well that's par for the course whenever a shitshow-ran government is about to end for them to pass crazy shit laws before the "good" times come to an end
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Goodbye Streaming (streamers could face jail time over DMCA)
- Thread starter ScatheZombie
- Start date
These are pretty bad, but are targeted at services and not individuals at all so I don't understand the "my streamer is going to jail" thing.
Yeah, this was already proposed a decade ago by none other than Amy Klobuchar. And it was even worse back then.
Because places like YouTube and Twitch have shown with their current copyright claim systems that they may not necessarily care about differentiating the two. I've read that there's a very good chance implementing this policy will cause it to be applied to everyone regardless
They literally have no way of differentiating between the two. Their tools are broken, have never worked, and always punish the little guy while letting the offenders get off scott free.
OP
OP
Something else to consider about DMCA abuse...
The CASE Act - also in the bill - expands DMCA to include monetary damage claims as well (up to $15,000 per work, and $30,000 total per claim). Effectively opening up DMCA strikes to small claims court.
Think it's more like they don't care about our opinion on this. There's no wealthy ResetEra lobby.
10 years jail time for a second offense what the fuck.
Absolute clown show lunacy.
But at least the megacorps are happy.
Meanwhile billionaires and their shit companies are ruining the environment, use slave labor, avoid millions in taxes and they get off with a big ol slap on the wrist. Tisk, tisk.
Absolute clown show lunacy.
But at least the megacorps are happy.
Meanwhile billionaires and their shit companies are ruining the environment, use slave labor, avoid millions in taxes and they get off with a big ol slap on the wrist. Tisk, tisk.
Oh yeah I'm sure they'll listen in the 6 hours or so before this bill comes to a vote.
Those websites policies and their shittiness is the fault of these websites. There are other ways to process these claims, but these websites are shit. And again I never said this wasn't bad, I just said that individual streamers on a services are likely not going to go to jail for this.
As a Canadian who has no idea how US taxes work, and as somebody who's not a streamer, would this have anything to do with taxes? Are full-time streamers not paying equal taxes or something? There has to be some bullshit underlying thing at play for this to get passed. I can imagine some older US congressman saying "they don't pay for music AND they don't pay equal taxes!?!? Send them to jail!"
Just because something is specifically targeted at something doesnt mean it wont affect it.
So damn depressing that our members of congress continue to play the politics game and shove unrelated garbage into these COVID relief bills to continue a political gridlock that is literally causing people to lose their homes, income, and even their LIVES. Absolutely disgusting. They aren't even trying to hide the fact that they give absolutely zero fucks about anybody anymore. Garbage people; the lot of them.
Especially when the terms are incredibly broad. Can't wait for Twitch and Youtube and Google to start giving a shit and actually doing something, but they won't fucking care in the end. They never care.
Also, curious, this was introduced by the Senate right? Wouldn't this have to be approved by the House, or did the House approve of this bill too?
They likely just got lobbied by the movie industry to increase punishment for streaming movies.
If you want extra motivation for the GOP... well having a felony means you can't vote in America, so you could use a law like this to target people you know will vote Dem (which won't be hard to tell with a lot of streamers), slap them with charges, and make it so they can't vote anymore.
You do realize some game streamers use music playlists depending of the games they play ? As some players do on their own ?
While the intent of this isn't to go after individual streamers, there are two aspects that are a concern:
1. Laws like this almost always end up being used against the most vulnerable. Maybe not right away. But down the line as long as it stays on the books it becomes more and more likely to be used against individuals. Why? Because they can't fight back. Whatever agency is charged with enforcing copyright law knows that the bigger, richer, and more powerful the target, the less likely the conviction. And the smaller and poorer they are, the more likely you use a law like this to "set an example."
2. Even if this is rarely enforced, it could lead to companies like Twitch and YouTube drastically changing what they allow to be streamed. Any mega corp is going to have their attorneys evaluate the risk of new legislation. And those attorneys like to think in worst case scenario terms. It's not impossible for them to decide that they'll only allow games that have granted a blanket license to the service for streaming, and thousands of games could end up on a banned list that's indiscriminately enforced by algorithm.
1. Laws like this almost always end up being used against the most vulnerable. Maybe not right away. But down the line as long as it stays on the books it becomes more and more likely to be used against individuals. Why? Because they can't fight back. Whatever agency is charged with enforcing copyright law knows that the bigger, richer, and more powerful the target, the less likely the conviction. And the smaller and poorer they are, the more likely you use a law like this to "set an example."
2. Even if this is rarely enforced, it could lead to companies like Twitch and YouTube drastically changing what they allow to be streamed. Any mega corp is going to have their attorneys evaluate the risk of new legislation. And those attorneys like to think in worst case scenario terms. It's not impossible for them to decide that they'll only allow games that have granted a blanket license to the service for streaming, and thousands of games could end up on a banned list that's indiscriminately enforced by algorithm.
It's beyond even that. They don't own the game they're streaming. If they're making money in the stream, for example from twitch subs, they're felons.
The internal crackdown on streaming sites will be nuclear, and possibly the only streamers who survive will be the ones who become contractors for the company in question, and then they can only stream that company's games, limiting their stream's appeal unless that one game was their focus, like if they were streaming only fort nite or Minecraft.
OP
OP
There's a possibility that both companies actually want this to happen because...
