Jimquisition: Copyright War

[Kittyhawk]

This is funny and sad, because its coming from Google, a company that was once small and enjoyed the benefits as such. The very day Google purchased Youtube, though I could see something like this eventually going down. Google have become the faceless man that they once rallied against. Hell, the very creation of Youtube was to get away from the established chains placed on and largely limiting video content. Now, Youtube is just another owned tube thing online, as the powers that be try to strangle/shackle the internet.

For publishers to begrudge certain gamers/reviewers etc from a few dollars from fans is just plain sad. I think its time for many who upload vids out there to close their Youtube accounts and set up shop elsewhere. Twitch, Ustream, Vimeo etc are all very useable and valid options. Youtube's loss is some other sites gain.

As for publishers, I think that what we need next is an annual Anti-Publisher Day. Its plain to see that as the industry shuns them and their bankrupt creativity more, only they lose in the end. Nothing wrong with their games as such, just the crappy corporate attitudes that spoil things for their customers.

Nintendo, Sega, Activision and Capcom, this is no way to treat those who fill your coffers.

 

[matt87_50]

How can you say you didn't need publishers to make any of this episode, that's entirely about publishers?

 

[shadowstriker86]

Guys, can we PLEASE get Jim into the oval office or something? Already a proven leader with millions of loyal viewers ready to vote him in, what's the holdup?

Not sure about age requirements in US, but here we have restriction that people younger than i think 30 cannot go to our equivalent of oval office. 45 years for president. I believe Jim is younger (if i remember correctly from dismal jester)

just looked it up right now, age req. is 35. That sucks. Do they just put 35 because it's at an age where they "think" (and i use the word very lightly) people are less inclined to disagree with sponsers?

 

[jdarksun]

Awesome show, Jim. More people need to be watching your videos to see the shit that publishers are trying to pull here.

 

[Slash2x]

This is why I like FTL the developer even put it on their site, upload monatize whatever with our game footage just put it out there for people to see. No need to contact them it is in the FAQ on the main page. Indies will keep growing stronger with this kind of consumer positive policy.

 

[Signa]

This is why we need games to be defined as art. A paint company can not claim ownership of a painting that someone makes with their paints. The same should apply to games, as the video content created by a user was created by that user, and not the company that merely provided the tools and materials to create that video.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Funny thing is I think that most of the videos are for profit thus need copy right permission, when you are for profit you have to get the license IMO. Of course it dose not not help there is not a system in place where you sign up post your stuff and they get a cut of any ad rev.And no I do not think opinion driven media can claim fair use fact driven yes opinion driven no not under our glorious copy right masters these days.

 

[cefm]

Why any government would extend the same broadcast and re-broadcast protections to video game manufacturers that it also extends to live performance events (sports, theatre, concerts) or film/TV is beyond me.

 

[Weaver]

Indeed. Thank God for you, Jim. =w= b

Also, side question;

Who is happy about this!? [sub]Besides publishers, of course[/sub]

I guess if you don't like a specific youtube personality, you could be happy that they are getting the screws put to them, but I don't see one guy/gal you don't like getting burned being worth all the others you may like/don't hate also getting burned.

But rejoicing it as a whole? WHY!?

P.S. You really don't need them, Jim!
You have all of us. ;3

People who hate Let's Players. They believe that they're over paid for a minimum amount of work. Though making it big is liken to winning the lottery as for every person that gets rich there's dozens working tireless who no one will ever hear about. Corporate CEOs make anywhere from 200 to 300 times more than the average worker of their own companies and typically work less than 20 hours a week. There are sports stars that make more than the president. But Let's Players are where we draw the line God damn it! My friend Mandy puts in between 3 to 6 hours a day for over a year now. She has a grand totally of 93 followers and... she could go buy a Big Mac with how much she makes in a day!

Then there's the people who worship corporations as if they are our new pantheon of gods.

I'm a small time youtuber too! Can you PM me a link to your friends channel? I like watching small youtubers

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Maybe it's time for an alternative to YouTube, since the site seems to be becoming rapidly taken over by corporations and Google +. Anyone got any suggestions for a viable alternative video site?

How can YouTube be "taken over" by corporations, when it has always been a corporation, and has belonged to one of the world's biggest corporations (Google) for many years now? For it to be taken over would require it to be non-corporate in the first place.

Although I do find it difficult to be sympathetic with anybody in this whole scenario. The game publishers suck for their short-sighted iron-fist handling of this situation. The YouTube "Let's Players" suck for trying to "monetize" their videos. In fact, the YouTubers suck for simply posting stuff on YouTube in the first place, one of the biggest cesspits on the word-wide inter webs. Google sucks for being Google, in the typical way that they claim to be noble technologists supporting freedom and openness, while turning everything into an advertising delivery platform.

Even Jim sucks for pointlessly looping game footage in his videos for no apparent reason than he doesn't have anything else to show, and game footage is cheap and easy. And that same fucking loop of harpsichord music on the soundtrack every damn week...

Damn, people really are terrible, aren't they?

 

[Aardvaarkman]

This is why we need games to be defined as art.

Can you define art?

A paint company can not claim ownership of a painting that someone makes with their paints. The same should apply to games, as the video content created by a user was created by that user, and not the company that merely provided the tools and materials to create that video.

You're talking about very different things here. Defining games as "art" does not make art into a raw material like paint. In fact, defining it as art makes it much less so. Copyright was invented to protect the arts. So, I'm not sure how defining games as art somehow makes them immune from copyright claims. The fact that they are creative works is what gives them copyright protection in the first place.

