Recently there’s been a lot of questions surrounding the legality of “Let’s Play” videos and gaming streams online.

Let’s Plays are recorded playthroughs of video games made by gamers. They often have commentary tracks that either offer insight into the game, make jokes or offer tips and tricks for other players.

Some Let’s Plays, like those done by the most popular YouTuber, PewDiePie, show the face of the gamer while they play, offering even more insight into how the player is reacting.

The whole thing seems rather innocent, considering Let’s Plays are just videos of people playing a game and talking about it, but there’s more to it than that.

Let’s Play videos don’t just use clips from games. They show almost the entirety of a game’s main questline, from start to finish.

Video games are protected under copyright laws, which prohibits the sharing or use of the game’s assets without express permission from the copyright holders.

That means that any given game is protected. Everything from the music, to the story, to the character’s images and names are protected.

This would of course include video footage of the game.

A video by PBS Digital’s “Game/Show” makes the claim that Let’s Plays could be protected under what’s called Fair Use.

Fair Use allows copyrighted content to be used by others, as long as they fall under certain categories.

Game/Show argues that Let’s Plays with commentary may be “transformative works” and therefore fall under Fair Use.

Some say that the intrinsic value of a game comes from playing it. Just watching it being played isn’t the same, and that’s true.

However, for games that are heavy with story, I don’t think adding a commentary track really makes the Let’s Play “transformative.” Considering that some games play like interactive movies, it just doesn’t work.

Slapping commentary on a movie and then posting the entire film on YouTube certainly isn’t Fair Use.

For that reason, I think Let’s Plays are wide open to lawsuits.

I’m sure a great lawyer could make a case for Let’s Plays, but most Let’s Play creators can’t afford a powerful lawyer to protect them.

If insanely popular PewDiePie, who actually makes money on his Let’s Play videos, gets slapped with a lawsuit, he can afford to fight back.

If “GaMerFan397401” has an affluent game company come after them, they’ve got no chance.

Better than the protection of the law, but less reliable, is that Let’s Plays can actually be good for games.

Game/Show mentions indie games “Flappy Bird” and “Five Nights at Freddie’s” as games that flourished specifically because of the attention garnered from popular Let’s Plays.

Watching interesting Let’s Plays have intrigued many gamers into purchasing a game they were otherwise uninterested in. I’ve done it too!

I would have never have tried what became one of my favorite games of all time had I not seen a video of it on YouTube.

Again, unlike having Fair Use backing you up, the “my video helped your game sales!” justification isn’t as solid.

In a time when the most popular YouTuber is a Let’s Player, it’s clear Let’s Play videos can no longer fly under the radar.

It will happen, and soon, that a video game company is going to decide they don’t want Let’s Plays of its games all over the Internet. When it happens, I hope that policy will favor the Let’s Plays, but at this point there’s just no guarantee.