Stadia Creative Director Triggers Uproar on Twitter

[wanderingfool2]

On 10/25/2020 at 4:29 AM, Sauron said:

Why should the streamer be paying extra for the game just because they're making money from it and not for their graphics card or internet service? Making money with something you bought isn't reason enough for the vendor of that product to be demanding more money from you.

If the streamer didn't show their computer monitor would they still make the money?  To an extent, using the copyrighted work is used as the entertainment source as  well in the video.

[GDRRiley]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I assume you refer to the H3H3 lawsuit when you say the bitwit video would fall under fair use based on precedent.

The H3H3 lawsuit specifically stated that the H3H3 video was a different category compared to the "group viewing" style reaction videos which is what the Lyle video would fall under.

There is no precedent that the type of video bitwit made is fair use.

the lyle video isn't group viewing

[LAwLz]

3 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

the lyle video isn't group viewing

How is it not? It does not include any skits where it cuts away from the video.

All it is, is someone watching a video all throughout and making some comments on it in the meanwhile. I believe that's the type of video the judge referred to when they said "group viewing", because it is similar to what you would get if you watched the original video with one or a group of friends.

If the reaction video you watched can be replaced with the original + someone sitting next to you in real life, then it does not fall under the precedent set by the H3H3 lawsuit. I haven't watched the Lyle video, but I scrolled through it and the impression I got was that he just watched the video from beginning to end and sometimes paused to give some of his reactions or options on it. That's very different from the H3H3 video they got sued over because they did not show the entire video, and they did several complete cut away from the video to insert skits.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If the streamer didn't show their computer monitor would they still make the money?  To an extent, using the copyrighted work is used as the entertainment source as  well in the video.

If the streamer didn't have a graphics card would they still make money? What about an internet connection?

[TehDwonz]

On 10/22/2020 at 10:44 PM, Random_Person1234 said:

Summary

Alex Hutchinson

He puts out bad takes daily. The guy's a genuine moron seeking attention.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

If the streamer didn't have a graphics card would they still make money? What about an internet connection?

Two very different things as compared to streaming.  You are unable to tell which video card is rendering a scene or what internet connection is being used.  Neither directly contributes to the content being consumed by itself.  It is copyrighted work, whether you like it or not...and the way streamers use the games it likely wouldn't stand by the test of fair-use.

 

Neither the graphics card or internet are part of the created work (they were used to produce it, but they are just that a tool).  A game itself is a copyrighted work, and the copyright owner does have the right as to the distribution of said content.  Under the logic of what people are saying, I could buy a book and read it while reacting to it and be good because I bought it...in reality that isn't how it works though.  Or imagine a 3D modelling program that has "free to use for non-commercial use" and using that to create a box-office production.

 

The note that was made by the guy is correct though...it is similar to recording a football game live and livestreaming it (it is a copyright infringement).

 

It doesn't matter if people agree/disagree on whether it should be or not...the fact is copyright is copyright, if you disagree with it petition the government to change things (I'm personally against the concept of game devs charging more...to an extent...but do concede it is within their right)

[Taf the Ghost]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Two very different things as compared to streaming.  You are unable to tell which video card is rendering a scene or what internet connection is being used.  Neither directly contributes to the content being consumed by itself.  It is copyrighted work, whether you like it or not...and the way streamers use the games it likely wouldn't stand by the test of fair-use.

 

Neither the graphics card or internet are part of the created work (they were used to produce it, but they are just that a tool).  A game itself is a copyrighted work, and the copyright owner does have the right as to the distribution of said content.  Under the logic of what people are saying, I could buy a book and read it while reacting to it and be good because I bought it...in reality that isn't how it works though.  Or imagine a 3D modelling program that has "free to use for non-commercial use" and using that to create a box-office production.

 

The note that was made by the guy is correct though...it is similar to recording a football game live and livestreaming it (it is a copyright infringement).

