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On Persona 5 and Streaming

In a move that seems to be testing the waters of what the community will accept, Atlus put strict limitations on what parts of Persona 5 people are allowed to stream or show on pre-recorded video: http://atlus.com/note-persona-5-streaming/ This, predictably, was met with loud outcry, especially since Atlus appeared to very openly threaten players of Persona 5: “If you decide to stream past 7/7 (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND NOT DOING THIS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED), you do so at the risk of being issued a content ID claim or worse, a channel strike/account suspension.“ This is another example of copyright rules being used to enforce an agenda that is meant to secure more profit for the game company. Of course, bad publicity might actually be bad for the bottom line, as well, so Atlus later apologized and loosened the restrictions: http://kotaku.com/atlus-apologizes-for-persona-5-streaming-restrictions-1794684386 However, some restrictions remain and the threat of using copyright claims to stop people from showing certain parts of the game is still looming.

This is especially interesting, because very strict restrictions on streaming and recording in the PS4 version of Persona 5 are even enforced through the system itself. The justifications put forth by Atlus are particularly noteworthy: their main aim is to prevent spoilers about the later parts of the game from leaking out. Obviously, they believe that if people know what happens in the game’s narrative, they will not buy the game (this may be shrouded in talk about protecting people from getting the game ruined for them, but obviously, if you are watching a Persona 5 stream, you are willing to have it spoiled for you). This is just another example of Japanese game developers being particularly keen on limiting what people can show on video. Obviously, this won’t stop spoilers from getting out, people can simply talk about the game, but it does severely limit what players can do when it comes to sharing their experience in video form. So the debate about copyright and gameplay videos continues.

#copyright #streaming #persona 5 #atlus

Streaming Video Games: Copyright Infringement or Protected Speech?

Eirik Evert Elias Jungar on the balance between copyright and freedom of speech in the most recent issue of the Press Start journal.

#copyright #livestreaming #video games #free speech #academic

To be expected, but also very unfortunate. Another example of how copyright does not actually foster the flourishing of cultures. I wonder if there will ever be a case where the creators of such a fan game are willing to try to argue that their remake is fair use. I have been arguing forever that the whole system is stacked against such an argument ever seeing the light of day, though.

Critical Distance, a fantastic site of curation and discussion of games writing, is currently holding a fundraiser and their next goal would allow them to do a regular curation column for Let’s Plays. With the countless hours of Let’s Plays being uploaded to YouTube and the like every day, a service like this is invaluable. Please think about pledging to their Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/critdistance

#fundraiser #video games #let's play #youtube #curator #games writing #games journalism

The EGDF's Jari-Pekka Kaleva anticipates a major legal hurdle

As absurd as the situation is, we should probably be even more troubled that we still need to fight to #savethelink. Politicians, the institutions, and , in the end, the law has trouble catching on to the second-to-last technological innovation, how could they anticipate things that are just around the corner. More interestingly, I think this also shows that we still need to have deeper discussions about our values when it comes to copyright (esp. if we want a European copyright law). It is not as easy to answer these questions, as it is to form an opinion in these absurd cases.

#copyright #pokemon #ethics #culture #savethelink

Samsung apparently doesn't see much humor in a Grand Theft Auto V mod that turns the recalled, hazardous Galaxy Note 7 into an in-game weapon. In fact, the company is trying to erase it from the...

This is just ridiculous. It has everything a good marketing disaster needs: Streisand effect (the mod is back in the news), pointlessness (there are dozens of videos), minimal effect (who was going to think less of Samsung because they saw these videos, anyway?), and bad publicity (Samsung looks petty, as if they cannot take a joke, and are shown to be willing to misuse any rules they can, if they think it could benefit them even a tiny bit).

#copyright #gaming #gtav #ContentID #samsung #note 7

As crazy as this election season has been, one of its weirder chain of events has been the sudden mainstream fame of Pepe the Frog…

Not directly related to video games, but I wrote a thing about Pepe the Frog, politics, and authorship.

#copyright #authorship #pepe the frog #meme

Throughout their short history, video games have posed challenges to intellectual property laws. This chapter explores how courts in the United States have str

A longer article by Greg Lastowka, this time on the history of copyright law and the legal system trying to grapple with the issues that interactivity in video games pose to the legal (and maybe even moral/cultural/social) conception of authorship. Well worth a read, if you are interested in digging a bit deeper. Orginally in the SAGE Handbook of Intellectual Property (2014).

#copyright #video games #law and culture #legal studies

IP lawyer Greg Lastowka looks at what Mojang has achieved with its massively popular game -- not just creatively, but in terms of shattering the boundaries between player and developer, and what that means in the current internet age.

This article by Greg Lastowka is from 2012, but it is still very relevant. The success of Minecraft (and of videos of Minecraft) brought out all of the, previously mostly theoretical, problems that copyright law faces, when it is applied to video games. It is very disheartening to look back at the changes Mojang has made to their Terms of Service over time, and especially now under the ownership of Microsoft. The latest limitation, disallowing “advertising” (whatever that can mean specifically) in “their game,” is just the most glaring example showing that they no longer follow the approach Lastowka outlines and praises here.

#copyright #video games #minecraft #intellectual property

The title may be an exaggeration (a pretty big one), but it is very cool to see people come together like this. It’s still ridiculous that this is necessary. Fair use might be an “affirmative defense” technically, but that makes it too easily disregarded by rights holders. A fund that would allow people to insist on their right might be a short-term solution (given that the fund reaches a size that would actually help in a significant number of cases), but we should not be satisfied with this patch.

