Senator Amy Klobuchar has introduced a bill S. 978, which would make it a criminal act to post movie clips or video of games online. This includes videos that are not downloadable and that are simply video clips of you taping what is happening on your own TV screen.
This has particularly enraged gamers as online walkthroughs or instructions to unlock achievements in a video game would become illegal. This means no more Youtubing how to defeat Nazi Zombies or how to unlock the sweetest gun in Halo.
Perhaps the worst part of the bill can be summed up from this paragraph of the story:
Critics of the bill believe that it could create extensive "gray areas" in the law, empowering prosecutors with huge amounts of discretion to target Web Sites, indiviudal internet users, or even entire video platforms like Youtube or Vimeo.
Although the story does not go as far to call this bill an assault on free speech or a shifty tactic to enforce the intellectual property racket, I will. Is it really a criminal act to tape how you managed to beat a level in a game and post it online? Or to put a funny clip of South Park online that people can watch?
Of course not, but it is a new way corporations have found in collusion with the state to make money off of unsuspecting people. IP law is something that is largely accepted in the left and right circles but is something that is still debated amongst libertarians. Here is a good article from Mises that is worth reading on the matter.
IP law has managed to creep its way into many things in our society including our food, but I suspect that this bill will garner more resistance from the gamer community once it goes viral.
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Once again, a senator will introduce a bill, with this lame inflated balloon remark. "I think this, because it is bad, and it should be illegal (compromise is illegal, too)."
No senator should be able to make this a law, because it is not the federal government's job (nor business) to make youtube's rules.
If you grant the power to do it once, then you leave quoteable material when someone in power tries to do it again, and again, and again, untill lolcats are illegal because of improper grammar and the lible that I am writing now is prosecutable.
I think something like this went around already on video game sites. Still, any time this occurs, it is still really bad, for it pretty much gives an opening, or at least weakening the walls, for government intrusion.
I just read the bill. It's a pretty quick read and it ain't a big deal. It only pertains if, "the economic value of such performances would exceed $2,500" or the value that the content owner could have gotten for the "public performances" are "over $5,000". On top of that, there are already plenty of exceptions that would count towards uploading a video of you beating a level.
You showing off a video game isn't harming the publisher, and it definitely ain't harming it in the $2,500-$5,000 range. If anything, it's advertising the game and would help. The game company would have a hard case to proove there was any harm done.
You playing the game is actually a performance, so there's an argument to be made that you are the copyright holder of your in-game actions. You've also made the video, so you own the mechanical rights too.
Really, its no BFD. Read the bill. It's 3 tripple spaced pages: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s978rs/pdf/BILLS-112s978rs.pdf
Really great post, I can see where your coming from and glad gamers are doing something to sort it out.