Nintendo has possibly found a solution to the ongoing debate surrounding content creators on YouTube using assets from Nintendo games in things like Let's Plays and reviews, and claiming ad revenue from them.
Today the company unveiled the Nintendo Creators Program, a new service "through which Nintendo gives you part of the advertising proceeds it receives from YouTube for your Nintendo-related YouTube videos."
The new program builds off Nintendo's YouTube affiliate program from last year, allowing you to register single videos for a 60 percent portion of the advertisement revenue, or an entire channel for a 70 percent share.
"In the past, advertising proceeds that could be received for videos that included Nintendo-copyrighted content (such as gameplay videos) went to Nintendo, according to YouTube rules. Now, through this service, Nintendo will send you a share of these advertising proceeds for any YouTube videos or channels containing Nintendo-copyrighted content that you register," Nintendo explains.
The new program is certainly a step in the right direction, but it's still far from perfect — as evidenced by some of the video registration rules. For example, it can "regularly take up to three business days" for your registered content to be reviewed and finalized. For content creators relying on timeliness for their videos, you can see how this would pose a problem. Nintendo also has some pretty strict rules that ensure you only use channel or videos that contain copyrighted content related to game titles specified by Nintendo. The full list of games to be used with this program can be found here.
The Nintendo Creators Program will launch on May 27, but it is currently in beta and allowing registrations. You need a Google and PayPal account to join. Payments will be calculated at the end of each month, and Nintendo warns it will take up to two months for payments to be sent to your account.
Again, this entire system, while offering somewhat of a solution, will likely be met with some debate — especially since many other publishers have given content creators free use over their game assets to create, post, and monetize videos however they wish to. Still, it's better than getting that copyright notice.
