Nintendo is hoping to wrap up its lawsuit against gamer Jesse Keighin, aka EveryGameGuru, after he failed to answer the complaint. The game giant seeks $17,500 in damages for copyright infringement, including streaming pre-release games and sharing links to emulators. In addition, Nintendo requests a broad global injunction to prevent future infringements, even for games that do not yet exist.
Theoretically any streamer could get sued for copyright infringement by the copyright holders. This is because they own the gameplay, irrespective of whether someone plays it themselves or watches someone else play it. That’s why Nintendo sues for copyright infringement. Usually game companies understand streamers correctly as free advertisement (sometimes even paid) and don’t sue.
Edit: I can imagine they look at broadcasting playing their game in a similar way to someone reading a book out loud publicly. Which is also copyright infringement.
I agree with you on most of your points. And just wanted to clarify this.
Do they, though? They create the world, but the player is the one controlling the action.
If I publicly read a book, I replay the contents verbatim. Basically an exact copy. But playing a game IMHO is more like fan-fiction. I’m making my own story and thus there should be no way to get any legal case against showing/publishing this to others.
That being said, if you monetise your videos and make money from them, it becomes a whole different story.