There's still going to be Youtube videos and Twitch streams - but only from content creators that have acquired 'approval' from copyright holders to stream/make videos based on their content. So, huge content creators or streamers will likely be fine. Paid promotions will be everywhere. And you'll get a lot less 'critical' channels and more 'marketing in disguise' channels.
But the small guys probably won't have the revenue or community reach to maintain their channels. And, in reality, a lot of these smaller streamers/youtubers actually cost these companies money. This was one of the major problems with Microsoft's Mixer. They had millions of people making content ... and no one watching it to generate revenue.
In theory, these proposals will give legal reason for these services to cull anything that isn't driving profit. Also making it basically impossible for small streamers/content creators to exist in the same way they do right now and for new streamers/content creators to get started.
Who's they? Are you talking about websites like YouTube? Those places aren't literally applying the law, their policies are them coming up with the laziest way to deal with copyright claims. And they don't throw people into jail or fine them.
The problem is this is tied into the stimulus bill and the democrats literally can't say "we won't sign this with this in here" because people are literally starving in breadlines.
This is all going to pass. The copyright stuff, the 500 milliion to isreali programs, the potential jail time for offenders...it's happening.
Yes, the platforms using contentID or their internal algorithms to ineffectively flag and strike, then pass that info along to the legal powers that be. Those tools don't work and they CERTAINLY don't actually harm major offenders. And now jailtime is linked to those same tools.
Buckle up kids, 2021 is going to suck.
Right, basically freezing western content streaming into a crystalline shape. The moment all this happens, streaming's days go from ??? to knowing how many number places there are.
Thats what soundtrack for twitch is for. Or you pay for licensed music.
There's literally no way that this won't affect streamers. Of course it's going to. That's how this type of law always ends up, hurting the most vulnerable.
But jail time isn't linked to those tools. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of these websites, their policies and their relation to the law.
The below is likely the real problem here and the thing we should actually be scared for.
I think the real question is, what happens when game publishers decide they want to start pushing back on streamers because of things like, oh, I don't know, glaring issues with the game being shown off within the first week of sales, and suddenly game licensing becomes necessary, but is an impossible thing for regular people to get?
Audio licensing is one thing, but this basically opens the door for copyright holders to threaten people with jailtime for talking bad about their product
We're literally talking about the same thing, only I'm talking about the methods and the means while you're talking about the final steps.
Regardless, it means that streaming is too much of a liability for most average people to do. Which is the point I suppose. I can't think of a better way to silence a platform that only the young deal with than through jilted copyright schemes attached to a bill that MUST pass because people are literally starving to death.
Yeah i guess but paying for licensed music doesn't really stop the bots for flagging a channel anyway. Herman Li being banned for playing his own music kinda proves the point.
And even then, small streamers that would wish to have "better" music playing might not have the funds to buy the license. And that's assuming buying a license actually worked to avoid DMCA, wich it doesn't. It's just a "get out of jail card" no negociate with Twitch when you get banned.
It's not just licensee music. People have gotten DMCA notices for outside sounds like an ambulance going by. Also who knows what songs are in video games.
You forget Amazon also has Amazon Prime video. They have a dog in the copyright fight and could easily just rebrand Twitch as a lifestyle streaming website or something.
They don't have the option for paying for licensed music. Music streamers have tried. Twitch has to acquire rights.
And that's also assuming that a bad actor doesn't do something like try to claim some royalty free music in order to make a quick buck. I got a copyright strike on one my videos because a shell company in dubai laid a claim for gunshot sounds that were open source. I challenged it, video went down for 30 days, they did nothing and then it went back up.
Now you're saying that people want to attach possible jail time on a system that broken? Naw man. A lot of people out there can't take that risk and the platforms themselves definitely don't want to spend the money to change the tools to make sure this doesn't happen.
If this goes through, which it likely will, expect amazon to sell twitch for pennies on the dollar and for that great experiment to be OVER.
Or you would eventually get a streaming platform in the EU.
If I had to guess, EU probably has their own version of this in the works. Governments are regional. Super corporations are not.
I have never once decided to "watch" a game rather than buy it. But I cant even count the number of times ive watched someone stream a game and that caused me to go out and purchase it myself. If they really think the people from the latter are larger than the former, theyve got a rude awakening coming.
With the Democrats promising to decriminalize marijuana, the Republicans need something new to funnel minorities into for-profit prisons.
Unfortunately, many in government do not really care about the people they represent. Doesn't matter the party, there are snakes everywhere in government. I guarentee you too, that they love the nation to be divided, since they can continue to test how they can abuse the power they hold, as people are distracted. Think we all are pretty sick of it.
Oh I don't know about that.
The only reason why I ever played Skyrim was because I watched Greg Kasavin play it on giant bomb 8 years ago. Bought that game...3 times. Streaming is just the evolution of word of mouth, there are very tangible bylines between streaming and increased game sales, especially with smaller titles. It's one of the reasons why Atlus not wanting their games streamed is so maddening to me; You definitely need to expose people to that game if you want to garner interest in it, especially if you're trying to grab people who may not be JRPG fans. Tossing your product into the void and saying, "here it is, go get it" doesn't sell units. It never has. People need coverage, and the best place to get coverage these days, is via streamers.
But I'm sure someone who's paycheck depends on multimillion dollar deals and exclusive timed ad copy shown only during the NBA finals halftime show would argue otherwise.
Regardless, this doesn't really have much to do with the idea that this proposal places pretty much all of the power in the hands of publishers with a boogieman attached that's too scary to ignore.
I mean...you're not INcorrect...
