That Dragon, Cancer has been raising the hackles of some YouTubers, some of whom were being hit with copyright strikes over use of the game’s music in their videos.
Ryan Green, That Dragon’s designer, posted a fairly lengthy response to general messages he’s been seeing pop up about copyright claims being raised on Let’s Play videos of the game.
In short: Numinous wanted its composer to make some money from his contribution to the game, but it now accepts Content ID claims were not the right way to go about doing that.
The post raises interesting points about the ethical and moral standing of Let’s Play videos – Numinous Games has removed all copyright claims and is allowing any and all coverage of That Dragon, Cancer, but asks for video-makers to exercise some level of restraint when it comes to posting full playthroughs of the game, as well as posting a link to the game’s site, so some might later purchase it, or donate in some way, themselves.
“We are asking that you return that favor by creating Let’s Play videos that don’t just rebroadcast the entirety of our content with minimal commentary, but instead use portions of our content as a context to share your own stories and start conversations with your viewers. We would encourage you to link to our site and directly encourage viewers to support our work financially through buying the game, or donating a dollar or two to our studio if they believe that what we did has value. This small act will allow us to continue to work.”
It’s understandable from both an experiential and business perspective — the former because by not playing it, you’re missing out on a lot of the experience, and the latter because once you’ve seen the story, there’s little impetus to actually buy the game.
But it’s also understandable from the Let’s Play-ers side — showing off games is what they do, and having thing slapped with a Content ID claim is never fun. Hopefully this can all be sorted out and everyone can be a bit happier about everything.
