Free for a Fee

Once it became simple to record, upload, and share digital video over the Internet, gamers quickly became interested in recording themselves playing games—especially with humorous or profane commentary. The phenomenon of creating and sharing so-called “Let’s Play” videos took off around 2006 and today has its own channel on YouTube. Practitioners of this self-recording art sometimes refer to themselves as LPers for short.Now, it looks like Let’s Play videos are one more piece of content that’s being caught up in YouTube’s Content ID system. It’s an automated copyright-enforcement system that’s been glitchy from the start and often criticized for taking down legitimate content. Remixes of cultural icons have been taken down with no good explanation, as well as NASA content that should be in the public domain. Political satire didn’t stand a chance either. Until October, there wasn’t even a meaningful appeal system for owners of wrongly removed videos.

It looks like LPers are the latest victims.

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