Very bad news for video creators.. :/

[TB_InuYasha_X]

“Trolling the Stream” (Be Jailed for Streaming?) by UltraDavid

by Keits on June 29th, 2011 at 6:27 pm

David “UltraDavid” Graham (for Shoryuken.com) explains why, if bill S.978 passes, you could be jailed for streaming video games, or even uploading them to youtube;

The United States Senate is in the process of considering bill S.978, a bill “To amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright,” or as you might know it, the Anti-Streaming Bill. There’s been some discussion about what it really means and how it would affect stuff we care about, so I’d like to clear everything up. To be blunt, if passed it would pretty significantly reconfigure American copyright law in ways that could honestly really hurt internet culture in general and our video game communities specifically.

So what does it do? Its stated purpose is to attack the online streaming of copyrighted works, specifically films and live television. It tries to do this by criminalizing some electronically transmitted (read: internet) public performances of copyrighted works.

. . .

According to the bill as it’s currently written, 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. Jail. FIVE YEARS.

Just to hit you over the head with this, that means that if you stream a game like Street Fighter 4 or Starcraft 2 (or a movie or a song etc) only 10 or more times in a full half year, and if you make a bit of money doing it, you either need to have a license from Capcom or Blizzard etc or you risk going to jail.

Amusingly slash horrifyingly enough, it gets worse. The wording of this bill is so vague that “performance” could count for a crap-ton of what we who understand the internet would consider very different things. The offense is defined super broadly: “public performance by electronic means.” That includes live streaming of copyrighted audiovisual works, of course, but it almost certainly also includes recorded YouTube videos of copyrighted audiovisual works, whether they be match vids, game footage/live shot hybrids, movies, TV shows, music, and so on. Going off other legal precedent, it might even cover embedding an infringing YouTube vid and videos of kids lip syncing to music.

In essence, a bill intended to limit the unauthorized live streaming of films and TV could result in potential jail time for a lot of people doing very different things. While the bill’s sponsors might not have known how wide-ranging its effect could be at first, they’ve been confronted with that since the text was released and they show no signs of pulling it back.

. . .

Because almost every use of an audiovisual work online can be considered a public performance, this might drastically change how people behave online. No longer is the penalty for uploading infringing videos just getting shut down or having to pay the copyright owner. If the vids become popular, you might go to jail.

. . .

When I was writing this, one of my friends said, “Dude, but like, you’re a lawyer who practices this exact kind of law. Aren’t you like totally stoked that pretty much every streamer and uploader ever is gonna need to pay you to get all licenses and stuff for them from Capcom and Blizzard and Microsoft and all that?” No, that would suck. Would I trade the viability of my community for some dollars? EAD.

I think a good chunk of what this is about is just the old guard not understanding what’s happening nowadays. Technology like free, instant, and relatively simple mass streaming or uploading by anyone to infinite viewers all over the world is just… really new. And I think the entertainment industry has no idea how to approach that, so instead of taking advantage of it themselves, they’d rather make sure everyone else has a hard time coming in instead.

. . .

Even worse, the people in government are so clueless as to how to approach all this that they’re letting themselves get run over by an old industry attempting to destroy or seriously harm the development of newer technologically literate communities. They have no thought for how copyright owners can benefit from streamers rebroadcasting live TV, usually complete with ads and all, to people who don’t have TV and otherwise wouldn’t be able to see the content or the ads. They don’t consider how video game community streamers, casters, and uploaders are making games more popular and valuable, or how they’re filling vacuums of competition and entertainment that the older entertainment companies are simply incapable of filling themselves. They just have this knee-jerk, 2nd millennium theory of copyright and ownership that reacts very negatively to any loss of control.

. . .

Tl;dr: This is not a good look. I don’t know how to yell loud enough to the government that this is a huge mistake, but man, I really feel like we have to try. [Editor's Note: Head over to Demand Progress to make your voice heard in just one click, you lazy bum]

Read full article and more at:

http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/29/trol...by-ultradavid/

I was not sure if this was posted up here or not, but I figured I would spread the news.. I'm not sure how many websites will be effected from this, but its complete and utter trash. x_x;

[SenorToucan]

Wow, this is so stupid. If anything, these streamers are selling more copies of games. ><

[TB_InuYasha_X]

Wow, this is so stupid. If anything, these streamers are selling more copies of games. ><

That's exactly what I'm saying, we are giving the games spotlight and making more people interested. x.x;

[G Bass]

Wow, this is so stupid. If anything, these streamers are selling more copies of games. ><

i agree with this. gameplay videos have made me impulse buy a bunch of games, which i've enjoyed thoroughly, as well as help me decide about buying games when i'm on the fence.

[JU4N4K4JT]

what the f!@#k man this is a huge load im tired of this government and politicians think they can control everything internet is freedom the internet was created to share and expand to make conections granted we are kinde stealing when we download copyrighted stuff but we add to the popularity we coment and make new people into fans still these douche bags are just trying to control us any way they can