Post subject: The end of TASVideos, SDA, & LetsPlay in America?
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http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/29/trolling-the-stream-by-ultradavid/ In short, another bullshit copyright law is entering the Senate, and could put an end to streaming of video game footage. Before, we've been protected by the fact that Nintendo, Capcom, Sega, and etc don't care about streaming video game footage. However, this would no longer be the choice of the corporation to pursue legal action, but instead the choice of the United States Government Justice Department. Yeah.
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Lex
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This doesn't make any sense. Streaming video game footage is free advertising.
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Lex wrote:
This doesn't make any sense. Streaming video game footage is free advertising.
Doesn't matter, per this bill, it would be illegal.
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http://thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c112:./temp/~c1126GM9lc I took the liberty of finding the actual wording of the bill, which is posted online, rather than having it interpreted for me.
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I'm somehow sure the companies themselves will be against this. They're not that stupid, they know it's a part of the culture they've helped create and maintain, and this could turn what is essentially free advertising now into a major catastrophe for popular game sales, especially tournament-related ones.
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What would be the way out, if this piece of CENSORED is accepted?
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Yay for the land of freedoms! Isn't that it? How they call it today? How "trusted computing" means that your computer is doing things that you are not allowed to know what it does? How "our property", in Sony's words, means also things you have purchased? And so on. Sadly, these perverse "freedoms" are also eagerly adopted by european countries as well. I feel like today Finland is especially giddy to adopt all the harshest laws in name of Holy Copyright.
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I suppose TASvideos would have to be moved to a server outside the US.
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Keypress files would still be ok, AFAIK, but streaming video would be out. So, it would be like TASvideos took a time machine to 2008.
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I suspect not much will change at all as a result of this bill. The wording is still vague, and it is only whether the law actually gets tested in court will anything happen as a result of this. This will certainly hinder more than it helps, and I'm not surprised politicians are so out of touch with the modern video game scene when it comes to streaming. I certainly don't see need to raise panic on this site and SDAs either, or video LPs in general.
Lex
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
The site owner(s) should read the bill itself (as handily linked by Toothache) to determine whether it's actually a threat to the site or not. To me, it seems like things will be the same as they are now, with what we're doing technically being illegal but nobody complaining because they actually like the free advertising and entertainment. Edit: Toothache: Ha, didn't see your post before I finished writing mine.
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It's particularly because of the vague wording that it's alarming, and since there is no C&D buffer with criminal law, too much risk is involved. I guess the only way to know for sure would be actually asking competent lawyers or a representative of the USA's judicial system.
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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My guess is that this is intended to stop streaming of movies and TV shows -- the MPAA et al don't want to have to spend their own money playing whack-a-mole with YouTube uploaders, so instead they're getting the government to deal with it, by making it a criminal matter instead of a civil one. Videogames are just another casualty. Not that I think that it's a good idea even for that purpose.
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In regards to the SDA post:
the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially distributed
I hardly know anything about the law, but "copies that have not been commercially distributed" to me means that it makes broadcasting TASes a criminal offense because ROMs are copies that have not been commercially distributed and a TAS is a public demonstration of such a copy? I think this law really doesn't affect SDA or most other forms of public broadcasting of games though (nor would it affect console-verification movies). Then again, what do I know? In any case, for some strange reason this has caused me to write the following quite eccentric paragraphs that I'd now rather post than delete. You'd best ignore them. Are the new Dark Ages of the internet slowly approaching? Copyright is just too silly a law in our day and age imo. I know with it come huge benefits, but on the other hand it's just part of human nature to pass on interesting information, be it through language, the arts or the internet. It's precisely that aspect of our nature which has enabled us to rise from being simple hunters and gatherers all the way up, to the top of the animal kingdom. Restricting the population in that part of their natural behavior is authoritarian, it is undignifying and on the whole completely counterproductive to our further cultural development. History shows us that very evidently. History, that past generations have passed on to us in good faith, so that we can learn from it and avoid repeating their same mistakes. We must not ignore their wisdom, for it is to betray our deepest roots. We must not, under any circumstances, allow the rise of the new Dark Ages, and we must certainly not endure any form of censorship at all. I'd rather have this century be the end of the movie/music industry as it used to be than the elaboration of a new form of censorship. The notion that the owner of the material would completely lack the power to globally allow everybody to copy and use their work on top the copyright law that's already in place is just completely insane imo. How long is it going to be till our genetic information is owned by somebody else and we have to ask for their permission to pass it on? Well, that's probably going to be once the first genetic engineering companies are allowed to modify the genes of our children... Under the current circumstances, I am not certain at all whether my grandchildren will be the owners of their own DNA, whether they'll be able to freely choose their partners, whether they'll be able to freely choose their professions or if they'll be simply designated. That future frightens me... Any form of copyright restriction brings us one step closer to exactly that future. The only solution is to make the right to copy any form of information a fundamental human right. The only way to achieve that is to establish a global government of the people, not that of some powerful lobbyists. The only ones who are capable of doing that is us. The future is in our hands.