 

It doesn't matter if people agree/disagree on whether it should be or not...the fact is copyright is copyright, if you disagree with it petition the government to change things (I'm personally against the concept of game devs charging more...to an extent...but do concede it is within their right)

I bolded the part that everyone is assuming a lot and skipping over rather important details. Everyone wants to compare a Game to either a Movie or Music. They aren't. They're compiled Code and fall under different legal dimensions. Claims of broadcast rights via the EULA exist in a lot of cases, but no company would ever take it to court. They wouldn't want to lose the minimal leverage they have in the technically unsettled area of law. Reality is it's actually pretty settled that a company has no broadcast rights controls over their games. See OGN vs Blizzard in South Korea.

 

What a company does have legal rights to is the Music, Art Assets and Code. Because of specific carve outs for Music in the copyright law, it's actually the music that gives them the most power when it comes to attacking people streaming their product that they don't like. Minus they can only pull that trick once before they'd be in a world of monetary liability. 

 

The actual way companies have already gotten around this is via the accounts for the games involved. Any game that requires logins for accounts gives the company pretty much whatever control they'd actually need, but it does prevent monetization directly. This was Blizzard's solution for Starcraft 2 and why no LAN mode, and, generally, the way Riot prevented non-Riot controlled tournament scene from existing. A little hard to run a tournament when your Observers get banned 15s into a match. Valve, with Dota 2, has caused a lot of weird headaches because of their rules around broadcast rights for tournaments, but they can only do that because of DotaTV and their control of account access.

 

Thus, right now, the de facto reality is rather ahead of the de jure legal codes. Also, there's this little issue of PowerPoint and 33 years of public presentation via software.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Two very different things as compared to streaming.  You are unable to tell which video card is rendering a scene or what internet connection is being used.  Neither directly contributes to the content being consumed by itself.  It is copyrighted work, whether you like it or not...and the way streamers use the games it likely wouldn't stand by the test of fair-use.

The test has been already passed, as you may notice not many games companies are going after streamers... because that would be stupid. For them it's free advertisement.

 

Regardless, that's beside the point - you were arguing that streamers depend on the game to make money and therefore can be expected to pay more for it, but they also depend on a lot of other stuff. Making money with something you bought isn't enough of a reason to have to pay more for it. There may or may not be a reasonable claim of copyright infringement but that's a completely different subject.

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The note that was made by the guy is correct though...it is similar to recording a football game live and livestreaming it (it is a copyright infringement).

Except it's not. Watching a game of football on twitch is identical to watching it on "authorized" channels but watching someone play a videogame is not the same as playing it yourself. Generally the market for videogames and videogame streams do not overlap; in fact people are more likely to go out and buy a game after seeing it streamed, not less.

[Taf the Ghost]

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

The test has been already passed, as you may notice not many games companies are going after streamers... because that would be stupid. For them it's free advertisement.

 

Regardless, that's beside the point - you were arguing that streamers depend on the game to make money and therefore can be expected to pay more for it, but they also depend on a lot of other stuff. Making money with something you bought isn't enough of a reason to have to pay more for it. There may or may not be a reasonable claim of copyright infringement but that's a completely different subject.

Except it's not. Watching a game of football on twitch is identical to watching it on "authorized" channels but watching someone play a videogame is not the same as playing it yourself. Generally the market for videogames and videogame streams do not overlap; in fact people are more likely to go out and buy a game after seeing it streamed, not less.

People also skip over the way Broadcast Rights for Sports actually works. I only know the harder details for the States, but it's not the game that's actually copyrighted. It's the specific "telecast" that's protected by copyright. While a bit of a legalism, it's also why US broadcasts always have identifiers about the broadcast rights & permissions. Without them, they actually would have much less claim to the broadcast and it enters public domain.

 

This issue actually comes up in Advertising, as you can use YouTube videos really cheap of big sporting events, because it's not the event that has copyrights attached to it. Might have noticed that trend a few years ago with reaction shots in ads. There was a reason for that. Trend has fallen off, so I'm curious if there's been some legal cases I haven't come across.

 

If somehow game streaming did go to court, the game publisher would have no case. Games would be lumped under PowerPoint & Photoshop and we'd be in exactly the same place we are right now.

