The Bill S.978 and What it can affect to the Smash Community

[Roneblaster]

change the thread name so people will actually want to look, please.

 

[Zef]

whatever
in order to prosecute you they actually have to come after you

yay canada

 

[crush]

Australia's pretty good too

 

[LLDL]

This bill does disturb me, but I'm not losing too much sleep over it. One issue that people brought up in discussion on other websites were as simple as people posting karaoke videos, or parties with music that just happened to be playing in the background. The truth is, millions of videos can, and are being uploaded to youtube daily, and there is no way to regulate this. It is only in their best interest when copyrighted music and videos is involved, which people ALREADY get penalized for. Chances are this won't impact smash too much. I would still write and sign petitions for it when they pop up, but I wouldn't worry about it too much after that.

 

[Sucumbio]

Given the fact that MLG has still yet to secure permission from Nintendo to live stream Brawl/Melee tournaments, and they own this site, you can bet that if the bill passes there will be no more posting of Youtube videos containing matches, combo vids, etc. and it may stand to reason that any currently existing threads that contain these videos would have to be purged.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Pretty sure we are easily covered under fair use still. The thing with fair use is simply worrying about a reproduction of an entire material, which the bill dealing with streaming would be able to finally cover in relation to songs/movies. However, it is pretty much impossible to reproduce even a small % of a video game with a stream.

 

[AltF4]

No, AlphaZealot. It's not "The Video Game" that's being illegally reproduced but rather the specific copyrighted characters therein.

If I made a video game where all it did was show the Mona Lisa at different angles depending on what buttons you pressed, streaming this game online would not infringe any copyright. Even though the software code of my game may be copyrighted. This is because the Mona Lisa is in the public domain (not copyrighted).

I do hate to sound nit-picky but it's an important distinction.

 

[Sucumbio]

Well yeah that's why I brought it up... if MLG isn't allowed to stream fights from tournaments, then theoretically SWF shouldn't be allowing its users to link to Youtube videos of matches under the same precept, no? I've assumed until now that it's gone unpunished by Nintendo because of the law's inability to specifically attack SWF's position, but with this new Bill, it seems as if Nintendo would have the grounds to demand SWF remove any Youtube links to fights.

 

[Impp]

What if we modded the character's/stages so they no longer resembled the copyrighted ones?

 

[AltF4]

Another excellent question. The short answer is Technically yes: that's okay. But probably no in practice.

The long answer is it depends on a great number of things. Including how litigious the company in question is feeling. An unfortunate truth about the US legal system is that the threat of a lawsuit is just as much a deterrent as an actual one. Whether or not what you're doing is legal is often irrelevant. If you are sued, you'll have to spend tens of thousands of dollars in court and legal costs to defend yourself. And if you win, all you'll do is clear your name.

This, for instance, is what happened to MLG. I would contend (and have asserted this to them behind metaphorical closed doors) that video game streams constitute Fair Use. Even ones for a for-profit company such as their selves. However, whether a judge would think the same is not clear. They could have gone ahead and streamed Brawl and gone into a possible lawsuit with Nintendo. (Nintendo could possibly have just been bluffing, not actually wanting to bring a suit.) But it's not financially intelligent to have done so. Thus a company is prevented from doing something (likely) legal from just the THREAT of a lawsuit.

The same will be true of your mod. It may very well have all copyrighted images removed. But if Nintendo sues you anyway, will you pay the tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees? Your only hope is for an organization such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation to defend you. (They do only pro bono work) The end result is that your mod is defacto-illegal.

Things like this are what make me an activist in the realm of technology and law.

 

[DJMirror]

I'm glad alot of people are starting to notice this issue

change the thread name so people will actually want to look, please.

what the title should be

 

[Xinc]

If you ask me, if this actually passes, then you could move to dailymotion (or veoh... *shudder*) if yt is risky...

This is real bull.

 

[LLDL]

Well that's just the thing, it would be unlawful to post gameplay videos on any website for that matter.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Would attaching something before/after videos specifically pointing to fair use of "education" or such be a work around?

Also, there needs to be a monitory impact of $2,500 (so either the person making the video needs to make >$2,500 of it, or the company has to show a loss of $2,500). Not sure any of our smash videos qualify, and I don't think SWF qualifies under that as the video's are not hosted by us nor are the main reason anyone comes here.

Well yeah that's why I brought it up... if MLG isn't allowed to stream fights from tournaments, then theoretically SWF shouldn't be allowing its users to link to Youtube videos of matches under the same precept, no? I've assumed until now that it's gone unpunished by Nintendo because of the law's inability to specifically attack SWF's position, but with this new Bill, it seems as if Nintendo would have the grounds to demand SWF remove any Youtube links to fights.

There is a difference though. MLG would be directly streaming through it's servers and hosting the content. Having a link that shoots you OFFSITE to youtube means you aren't viewing the content here/Smashboards isn't liable for it. It would be up to youtube to take the content down. Now, streaming through SWF would probably not work, but that functionality is already disabled for most users.

No, AlphaZealot. It's not "The Video Game" that's being illegally reproduced but rather the specific copyrighted characters therein.

I thought you can reproduce specific characters under fair use. Unless every single gaming review site in existence has been violating the law anytime a new game is released.

 

[Cero]

Hey! I don't know if you guys have seen this yet. Help oppose this **** too.

Thanks for urging your lawmakers to oppose Senator Klobuchar's legislation to criminalize video and audio streaming. Nearly 150,000 of you have taken action -- and yesterday we learned that the powers that be are stunned by the opposition and are considering killing the bill.

We need your help once again: Demand Progress has spent months fighting a piece of legislation that's even worse than the streaming bill. We've been calling it the Internet Blacklist Bill because it will drastically increase the government's power to censor the Internet.

Will you click here to urge your lawmakers to oppose the Internet Blacklist Bill? It'll only take a second.

PROTECT IP would give the government the power to force Internet service providers, search engines, and other "information location tools" to block users' access to sites that have been accused of copyright infringement -- the initiation of a China-style censorship regime here in the United States. It has already passed the Senate Judiciary Committee -- we need to act right away.

We need to fight back fast -- please click here to ask your lawmakers to oppose the Internet Blacklist Bill.

Thanks for fighting for Internet freedom.

-- The Demand Progress team

P.S. The bill has already passed the Senate Judiciary committee. We need to gear up as much opposition as possible. Will you urge your friends to take action too?

 

[DJMirror]

Well hopefully this bill doesn't pass and stuff. in the meantime, I'm grabbing videos while they're still up