The first month of 2016 has already seen two very high-profile trademark disputes, both in the area of online videos. Recently it has come to light that Sony has tried to trademark the phrase “Let’s Play” for video game footage. For anyone unaware, “Let’s Play” has been in use by video creators for years and has evolved into its own genre, typically involving gameplay footage and the player’s own commentary on the game as it is played. Players frequently include the phrase in their video’s title using the video to introduce a new game to their viewers, showing their own first minutes playing the game or, if they have already been playing the game for a while, to showcase the features of the game to a wider audience. A YouTube search for the phrase “Let’s Play Minecraft” yields over eight million results, and Minecraft is far from the only game that the genre addresses. Adding nearly any video game title after the…
↧