[Taf the Ghost]

As roughly my last point on the topic:

 

While the guy had a nuclear hot but terrible take, reality is that everyone assumes a massive amount of the finer details of the copyright system. While I'm very open to large overhaul of the US system, that's not the matter at hand. What matters is the very specific nature of how Games are classified. Every new media has produced new approaches to the way copyright is handled to regard them, and Games will be no different. Right now, regardless of what EULAs will state, game publishers have no effective copyright of the broadcast of the game nor are they likely ever to get it. 

[Mark Kaine]

Wrong thread. 

 

-delete-

[mwagen]

On 10/23/2020 at 5:06 AM, Neftex said:

i dont see much difference between streaming single player story game and streaming a movie. im not saying streamers should start paying to stream games but i can see his point of view

Really? I think there's a huge difference between the two. Somebody streaming a game is like somebody streaming a movie but only describing what's happening without actually showing it. 

[mwagen]

1 minute ago, mwagen said:

Really? I think there's a huge difference between the two. Somebody streaming a game is like somebody streaming a movie and only describing what's happening without actually showing it. 

oops, meant to edit and quoted myself... pls delete

[Random_Person1234]

21 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

They'd need to radically redesign the driver, as of now it's still ATi Catalyst with tons of stuff tacked on which makes it extremely convoluted - and at least half of the stuff simply doesn't work... and from the other stuff that does work half of it does 'barely' 

 

 

For a start they shouldn't even show options that aren't compatible and flat out don't work for a specific model. 

 

 

And then they need to improve performance / stability, I don't get why I get like 75% of frames compared to a comparable nvidia card, when the amd has technically *more* stuff (ram etc) and then being told 'well games are *optimized* for nvidia...' 

 

That just doesn't fly with a lot of peeps hence they rather buy 'overpriced' nvidia cards that 'just work'... (and they really do, issues with drivers are extremely rare and usually get fixed - actually - within days, personally I didn't have issues since a year or so, and that's mostly because I'm on a stable driver and there's like zero reason to update it...) 

 

 

Wrong topic. I think you meant to post here:

 

[Mark Kaine]

1 minute ago, Random_Person1234 said:

Wrong topic. I think you meant to post here:

Yeap... Don't know how it ended up here

[Neftex]

1 hour ago, mwagen said:

Really? I think there's a huge difference between the two. Somebody streaming a game is like somebody streaming a movie but only describing what's happening without actually showing it. 

i dont get your analogy, heres example - streaming the walking dead (game) theres barely any interaction between the streamer and the game, its like youre watching a movie. the viewer on stream gets all the content out of that game without even playing it, meaning hes unlikely to buy it for themselves

[SpaceGhostC2C]

23 minutes ago, Neftex said:

i dont get your analogy, heres example - streaming the walking dead (game) theres barely any interaction between the streamer and the game, its like youre watching a movie. the viewer on stream gets all the content out of that game without even playing it, meaning hes unlikely to buy it for themselves

Plus it's a Byzantine discussion anyway. If I appear 30 seconds in camera while you can hear a radio playing "Time" in the background, I'll have to play or get claimed/strike (like already happened to all that people in Twitch), no matter if 30 seconds with me talking on top is not the same as buying Dark Side of the Moon and listening to it beginning to end in your Hi Fi.

[mwagen]

2 hours ago, Neftex said:

i dont get your analogy, heres example - streaming the walking dead (game) theres barely any interaction between the streamer and the game, its like youre watching a movie. the viewer on stream gets all the content out of that game without even playing it, meaning hes unlikely to buy it for themselves

Well in both examples, and I think regardless of how much actual game play there is, the core experience is lost or greatly diminished through the intermediate experience agency (?) of the streamer. If you want to actually see what's happening in the movie or interact with the game yourself then you will have to buy it. So therefore I don't agree with anything Alex is saying.

[wanderingfool2]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

The test has been already passed, as you may notice not many games companies are going after streamers... because that would be stupid. For them it's free advertisement.

