this and IGN.

?

my issue isn't that nintendo gets money from these things, my issue is that the lets player does not. i don't watch these videos because they happen to be playing a nintendo game, i watch them because of the commentary, which can completely change the tone of the game being played. in the case of lets plays the commentator is what brings it to a level of transformative work, (I have seen Mario Party turned into a sadistic spectator sport,)

it isn't the game that makes a Lets Play great, its the player,

but i think we are getting a little riled up here perhaps we need to play a nice relaxing game of tetris
http://youtu.be/Pgc_-wM2AsY

By that logic I should be allowed to post an entire movie to YouTube and profit on it through ads as long as I add my own commentary track to it.

that is the difficult thing, games by nature are interactive, it is virtually impossible to play through a game the same way as somebody else. the commentary is only half of the equation, the other half involves how the person plays the game (including dealing with the so called 'lets players' curse)

But this only shows even more a larger issue, that copyright laws have yet to really adapt to the internet....

And give you free legal advice? Screw you, moocher!
Now, if you want to deposit a retainer to my PayPal account, you just let me know.

Dorky Dorky Panic

After some thought I figured I made a mistake going full steam ahead trying to get persons to understand my point of view based on my knowledge of the subject. Now, instead, I have a video for everyone to watch.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CvyRXjh7n4


It is an informative video by a Let's Player (NO he is not biased!) He gives info on the subject and is basically just trying to increase the understanding of what is going on. If you have 19 minutes, give it a watch. If you don't have 19 minutes, watch it later. Just watch all of it. A more informed world is better for all of us.

Xero, I understand you think people should be able to illegally profit off of others work. I disagree. What Nintendo is doing is a nice compromise.

oh for heavens sake Tj give it a rest,
honestly...
a game is an interactive experience
a lets-play is literally a specific player's experience in the recorded playthrough of a game with commentary. you cannot own the rights to a persons experience of a game.

tj tell me something
is it mooching for me to reply to your post?

So... what about those who aren't profiting?  You still haven't answered that.

http://i.imgur.com/k4NUoUM.png

It's not illegal to post videogame footage on Youtube. A game company can claim copyright if they want, sure, but virtually all non-shitty video game companies opt not to since it's better PR and probably better for business overall.

I'm honestly starting to think that TJ just likes to give trouble even when people clearly smarter than him try to provide him with information. I put the video up. It explains everything in fine detail.


A person who bakes and sells cakes is profiting off of the work of the farmer who got the eggs and the person who manufactured the flour. It's not the best example but even a preschooler should be able to understand where I'm coming from.


TJ, watch the video, digest it, understand all sides and just give it a rest.

There's that word again.
Tell me TJ, through what Bar Association are you licenced to practice? Where did you go to law school? Did they have a nice cafeteria? Or maybe you retained counsel and got a legal opinion that way. What firm did the opinion? Can you post the executive summary for us?

Xero, stop trolling. You think you are making me mad by acting like anyone smarter than me has replied?

UB, I thought I answered you but maybe I didn't. For those not profiting from it, I do still think it should be done.

pokepal, you are wrong. The game is still the same, them just playing it doesn't change. There is a reason artists have to get legal permission to sample a song, even though it's just a tiny portion of a song and they are changing it. The entire game is copyrighted, under your logic a company would not be able to enforce a copyright at all. I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Using your logic, a fan mod of a game is legal because it's different. If I take a Mario game and make his hair blond, can I sell that game since it's not the same? No, because it would still be a copyright violation. Your argument doesn't work.

Super, what is the point of your post? Nintendo is not taking the videos down at all. And I have seen many companies, good and bad, have videos taken down if they violate copyrights. The videos are not being taken down (though you are wrong in saying it's not illegal to upload the videos, those people are violating copyright laws), Nintendo is just getting money from ads that play before them (which shouldn't matter anyways since there are plenty of ad-blockers out there, I haven't seen ads on YouTube in years because of it).

...so, you're mooching off of YouTube and everyone who works to post videos on there?

Fair use covers commentary/criticism/research/etc. A court would have to rule on it before it would be considered illegal.

?

Fair use has a limit though, 20+ minutes seems obviously far outside the limit. There is a reason you can only include a few seconds of a song before you have to pay royalties. With a game, even 20 minutes goes far beyond what is acceptable under the fair use doctrine.

Can you cite?

I don't think so. Fair use isn't about what arbitrary amount "seems" fair. It's not for you or I to decide; it would have to be left up to a court decision.

So your saying these people mooch off of nintendos work when your mooching off of youtube itself...

And by using Adblock you are technically breaking youtubes TOS and thus following illegal activity punishable by the CFFA,

Tj, why don't you get down off your high horse....

Can you cite where in the YouTube TOS it says no adblocking?

BINGO

Pokepal, the YouTube TOS mentions nothing regarding adblockers. So try again:

http://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms

Besides, almost no YouTube videos have ads (the only ones I watch that have ads are Vevo videos).

well advertisements are not specifically named but there is several parts in there that could be moved in that direction

i do believe adblock is an automatic system, Tj, care to enlighten me on this?

and ads are part of the service...
---
considering google removed an ad block app from the play store a few months back you are walking on very thin ice regardless

Considering I am using Google's web browser (Chrome), if they didn't want me to use it they would not allow it.

And regarding your first point, if you read on you would see that they are referring to systems that let you access videos in a way a human can't (i.e. boost a view count for videos).

yes they were, but i happened to see a little word called any followed by the words "including"

Again, read that paragraph. It says any automatic system that accesses the Service in a manner that sends more request messages to the YouTube servers in a given period of time

pokepal, I wouldn't call the ad a "service" that YouTube provides.

Spyke, I believe I asked a citation from you as well.

fine forget it, anything to say for this?

Google would, and if you get in a legal issue you will be facing them.

WHAT?

That's like saying "If Nintendo didn't want me to use a Flash card on my DS, they wouldn't allow it."

Just because a third party makes an add-on for the browser, it doesn't mean the first party is "allowing" it.

And yes, This degree-less armchair lawyer feels a case could be made to say that using Ad Blocking software is against the ToS of YouTube.

Ads on Youtube are, without a doubt, a part of what they call "the Service".

By using AdBlock, you are modifying how the service is provided to you, circumventing the process they have in place to deliver content to you.

Are the ads on buses part of the service that the bus provides? I would argue not. I think it's the same with YouTube. Ads, if anything, hinder the experience of the services for which I visit the site. But as Ian once said, I accept them as part of the agreement for a free service. However, the temptation to and ease of avoiding the ads is too great for a chap like me. Though, Google's laissez-faire attitude towards their browser isn't exactly the same as the company saying that it's ok.

Does the bus have a "Terms of Service" that specifies anything about "data feeds" being a part of the service they provide to you?

Google sees ads as part of their services, and i've heard a few Ben Franklins can be very convincing in the courts.

A few Ben Franklins? Like they all had the same name? That's amazing! What are the chances?

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/vizarch/vizarch1211/vizarch121100023/16572959-big-pile-of-money-isolated-on-white-dollar-version.jpg

yeah, these ones

Facepalm your mom, you took my last post seriously...
http://i.imgur.com/ba32xuq.jpg

Close this thread.

horrible wording ftw, i should have said "they provide very rich company"