Should I or should I not?
Pros:
- I will donate the entirety of the proceeds to the site. Or maybe a nonprofit like EFF or something.
Cons:
- The site will be making some money off of its community members
- No one likes ads.
Is there a third option? Use ads but only on runs cleared by the author? Something else?
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Interesting that you can submit specific videos for monetization. I think it would be a prerequisite to get permission from the author before we do that, because it's still their work, even if TASVideos adds value to the work by hosting it and putting it up on Youtube.
Personally, though, I lean towards a no unless the site has a funding problem.
i can only agree with that
right now the site has no funding problems (citation needed :D )
as soon as keeping up tasvideos gets hard because of monitery problems youtube ads should be used.
How should I know what I think before I read what I post?
Personally I wouldn't mind Youtube ad revenue floating to TASvideos. If nothing else, it means I get to indirectly support the site by simply watching encodes.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Speaking of funding, it's relatively important to know just how much we would be getting in return. Is it known how much you get per view for a monetized video? If it's only a very small amount of money, it might not be worth the trouble.
This can be done fairly easily for future runs. Just put an opt in checkbox at the submission page. "Would you like to support tasvideos by allowing your run to generate ad revenue on official tasvideos youtube channels?"
>>right now the site has no funding problems
I doubt that, and even if it is true I doubt it's steady.
>>as soon as keeping up tasvideos gets hard...
... it will be too late for this to matter.
We don't want to draw the attention of the copyright holders of the games, and making money out of the videos can be a way to do that. Voted no.
(You can discuss "fair use" all you like, but when the cease&desist demand drops into your inbox, you will most probably not discuss it anylonger. Let's avoid doing things that might get us to that point.)
I got this same email today. We can't do it, anyway. One of the rules on YouTube about partnerships says that it can't be video game footage unless you have written permission from the person that made the game.
I actually monetize my videos for the sake of it, and here are the things you need to know:
-Monetizing a video doesn't give much money. It will give you like 12$ at every 10,000 views.
- You DON'T need written permission from people who made the game to make money from your videos. Your gameplay of a game is not copyrighted by the producers. What you need is make sure the video is played by you though. (TAS from you are played by you, yes).
-You CAN make money from videogame footage not played by you, but you need written permission from the orinigal player.
-It makes things much easier to monetize a video when there is no audio on it. SOME games have copyrighted audio, such as most of Xbox games. Therefore, Youtube encourages you to cut off the audio if you want to make money from your video. Most people add commentaries to them instead. However, I noticed Super Smash Bros. Melee audio is not copyrighted, they allow me to monetize all my videos with original audio on it.
-The best way to know if your video is eligible for money making is to go and try. They WON'T remove your video from copyright, they will simply say your video can't have advertisement on it.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
There's a ton of game-related content on Youtube that uses ads, so I doubt this is anything we need to worry about. It's a risk, but one I think we should be able to take should we decide to go ahead with this.
(Although it seems to be a moot point now.)
That's not much. I haven't actually checked this but I doubt many of our videos have that many views. A few might, but not many. There should be a reasonable reward if we're going to force ads upon our users.