Just because no one pursued it doesn't mean it isn't a copyright issue.  There is a ton of music that is played in the background that doesn't get flagged and similar.  That doesn't automatically make it not against copyright.  It is up the the copyright holder to decide.

 

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Regardless, that's beside the point - you were arguing that streamers depend on the game to make money and therefore can be expected to pay more for it, but they also depend on a lot of other stuff. Making money with something you bought isn't enough of a reason to have to pay more for it. There may or may not be a reasonable claim of copyright infringement but that's a completely different subject.

No, re-read what I said.  At no point have I said I streamers SHOULD pay more.  I am saying the developers does have a copyright, and could choose to if they wish.  Also the fact that a streamer does also rely on the gameplay to be displayed in order to make it entertaining enough to watch.  The point being, if you remove the gameplay footage, do you really think the streamer would be as popular.

 

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Except it's not. Watching a game of football on twitch is identical to watching it on "authorized" channels but watching someone play a videogame is not the same as playing it yourself. Generally the market for videogames and videogame streams do not overlap; in fact people are more likely to go out and buy a game after seeing it streamed, not less.

The fact that it could cause a copyrighted work to make more profits has nothing to do with whether or not it is allowed.

 

4 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

What a company does have legal rights to is the Music, Art Assets and Code. Because of specific carve outs for Music in the copyright law, it's actually the music that gives them the most power when it comes to attacking people streaming their product that they don't like. Minus they can only pull that trick once before they'd be in a world of monetary liability. 

The game assets are always displayed, along with everything else copyrighted in a game.  They also own the rights to the copyrighted story (and to an extent one could argue any unique types of gameplay).

 

Let me put what I am saying clearly.  Buying a game does not grant you the permission to stream it.  Just because no game developer in their right mind would do it, doesn't mean it's 100% above bored.  It is copyrighted work, and at least some of the EULA's out there that permit streaming also include a clause that they can use that for promotional work.

[mwagen]

13 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The game assets are always displayed, along with everything else copyrighted in a game.  They also own the rights to the copyrighted story (and to an extent one could argue any unique types of gameplay).

I doubt gameplay would fall under copyright, considering many games share nearly identical gameplay concepts. That'd be interesting to look into, though, like how different would the gameplay have to be before a developer can claim infringement on their ip? 

Copyright does not protect • Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, or discoveries

 

I guess that's where my initial argument stems from because if the viewer has no agency in the actual gameplay then there shouldn't be a problem if gameplay concepts can't be copyrighted. Otherwise board games can't be streamed either.  

 

But when it comes to the display of game assets then I suppose you've got me there.

[Thaldor]

On 10/25/2020 at 1:29 PM, Sauron said:

But streamers don't sell copies of the game. Also, business software licenses typically include more than the base product you get with a personal license (e.g. direct line support, more than one license, more features...). That's the only reason business licenses make sense in my opinion.

 

Why should the streamer be paying extra for the game just because they're making money from it and not for their graphics card or internet service? Making money with something you bought isn't reason enough for the vendor of that product to be demanding more money from you.

Libraries don't sell copies of books, radio station doesn't sell copies of the music, movie theaters don't sell DVDs or BRs of the movies, but all of those need to get usually extremely expensive licenses to do their business. Same with a ton of program licenses especially when it comes to games. Like only Unity3D and Unreal Engine can become license nightmares if you don't read the small prints (Unity3D you need Plus license if you make more than 100k$ in year and Pro or Enterprise license if you make more than 200k$ in a year, Unreal Engine you need Publisher license if you monetize your game up until you make over 1M$ with your game and then you need "custom license" from Epic (this is terribly expensive one)), not to mention all student/educational licenses, trial licenses and other offered which directly state you cannot use them to make money or even make your work public.