Thank god for Jim Sterling, a game critic whose recent YouTube antics forced YouTube’s copyright system to eat itself alive. Here’s how he did it.

A great way of highlighting how ridiculous the ContentID system can be. It’s also pretty funny.

There should be a three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule for any individual or corporation that issues bogus DMCA takedown notices. From Torrent Freak: This week’s episode of Family Guy incl…

Unsurprising anecdote about the power traditional media companies still hold.

I've been sitting here this morning paralyzed at what to say in response to this... The last few months since we launched That Dragon, Cancer have been pretty incredible. The mainstream culture, the gamer culture, and others have all embraced our story and been willing to listen to our heart as we released a project that we spent more than three years on. They’re talking about Joel and sharing their own stories of loss and bringing comfort to each other. In every regard, the reach of our work continues to confound us. However, there is another side of this that I’ve been afraid to talk about in public. And that is this: our studio has not yet seen a single dollar from sales. That Dragon, Cancer was created by a studio of eight, and for many of us it was a full-time effort that involved thousands of hours of work. This huge effort required taking on investment, and we decided to pay off all of our debt as soon as possible. But we underestimated how many people would be satisfied with only watching the game instead of playing it themselves. And so yes, Let's Play person, I agree with you, it does suck to have someone else making revenue off your work. We paid Jon to create music for our game because we understand that he needs to be paid in order to spend time creating that music. If someone else uses his music without permission, we also believe he should have the right to determine the consequence. And if there is revenue being drawn from that use, we believe he should be compensated. We feel the Let’s Play culture adds value to this medium. And for games with more expansive or replayable gameplay, it can directly benefit developers. Even knowing that some who streamed our entire game refuse to directly encourage people to support us, we’ve still sat on the streams and talked with streamers and viewers. We’ve watched the playthrough videos and we see the value that this community is adding to our work through sharing themselves. Let’s Play culture is vibrant and creative and really cool. However, there is a flip side for the developers whose content you build your work on top of. Despite infringing on developers’ copyrights, it can especially benefit those who make competitive or sandbox games. However, for a short, relatively linear experience like ours, for millions of viewers, Let’s Play recordings of our content satisfy their interest and they never go on to interact with the game in the personal way that we intended for it to be experienced. If you compare the millions of views of the entirety of our game on YouTube to our sales as estimated on SteamSpy, you can hopefully see the disparity. We have seen many people post our entire game on YouTube with little to no commentary. We’ve seen people decompile our game and post our soundtrack on YouTube. We’ve also seen many, many Let’s Players post entire playthroughs of our game, posting links to all of their own social channels and all of their own merchandising and leaving out a link to our site. All of this to say, we have removed all of our Content ID’s from Jon’s music. If anybody received flags for ad revenue share, you should be able to reupload in a few days without the flag. We did not intend to make copyright claims or to force anyone to take down their videos, we simply intended for Jon to be able to draw some income from the original soundtrack to our game that he poured his heart into. All we are asking in return is that you honor our work, the work you build your livelihood on top of, and acknowledge that when you do it, there is a real cost to developers. For us, it costs us the ability to continue to share this game through translation into other languages and bringing it to new platforms, along with starting new projects. If a fraction of those who viewed a let’s play or twitch stream of our game left us a $1 tip on our website (less than the cost of renting a movie), we would have the available funds to continue to work and create for the benefit of the gaming and the Let’s Play community. We have allowed our content, the fruit of our sweat and our tears, to be used by Let’s Players and to your fans for free to create content with, and you are drawing a small amount of ad revenue from our content. We are asking that you return that favor by creating Let’s Play videos that don’t just rebroadcast the entirety of our content with minimal commentary, but instead use portions of our content as a context to share your own stories and start conversations with your viewers. We would encourage you to link to our site and directly encourage viewers to support our work financially through buying the game, or donating a dollar or two to our studio if they believe that what we did has value. This small act will allow us to continue to work. -Ryan and the Numinous Games team.

Very interesting read. I have argued for a while, that let’s plays of the entirety these kind of games (with what I call “closed” game systems) cannot be fair use. I have seen some discussion about this, but I don’t think there is a widespread feeling that these walkthrough videos are unfair to the creators of such narrative-focused games.

#copyright #video games #let's play #gameplay video #fair use

A new way of handling copyright claims

Unfortunately, I think this changes less than it seems. Still, it’s good to see Google pay some lip service to fair use protections. It still does not solve the fundamental problems of ContentID.

#copyright #contentid #fair use

Nintendo continues its long-running campaign of legal harassment against its biggest fans: this time, they’re targeting fan-videos showing gameplay from the official, licensed Mario/Minecraft…

This was bound to happen. Nintendo is well-known to be very protective and willing to take unpopular actions against streamers, youtubers etc. And Mojang is known for a very different attitude. Haven’t read anything about this being resolved, yet. I guess that’s not going to draw as many headlines.

#copyright #video games #minecraft #nintendo

'That doesn't feel right or, more importantly fun'

While I think that this is certainly good policy, I don’t agree that copyright is a good way of arguing that Mojang has this power. It does show that they are now more open to using this tool to control what players can and cannot do in Minecraft.

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