As for the argument that the video content was created by the user, that's not completely true - as the user did not create the visuals, art assets or programming of the game. The user is recording the output of the game which was created by somebody else. While the user has some control over the inputs to the game, that's not the same as them creating something new. There are many other factors that go into determining authorship, and whether any particular video is deemed "fair use" under copyright law.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Funny thing is I think that most of the videos are for profit thus need copy right permission, when you are for profit you have to get the license IMO.

No, that's not how it works.

Being for profit is not the only factor that determines copyright infringement. It is perfectly possible for derivative works that are non-profit to be infringing. It's also possible for derivative works that are for profit to be non-infringing.

There are four factor used in determining fair use under copyright law:

? the purpose and character of your use
? the nature of the copyrighted work
? the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
? the effect of the use upon the potential market.

So, it's not a simple matter of "profit" or "non-profit." In fact, if it were that simple, that would have terribly detrimental effects. Take TV comedy shows like Saturday Night Live, for example. SNL exists to make a profit, yet frequently parodies and satirises pop culture, including copyrighted material. If the simple fact that SNL exists for profit required them to license any material that they parody, they would basically be shut down, because very few of the publishers or artists being parodied would grant them a license to the material, because they don't want to be made fun of. This is an essential Freedom of Speech issue.

This is a pretty good resource for learning more about this quagmire:

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/

 

[DiMono]

Publishers really need to wrap their heads around the fact that having Let's Plays be freely available online serves to increase their sales by giving them free publicity. In today's world, it's all word-of-mouth that makes sales.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I think the best option would be to severely punish copyright holders who flag things falsely, make them hire people to troll through videos for copyrighted content.

I think that's in the realm of "be careful what you wish for" because that could seriously backfire. Copyright infringement doesn't just go one way. It's not always the big companies reporting infringement by smaller companies or individuals.

Often individuals, or small businesses, have their copyright infringed by larger companies. This is especially common with photographers, who are often self-employed or have very small businesses, but have their photographs used without permission by larger companies. These large companies have a lot more money and lawyers. So, if what you propose were to pass, it's highly likely that an authentic copyright claim by an individual photographer would get punished as a "false claim" by the courts, simply because the larger company has the legal firepower and resources to defend their actions.

So, in that case, the actual victim would be the one who is punished.

 

[JoJo]

I think the best option would be to severely punish copyright holders who flag things falsely, make them hire people to troll through videos for copyrighted content.

I think that's in the realm of "be careful what you wish for" because that could seriously backfire. Copyright infringement doesn't just go one way. It's not always the big companies reporting infringement by smaller companies or individuals.

Often individuals, or small businesses, have their copyright infringed by larger companies. This is especially common with photographers, who are often self-employed or have very small businesses, but have their photographs used without permission by larger companies. These large companies have a lot more money and lawyers. So, if what you propose were to pass, it's highly likely that an authentic copyright claim by an individual photographer would get punished as a "false claim" by the courts, simply because the larger company has the legal firepower and resources to defend their actions.

So, in that case, the actual victim would be the one who is punished.

Excuse me? You must have quoted the wrong person, I never said that...

 

[Danial]

That sound you hear is the sound of the people who own and run Blip doing Snow angels in money. No really, the worse YT gets the more people will just move to things like Blip.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Excuse me? You must have quoted the wrong person, I never said that...

Sorry, I just fixed that. It's The Escapist's weird forum software, where it keeps a buffer of previously-quoted text in the text-entry field. So in trimming the quotes, the wrong author was attributed, instead of Desert Punk who wrote that.

 

[LadyRhian]

The problem here is that the publishers want to have their cake and eat it too (never quite understood that figure of speech, but whatever)

It basically means that they want to consume their cake, but at the same time they want to physically have it in front of them.

Ah, so having the cake refers to still possessing it after they have consumed it? That makes sense, thank you

The actual original version was "eat your cake and have it." which makes it clearer. Just like "I couldn't care less" has morphed into "I could care less" which implies that you actually DO care, where as the first implies your caring=0.

The problem here is that the publishers want to have their cake and eat it too (never quite understood that figure of speech, but whatever)

It basically means that they want to consume their cake, but at the same time they want to physically have it in front of them.

Ah, so having the cake refers to still possessing it after they have consumed it? That makes sense, thank you

That saying would make a lot more sense if it was reversed... "They want to eat their cake, and have it too." which to my mind is much more clear. I wonder if some idiot messed it up in the retelling many many years ago, and it just stuck the way the idiot retold it.

Pretty much

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Guys, can we PLEASE get Jim into the oval office or something? Already a proven leader with millions of loyal viewers ready to vote him in, what's the holdup?

I would imagine that Jim not being born in the United States would be a significant holdup.

 

[Signa]

This is why we need games to be defined as art.

Can you define art?

Yes. Kinda. As nebulous as the definition is, art is always created from the need to express, create a product, or masturbate[footnote]figuratively speaking of course[/footnote]. Anything you already define as art will fall into any combination of those categories.

A paint company can not claim ownership of a painting that someone makes with their paints. The same should apply to games, as the video content created by a user was created by that user, and not the company that merely provided the tools and materials to create that video.

You're talking about very different things here. Defining games as "art" does not make art into a raw material like paint. In fact, defining it as art makes it much less so. Copyright was invented to protect the arts. So, I'm not sure how defining games as art somehow makes them immune from copyright claims. The fact that they are creative works is what gives them copyright protection in the first place.

A LP video is still a form or expression, and a bit of masturbation. They might be doing it in a playground of someone else' design, but the viewer of the LP will not have the same experience that the game maker built, packaged, and sold. At that point, it's a new piece of work; derived from another. And because of the nature of LPs, the new product will always be a lesser piece of work than the original, because the viewer will be unable to experience it in the way it was intended.

At the very least, if you want to claim infringement, then the original content creator needs to post their own LPs so that the current LPers are infringing on that property.