 

This is literally the thing about licensing. Once you buy, rent, loan, whatever something and you sign a paper for it, that paper can set some rules how you can use whatever you got. Rent an apartment and your rent contract may include that the apartment cannot be used for business, rent a car and the paper most likely will state you cannot use the car as a taxi, and it's not that someone would actively search out for these, just like no one is actively looking for companies that use softwares against their licenses, but if it comes up and you are asked about it, you are probably going to be in a bad situation. Same goes for almost everything, if you buy a wrench, you can use it to make money and whatever but you cannot start selling copies of that wrench if it has active patents, you need to get license for that. Your internet contract might have a part which states that you cannot use it extensively for business (as in put up server farm in an apartment with shared line with other tenants/apartments, you can probably get away with small use server even business one but something that will push your connection 100% 24/7 and someone at some point will ask questions and you may be demanded to get a business contract. Yeah, in many cases makers of products ask you to pay more to make money with their products or just right out limit the possibilities of making money with their products.

 

Then there is the whole can of worms called copyright. Good luck going to try the argument "I can make money using my GPU and internet so I must be able to use this also to make money" with music, book or a movie. But games are different! Well, kind of different, they fall into the void between patents and copyright with video games usually bundled into copyright, they could be also patented, then things would be a lot different (see board games that more than usually are patented and only the art is copyrighted). For real, board games are very usually patented, Monopoly was/is a patented game (US2026082A) and probably Hasbro still has some active patents for Monopoly (notice the 70's-80's lawsuit is for the trademark and Anti-Monopoly was only exempted as in the Monopoly trademark wasn't nullified and the 2005 was for a "add-on" game not for the whole Monopoly). That would be fun when companies stater to actually patent video games, "wanna make an FPS? Better get license for it", but in theory that would be possible, it would be something new but companies have patented board games for ages so patenting video game mechanics isn't really something totally unimaginable. But video games are within the copyright so the publishers and devs have the rights to restrict their reproduction and, the important part with streaming, their public viewing. As said, good luck trying to have a movie theater that plays normal DVDs/BRs bought from a normal store meant for consumers, or run a library with just books bought from normal bookstore without license from the publisher or play Spotify on radio station (you gonna be sued so hard and your initial situation isn't really good, probably bad is also a understatement).

[SpaceGhostC2C]

7 hours ago, Thaldor said:

As said, good luck trying to have a movie theater that plays normal DVDs/BRs bought from a normal store meant for consumers,

Heck, good luck having even a radio station where you play <the audio of said DVDs in full...

[LAwLz]

12 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Everyone wants to compare a Game to either a Movie or Music. They aren't. They're compiled Code and fall under different legal dimensions. 

Citation needed on both parts. 

1) Is there a separate section for "compiled code" in the copyright law?

2) Would a game fall under it, including things that might not even be compiled such as textures and music in the game?

[SolarNova]

9 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Citation needed on both parts. 

1) Is there a separate section for "compiled code" in the copyright law?

2) Would a game fall under it, including things that might not even be compiled such as textures and music in the game?

Without looking it up directly if i'm not mistaken a 'game' is classified as 'Interactive media',  while a Movies, Tv shows, and Music, are not.

....

 

 

Regardless, you can not stream a Movie, or a TV show. .or Music, because the thing being originally sold by the rights holder is the ability to watch or listen to the Movie, Tv show, and Music. The intention of a Movie, TV and Music is to gain entertainment from watching or listening to it.

 

On the other hand a game is sold to 'play' ..to interact with. thus 'watching' it is not the same, in most cases watching a game stream is as much watching and gaining entertainment from the streamer as it is watching the game.

'Watching' a game as opposed to 'playing' it is more akin to an extended advertisement or trailer, than effectively 'pirating' it and gaining the entire experience of it like one would if they watched a Movie on a stream.

 

Now, should the owner of the game be entitled to the decision on whether a streamer can stream it ?

..probably,

They are after all making money from the use of anothers 'content' ..however is it transformative ? I'd say most successful streamers interact and entertain by more than just sitting there playing the game. In those cases i'd say the game owner does NOT have the right to intervene.

However if a streamer is literally just sitting there playing a game, streaming it, and barely interacting at all , doing nothing 'transformative' , then yes the owner of the game should have the right to intervene if they so choose. more so if the game is heavily narrative driven, effectively an interactive movie.