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If this is so crucial to TASvideos, why is it on the off topic section (just wondering)? I believe that this law won't pass, I don't think anyone is going to buy what the government thinks is bad, putting up too much rules in America (especially on copyright) would just take away the entire principle on the term "land of the free." In short: I hate the government! (Even though my grandfather was the governor of Utah :P)
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This shouldn't work for Canada, right? If not, I pray for the Americans.
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finally we'll be free of that stupid 'Let's Play' retardness
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I dont understand this
if you engage in “public performances by electronic means” 10 or more times over a 180 day period, and if either the total economic value of those performances exceeds $2500 or the cost of getting the copyright holder’s permission to perform exceeds $5000, then you can potentially get fined and put in jail for 5 years
In that article DK provided they say its the current state of their bill, this doesnt concern any of our activity, i think this is a problem for streaming sites making money from advertising with our videos, but surely nobody on our site (or sda...) is making out 2500$ from 10 videos in 3 months, this is absurd, youtube might make money but i doubt they make much from streaming tas or speedruns, but that doesnt matter anyway, since we all earn 0$ from those activity, we wont go to jail then. So yeah LP retardness can keep going, but people like the nerd ect... are probly a bit worried by this.
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arukAdo YT shows advertisments only on copyrighted material, for example our TAS of Contra, that belongs to Konami, but if the owner isn't YT's partner, nothing happens.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Ok thx, but how this concern us anyway ? who made 2500$ from tasing, lping or sdaing ?...? aside from youtube, or the nerd (lets assume he have a concept near LP). Edit: while looking quickly the sda link, they are eventually concerned with "raising" fund, technically maybe its right, theres a easy solution tho, they could have a seperate fundation or whatever alike, either way, we are nowhere concerned by this, i think the grand total revenue for tasvideos.org is 0$, including taxes.
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Well, this sucks. I honestly think that over 50% of the videos on youtube are videogame related, and over 60% of the community are gamers! If this "law" gets passed, youtube's gunna suck. No-one will go there anymore, and well, they'll realise the huge mistake they made.
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it is a bit surprising that videogame content is allowed to be uploaded, since movies are not allowed. the best would be of course if everything could be uploaded. then people could just go to youtube when they want to see a new movie, and tons of resources and time wouldn't have to be wasted on creating blu ray discs and stuff like that.
Kuwaga wrote:
The only solution is to make the right to copy any form of information a fundamental human right.
but if it's a human right, then if someone makes a movie, like ghostbusters 3, i could just copy that and make money of that, or i could upload it to youtube, so that millions of people watch it, and the producers then make less money, so that they might even lose money by making the movie.
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I'm sorry you decided to read my post. I was having a light fever when I wrote it, so I'm not sure if you should take it too seriously. The movie industry could still make money off advertisments / product placement they've decided to put in. They could also make money off voluntary donations that fans make (f.e. buying the product even though they could get it for free) in hopes of them producing another awesome movie. If you watch it in the cinema you get a unique experience and if you buy the original DVD you get a neat shiny box and maybe a little gimmick, so there's still motivation for that. Some of the most loyal donators could get selected at random and get some very special benefits, there are many possibilites.