Devs May Be "Waiving Their Rights" By Allowing YouTube Gameplay Video

[RJ Dalton]

As I've said before, I'd be more sympathetic if the industries making the copyright claims weren't evil, exploitative fucks, who do nothing but take the profit from those who are the genuine creative force behind media like IP leeches. If even half of what these companies do were made common knowledge (and people weren't self-absorbed idiots who just want to be distracted from their short, miserably pointless lives in the corporate-controlled feudal system the modern world has become), we'd have riots in the streets trying to tear Hollywood and other big name media companies down.

I say the sooner they crash, the better. There will always be creative individuals and they will always find a way to produce their works, whether the fat bastards in suits are there or not. If they go down, the actual creators will start over, rebuilding the system from the ground up, because it is a simple truth that the truly creative individuals that create the stuff we love do it because it's what they love doing and the absence of the studios won't stop them. Hell, thanks to the internet, it's even easier to do it now than it ever was before.

So, yeah, the issue may be more complex than it seems on the surface, but the people being hurt the most are those I have no sympathy for.

 

[Therumancer]

I think the claims we're looking at here are a PR move, as opposed to a genuine outcry against the system. The need to actively defend your coprights is not new, and has been brought up in the past when it comes to video games before. Indeed the whole battle between Notch and Bethesda over "Scrolls" was motivated in part by that. There is no reason why we would suddenly see action on this level virtually overnight unless it was an intentional power grab, the motivation here being less about copyright protection as much as establishing the ability to outright control the entire narrative surrounding their products, making it so they become impossible to criticize without permission, a big deal when you see how much power independent reviewers and the like have cost them and influenced public perception.

To be honest, if you did some digging I wouldn't be surprised if you found evidence of some kind of large meeting somewhere between reps from a lot of the major game publishers. The big reason why I believe this hasn't happened on this scale before is simply because none of the companies wanted to perform a power grab like this when the competition wasn't going to and it could lead to them losing sales and getting a bad rep, while consumbers fled into the arms of more apparently open minded rivals. The noteworthy thing here seems to be the coordination, with pretty much everyone pushing for the same thing, at pretty much the same time. It smacks of an under the table agreement by everyone that they would all do this for their shared benefit without anyone deciding to immediately take the other side for some quick PR points so the industry as a whole could wind up a lot more powerful.

Of course something like that is difficult to prove, and smacks of conspiracy theory, I imagine any evidence in that direction that is uncovered won't be taken seriously. Of course at the same time this isn't inherently illegally to the best of my knowledge, even if this kind of coordination between alleged competitors is supposed to be discouraged.

 

[medv4380]

So someone bothered to ask a lawyer on the subject, and it actually got cycled though the gaming press.

It's common knowledge that not legally enforcing your copyright gets most of your copyright rights tossed out when you finally decide you want to do something with it.

For example, let someone use your music in a video promoting themselves, or their store on YouTube without collecting royalties, and you can see the rights to collect royalties when someone uses it in a more traditional commercial vanish.

There is only one way to get through the legal nightmare of licencing and that would be to create a nonprofit collective bargaining organization to handle it, but getting the egos to actually do that is fairly difficult.

 

[SomeGuyOnHisComputer]

Copyright Law in general needs to be changed to accommodate interactive and digital media. Also needs to legally address the existence of "abandonware" and (hopefully) put it in the public domain, which would (hopefully) encourage publishers to rerelease games more frequently instead of just sitting on IPs and potentially letting them die.

In my opinion, it would just be easier to make an exception for game footage and make it a public domain derivative work - ... if that made any sense at all. If a game is so linear or simple that it can be practically played on youtube, that's the devs problem >_>

 

[SilverUchiha]

Google is playing at something here. Nobody messes up this consistently, with this many people screaming in their face, unless they have something to gain from it all.

They're playing us somehow, i just can't see the angle.

Leading theories:

#1 - Aliens/Lizard-people/or someone else is masking as Google in order to ruin them and control the world themselves... for reasons.

#2 - Google is actually a cult and they want us to start killing each other in rage over everything they do, using the blood from the ensuing battles to call forth the corpse god, Mantarok, and do... whatever it is elder gods do.

#3 - Google invested all their money in something else and in order to see it succeed they must now fail. I'm thinking something other than Bing though...

#4 - The boys and girls in charge at Google... who am I kidding, they're probably boys... have regressed in age like Benjamin Button and they've gotten to the age (early college/high school) where they think trolling is super-rad. So they're doing a big troll on the world because that's what they do between pot-breaks and binge drinking.

#5 - Lastly, we're all in the Matrix and this is the Matrix glitching on us as it inevitably shuts down and kills all of us. Hope you enjoyed your "life" while you could.

 

[FalloutJack]

Google is playing at something here. Nobody messes up this consistently, with this many people screaming in their face, unless they have something to gain from it all.

They're playing us somehow, i just can't see the angle.

Bet you $10 it has to do with Google+.