 

But regardless of anyones opinion on the matter of ''rights' of the owner... it would be a bad idea to get between a streamer playing the game, as successful streamers are massive source of free advertisement and can make mundane small games very successful. E.G. Among Us, and Fall guys.

[Thaldor]

3 hours ago, SolarNova said:

Without looking it up directly if i'm not mistaken a 'game' is classified as 'Interactive media',  while a Movies, Tv shows, and Music, are not.

....

 

 

Regardless, you can not stream a Movie, or a TV show. .or Music, because the thing being originally sold by the rights holder is the ability to watch or listen to the Movie, Tv show, and Music. The intention of a Movie, TV and Music is to gain entertainment from watching or listening to it.

 

On the other hand a game is sold to 'play' ..to interact with. thus 'watching' it is not the same, in most cases watching a game stream is as much watching and gaining entertainment from the streamer as it is watching the game.

'Watching' a game as opposed to 'playing' it is more akin to an extended advertisement or trailer, than effectively 'pirating' it and gaining the entire experience of it like one would if they watched a Movie on a stream.

Doesn't really work like that. They are under copyright laws which do give the rights holders rights to limit their products public viewing, reproduction and use in general. It doesn't matter how they are classified and whatever, streaming is publicly broadcasting their content and if they wanted to be stupid and go after that, they have all legal rights to do it. Just that they take the interactive away doesn't change the copyright, just as making a movie or a game from a book or just reading the book aloud doesn't change that without license/rights from the author, you are committing copyright infringement.

 

Quote

Now, should the owner of the game be entitled to the decision on whether a streamer can stream it ?

Legally, yes they are. No matter how people try to turn it, they have the rights to restrict their contents public viewing. Would it be stupid? Yes. Do they do it? No. But they can say that you need a streaming license to stream their game if they so decide, where we get to...

 

Quote

They are after all making money from the use of anothers 'content' ..however is it transformative ? I'd say most successful streamers interact and entertain by more than just sitting there playing the game. In those cases i'd say the game owner does NOT have the right to intervene.However if a streamer is literally just sitting there playing a game, streaming it, and barely interacting at all , doing nothing 'transformative' , then yes the owner of the game should have the right to intervene if they so choose. more so if the game is heavily narrative driven, effectively an interactive movie.

Something being "transformative" doesn't make it directly okay and fine. As Linus said in the WANshow, even the so great, masterful and superior "Fair Use" (aka. "stupid law" that was made because the original copyright law in US was so huge piece of shit that it didn't include cases where using someones content without permission would be fine and Crayon heads didn't have the skills to add those to the actual law so they doodled another one and managed to make it also so hard to understand that people still think it's a "jail free" card) is only a collection of arguments which you can use to say that you have the rights to use that content without permission for free. That means, if something is just "transformative" it doesn't fall under "Fair Use" anywhere, it would also need to include the ones own input, the use must be as minimal as possible, it must be in good faith and it must be needed. E.g. You can use scenes from Titanic movie, game, book, TV-series and whatever else in your presentation about Titanic, you can also collect scenes from them and mix them up into a video about "the luxury of Titanic" where you want to show how luxurious the Titanic was, but you can't just stream the whole Titanic movie and talk over it about how to grow apples in Mars.

If you think about the game streaming and playthrough videos, they are very close to not being even "fair use", the use of someone elses content is huge in them and the personal input to them is often off-topic and that someone elses content is the focal thing (as in the main thing isn't streamers input to the stream or players input to the video, but the game; As in if you watch some let's play -video is your focus on Markiplier/PewDiePie/Ninja/DrDisrespect "show" or in the game they are playing? If the main focus is on the game and the main content of the stream/video is the game, then the focal thing in that is someone elses content).

 

Also that you make a movie out of book or make a game out of TV series or video out of game isn't transformative in the sense it is meant in the law. If you were to make a parody out of a movie/book/game, that would be transformative, not that you changed its medium.