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Monetizing Roll20 via Youtube?

Hey there, very quick and easy question. If I were to record my sessions and upload them to Youtube. Would I be allowed to put ads on the videos?
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Gold
Forum Champion
As just a fellow user of both sites (non official answer), my interpretation of the policies and practices of both websites, Roll20 and YouTube, is yes, that would probably not be asked/complained for removal. It's you and your friends playing a game, which is within the expected uploadable contents of YouTube and Twitch.TV (a game streaming website that is being purchased by YouTube/Google, which has a Roll20 subsection and a D&D subsection). There may be qualifiers and exceptions to this, but generally, probably ok especially to the extent it's your own art & entirely your own creations. YouTube's policy for ads asks you to certify that you own all the rights to the creative parts of the video content (images, sounds). Could be getting more into sticky areas if you are broadcasting others' visual art and rebroadcasting sounds (thru Soundcloud jukebox), though in many cases the artist or sound creator would not be bothered by this use. It's clear that broadcasting Roll20's interface as part of your video is accepted. The sounds and visual images you put onto the Roll20 interface & choose to broadcast, that's up to you, and that is the area where you want to avoid broadcasting copyrighted materials that aren't licensed for this purpose. Example, you wouldn't want to upload Luke Skywalker copyrighted images into Roll20 and then record that for your channel. You should get permission from all your players/participants for something like this, ideally like a release signature for using their voice/likeness.
Thanks for the in depth explanation! Was really helpful! I'll probably use a lot of Devin Night's models, so I'll be sure to ask him for permission as well.
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Edited 1407175912
Gold
Forum Champion
Devin Night is one of the most established in that field so far. I think it'd be great to ask whether the token license that comes with his products on Roll20, addresses or covers the question of rebroadcasting. If you get a response or learn anything that adds to this, it would be interesting to hear, if you can post again here. Take a look at the range of what gets posted up & ostensibly monetized to some degree on Twitch TV on the Roll20 specific page, <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Roll20%20Virtu" rel="nofollow">http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Roll20%20Virtu</a>... Note also that tons of other commercially available computer games, are constantly live-streaming, recording and rebroadcasting on Twitch TV. This seems to be generally permitted for many games by companies like Electronic Arts and whatever other big game studios.
As Gold said, we don't have a problem whatsoever with this in terms of the Roll20 application itself. However, it's up to you to clear any copyright-related issues arising from your use of the maps, tokens, sounds, etc. in the campaign. I believe there was a thread about this some time ago where some of the Marketplace creators chimed in with their thoughts, but I'll let @NolanT. jump in here if he wants and clarify that part.
Here's the previous thread. At least a few creators (although not Devin specifically) chimed in and said it was fine with them, so you could at least use their stuff: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/213074/podcasting-dot-dot-dot#post-227652" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/213074/podcasting-dot-dot-dot#post-227652</a>
Ah, thank you very much! I'll update this thread after I've asked Devin =)
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B Simon Smith
Marketplace Creator
I freely give my permission to anyone looking to utilize my content purchased through the Marketplace for game streaming. Most of it is labelled with "Generic" such as "Generic Dungeon Maps". I would appreciate if you accredit the maps during the video, but it's not a requirement.
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"...I have no trouble at all with you using my tokens in a live stream or video. Thanks. -D" Reply from Devin Night