So I'm probably the only bitch that cares about this, but I have considered making let's play vids or do reviews many times. However I was curious if anyone knew what kind of legality would be involved and if this is effected by making money off of youtube (ie. not original content and content used in video is not owned by me) I would appreciate if you could cite your sources and also explain to me how people manage to get away with this (blue xephos).

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If a game maker feels the need to profit in such crude ways from someone who buys and plays their games, then they deserve to be pirated, ground to dirt and chased from the business. Personal opinion, of course.

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Depends on the country, but in the U.S. the legality largely relates to copyright law and the Digital Mellenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Content owners have the right for a limited (though very long now) time to restrict who can use or recreate their content and to recieve payment for their content. This is the copyright. Reproductions without their consent are generally not permitted.

There is an exception in the law to this: Fair Use. Now, a lot of people throw this around, and there has been a lot of literature about it since it's introduction, and really most people online don't really understand it.

Fair use though allows you to use some (or even all in certain cases) of copyrighted material without paying for it or without direct consent to use it. The rules for qualifying are not very clear cut (despite what some think or pass around). It has to do with a few different things:
1) Are you using the copyrighted material in conjuntion with other material in a way that you have manipulated it to create something which is unique and reinterprets or brings new meaning to the original works?
2) Is the material only being used to the extent that is necessary for the project and as appropriate for the industry in which the content is being used (your new works industry, not the industry on the content being used)?
3) Has the content owner made the content available for use for a price, and is the price reasonable for the budget of the project you are working on?
4) Could something else have been used in its place, or was this particular content critical to the meaning of the new project?

There are some other basic guidelines as well, and there are lawyers that make a living just dealing with this kinda thing. Some of the biggest and strictest companies about their own copyright content actually use "Fair Use" for thier content quite a bit, even though they'd rather the general public not know about it (think Disney, for instance).

So, for what you are doing it could be tricky.

The reason so many people get away with putting up copyrighted material that doesn't fall under fair use is largely just because it hasn't generated attention to the copyright holders. The other reason is sometimes because the impact and reach of the infringement is so small that it isn't worth their time bothering to take it down. And a third reason is sometimes just because the content owners believe in a particular instance that the publicity gained will generate more profits for them then harm, and so they choose not to challenge it. Sometimes it's also a matter of the material is copyrighted in one country and not in another, but that's rarer now with many international copyright agreements.