Earlier this morning, Nintendo made an announcement via their official Japanese Twitter account regarding their plans to start a YouTube affiliate programme that will split advertising proceeds with content creators.
【YouTube映像に関するお知らせ】任天堂は以前より、不適切なものを除いて、YouTube上の任天堂の著作物を含む映像を正式に許諾しています。許諾した映像には広告がつくことがあり、その広告収益は従来のポリシー同様、Googleと任天堂で分配されます。(1/2)
— 任天堂株式会社 (@Nintendo) May 27, 2014
【YouTube映像に関するお知らせ】その上で、より積極的な任天堂著作物の利用を希望される方に向けて、広告収益の一部を受け取れるアフィリエイトプログラムを準備しています。アフィリエイトプログラムの詳細については、後日続報いたします。ご理解の程、よろしくお願いいたします。(2/2)
— 任天堂株式会社 (@Nintendo) May 27, 2014
.@Nintendo is planning a YouTube affiliate program to split advertising proceeds with video creators.
— Cheesemeister (@Cheesemeister3k) May 27, 2014
The above tweet comes from Cheesemeister, an ever-helpful translator of Japanese gaming news. The significance of this announcement by Nintendo comes after their ongoing disputes with YouTube content creators over the last several months.
Many couldn’t understand what had caused Nintendo and several other large gaming companies to take a more hard line on content from their games being uploaded to YouTube back in later 2013. ‘Let’s Play’ videos and the like can be seen as advertising for the games featured in them, although it’s perhaps also understandable that there is some grey area when YouTube users are making advertising revenue for broadcasting someone else’s game.
While the exact terms of the affiliate programme haven’t been announced thus far, it seems like this sort of compromise could be the answer to the dispute, giving both Nintendo and the content creators their piece of the pie. However, the nature of how proceeds are split will almost certainly be key to whether this deal can undo the bad feeling towards Nintendo from a host of content creators hit by copyright claims back in December and since. That being said, this seems like another move that would suggest that Nintendo are beginning to learn from their past mistakes and make some of the progress that fans have been waiting on for quite some time.