Ultra David's article on the new streaming law

[D Moralize]

Some of you may remember a couple months ago hearing about a rumor that would make it illegal to stream copyrighted works, the shooter scene dismissed it as not affecting us but Ultra David, the resident lawyer from the fighting game scene posted an article over on shoryuken.com that explains exactly what this law could mean (Jail time from youtube uploads). The link to the article is here (http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/29/trolling-the-stream-by-ultradavid/) and in the article there is a link to a petition you can sign to tell congress that this law should not pass. Here is the link to that site. (http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/ten_strikes?akid=700.450896.5hVZPC&rd=1&t=1) Like he says in the article it may be a long shot that you will actually get prosecuted for something like this, but without licenses many people will be scared to upload videos or stream and our content flow will be severely slowed, similarly if people that are big streamers like TLN or Team Spooky or something like that can't get a license then they are risking an entire business by continuing to stream, and they will be a bigger dot on the radar than the average person. Discuss.

[gwhit518]

i think this has a bit to do with the whole "video games cause violence" agruement rather than any copyright claims. I mean we are essentially free advertising for companies like Activision and other independent game studios. I mean the first thing I do before buying a game is go to youtube and justin.tv and watch some gameplay and get a few opinions. Congress may have got wind that kids may be watching streams/ youtube videos of particular M games that maybe their parents didnt approve of. Personally Im pretty disappointed in my goverment that they are more worried about a bunch of kids playing video games than the war we are currently fighting or the econonmy thats been in the shitter for about 2 years now. Step up your game congress.

[MrChaosTheory]

This is almost laughable, I feel sorry for you guys.

I can see the tinyest reasoning behind it, however the reasoning I can see is because of larger organisations. Most of which already have agreements with the developers of the works.

So the basis of this is to prohibite the smaller streamers and youtubers, most of which are making "nickels and dimes" as you Americans would say...:P

It would be interesting to know if this bill has been in anyway supported by games development studios and other entertainment studios, otherwise seems like a bunch of out of touch congressmen and woman passing a bill on something they quite clearly have no clue about.

You could all move to the UK, we have some tea and the NHS. Not to mention you can stream, although all of you under my roof may get a little crowded.

[Eclipse]

I feel what would happen is proxy servers would become more popular to stream through if this were to happen. The us can not stop some one strwming in "another" country.

[Araneatrox]

You are aware that an amendment has been made to this law?


That new offence is:
To wilfully breach copyright by performing a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network available to members of the public, when you knew, or should have known, that the work you were performing was intended for commercial distribution.
What’s more, � 506 goes on to clarify ‘being prepared for commercial distribution’ in Paragraph 3, and make clear that this only applies to works of which copies have not yet been distributed commercially, and which the copyright owner reasonably expects to begin distributing commercially in the future.
In other words:
Even IF streaming a gameplay video is considered by law to be ‘publicly performing’ the game, which is unclear, doing so would only be an offense under the amendments in bill S 978 RS if the game you were streaming videos of was a game that had NOT YET BEEN RELEASED, and which the copyright owners intended to sell commercially, and you didn’t have permission from them to stream videos of their pre-release game.
Let’s just repeat that so we’re clear what we’re all panicking about:
This is a law that might, if the term ‘performance’ is interpreted particularly broadly, criminalise the unauthorized posting of videos of PRE-RELEASE games. It would also make it a crime to leak copies of games onto the internet before they are released. That is the entire extent of its impact of gaming.
How is this going to destroy the gaming community, again?" - Exploding Cabbage, a poster at the bottom of the comments on the article's page.
Seems to me like not too many people read the whole thing / have any idea what they are talking about.
TL; DR: We are safe.

http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/id7pl/dear_screddit_no_need_to_overreact_to_the_s978/

[forefront]

I'm moving to Canada.

[SullyVan]

I'm moving to Canada.

Gets cold here bro but its awesome ;)

[D Moralize]

You are aware that an amendment has been made to this law?



http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/id7pl/dear_screddit_no_need_to_overreact_to_the_s978/

Im not sure if Ultra David was aware of this when he wrote the article or not, it surprises me though because I thought the purpose of the law was to stop people from streaming released movies and stuff that right now they have no control over.

[Letthe]

US and A failin' hard.

[D2theHass]

O Canada!
Our home and native land!

[MS eMeRaLd]

Bit daft really. They'd would have to throw almost everyone who has uploaded a video in jail.
I seriously doubt there is enough room to accommodate.

[D Moralize]

http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/30/tolling-the-stream-follow-up-ultradavid-responds/

David did a follow up that responds directly to that reddit link, and it seems like that poster was mistaken and this still does affect released work.