 

[Qvar]

Of course something like that is difficult to prove, and smacks of conspiracy theory, I imagine any evidence in that direction that is uncovered won't be taken seriously. Of course at the same time this isn't inherently illegally to the best of my knowledge, even if this kind of coordination between alleged competitors is supposed to be discouraged.

No, it's not. That's why the RIAA and such exists. Associations that protect the copyrigths from their members works. We are talking about copyright, not prices forging.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Copyright laws need to be rewritten to account for the way media is being used. You can't apply rules for old technology to the new.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

If a teenager fan is excited enough about a game to want to go out and make content around it to show others what he's enjoying and to get them excited for it... If that boundless enthusiasm has to go through has to go through a meeting for securing licensing first before even going through the headaches of recording, editing and uploading...

Well, I foresee two results. Those people will go underground to a new site made exactly for sharing that kind of content or they won't even bother seeing as to get a license in the first place they'd likely have to provide proof that they can maintain an audience. For someone starting out, that's impossible.

This issue is gonna come to a head pretty soon and I hope the newer generation wins. I might not always enjoy the videos they're making but the fact new content from new people on games I enjoy keeps popping up has always been cool. I would hate to see that limited down to the people who are big enough to enter agreements.

 

[Charli]

GAMES ARE AN INTERACTIVE MEDIUM.

IF SOMEONE IS GETTING FULFILLMENT MERELY WATCHING YOUR PRODUCT YOU HAVE FAILED AT MAKING IT.

IF SOMEONE IS WATCHING YOUR PRODUCT WITH SOMEONE TALKING OVER IT OR ALTERING THE FOOTAGE THEN THEY ARE WATCHING FOR THAT PERSON. THE GAME IS INCIDENTAL. If the person I'm watching is bad at commentary, I usually leave the video, interested in the game or not.

I really don't know what the fuck is so hard about this.

Full silent playthroughs? Tear that shit down.
Playthroughs with commentary? Or previews? Free. Fucking. Advertising.


Games. Are not movies. They are not music. They are not TV shows. Input from the user is required.
What goes up on youtube, is a preview. If the preview is enough to satisfy someone, then you have done something inherently wrong in the genre, and should simply try harder.

I understand if someone is just showing everything with no dialogue or input from themselves, but that should be the only time a Cease and Desist, or a ban should occur.

Hell you wanna know why I bought the Stanley Parable? Why I play hearthstone? I saw people on youtube playing it! Nothing any of the people who made those games, or any of their publishers did, made me want to get them. At all. And since youtube became a thing and demo disks a relic of the past, it is the prime way to get people to talk about and sell your game.

 

[The Great JT]

Hopefully these idiots will realize Youtube Videos = Free Advertising and allow monetization of them for the makers again.

 

[Someone Depressing]

I bet $10 that the entire world if going to turn into Brazil in about a month.

 

[teebeeohh]

fuck this, i'll just go and dream about giant samurai.

 

[II2]

I rather feel like this comes back to the lack of compromise Jim Sterling was advocating - This 'all or nothing' 'take action or be unable to take action in future' approach to copyright law is ridiculous. Copyright law isn't inherently evil, but it is no longer serving (or perhaps even capable of serving) the purposes it was introduced. From a grassroots perspective, if a creator is forced to claim everything just so they can have the ability to use it on the minority of people genuinely bootlegging and re-uploading their work with a new watermark and active monitization, the whole thing is looking like the messiest aspects of DRM we faced in the last decade - the ones that punish the customers and supporters for the outlying chance to snag a baddie or two.

It's a depressing mess, presently.

 

[RicoADF]

So we're only allowed to use companies games in videos they "like"? The statement is wholly ambiguous, but isn't that illegal? Companies wouldn't want a negative review of a game, so they're allowed to just pull it off the internet? If this isn't what she's getting at, then in what way can you use the content from the devs/publishers that allow this in a way they don't like?

I get Kojima doesn't want all of the MGS cutscenes edited together on youtube. However, what I don't get is how Chucklefish allowing Starbound videos to be put on youtube could in any way open up the avenue of youtube being used in a way they don't "like". What in the hell does Blizzard possibly have to lose by letting people put up and/or stream Hearthstone videos? How could someone use footage of Hearthstone in a way Blizzard doesn't "like"?

This lawyer seems to be full of crap, any lawyer that knows copyright law even at the basics knows that working at clearing false takedowns on reviews is not damaging their copyright rights, under the copyright laws of most if not all nations there are fair use clauses and in them they are almost if always including reviews/criticism. Unless she just fails to understand what the issue is, which considering her profession I can't say I'd be surprised.

 

[Knight Templar]

"Posting video clips without the copyright owners' permission is copyright infringement,"

Except that's not true, fair use is a thing that exists and these clips almost always fall under it, even if close to the edge. Furthermore its incredibly hard to lose the ability to protect your copyright. Sure saying everyone has a free go to make lets play would likely give a free go for what you just OK'd. However simply not going after everything you can never results in a negative mark against you.
Maybe this is UK law specifically, or they said more but on the face I'm not sure how accurate this is, since it conflicts with what I have heard from other lawyers.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Maybe so, but it's probably in their best interest to do so. You know what with the free publicity and all.