Monday, October 26th 2020
Google Distances Itself From Alex Hutchinson's Game Streaming Royalty Comments
The recent comments from Google Stadia Montreal Creative Director Alex Hutchinson regarding game streaming revenue sharing have generated significant public backlash from consumers and developers alike. The Creative Director suggested that game streamers should have to purchase a commercial license or pay royalties to game developers in return for streaming their games. These comments were quickly associated with Google Stadia by the community which has prompted Google to issue a statement distancing themselves from Alex Hutchinson's comments. Alex Hutchinson's Twitter bio has also been updated to reflect that all opinions are his own.
Sources:
Google, Alex Hutchinson
GoogleThe recent tweets by Alex Hutchinson, creative director at the Montreal Studio of Stadia Games and Entertainment, do not reflect those of Stadia, YouTube or Google.
91 Comments on Google Distances Itself From Alex Hutchinson's Game Streaming Royalty Comments
Streamers are using content to create revenue.
If they can get away with it, then music also should be royalty free.
Charging streamers bring in very little money compare to the money generated from the surplus of players.
So yeah, charging streamer --> shooting yourself in the head.
Google is just taking a stand cause it be likely them paying the bill.
If any game developer establish such anti consumer act, they will literally be dead within a few months, Warcraft 3 Reforged ring any bell ?
Google realized this too so they just stay the hell away from this guy's opinion :D, though Stadia is pretty much dead already.
Eventually it will be treated as rebroadcasting licensing if it gets big enough.
Mr. Hutchinson expressed a VERY, pathetically, narrowminded point of view that has absolutely no merit in the real world. He and people like him need to pull their head out of their bum and see the bigger picture. Things are perfectly fine exactly the way they are.It really does.This is why backups are so important.I'm sure if you went looking you could find them. The keys you paid for are what make the use of the game legit, not the installer.Yes, opinions he should keep to himself.
www.goliath.com/music/10-musicians-who-are-pro-music-piracy/
Anyways, I've never seen a single gaming stream in my life so I don't really care. I am too old for that I guess, I read about these things like game streamers on Twich and other people earning their income via their YouTube channels. But I really have no time nor intrest in that kind of stuff. I don't watch tv either.
As I said, I read about this stuff. I do find it interesting from a meta point of view. I don't care about streamers, neither about who they are and what they do. But I really find it interesting how media is changing and what the impacts of these changes on society are.
When we watch someone use software, we're not using something, we're watching someone use something they own. Does a drummer have to play the amp manufacture when they stream a drum solo? And a channel like The Lockpicking Lawer is not too dissimilar from a gameplay video. Imagine Alex's arguement with the 'gameplay' being a software tutorial.
One way I can see the IP holder having a potentially binding argument is if they put it in the terms and conditions of their license. But they would have too be careful in how tight they squeeze, as it could be like a non-compete agreement i.e. hard to win in court. And there's big money on the opposing side in this situation, not just some terminated invividual. Hum, in thinking further, setting aside copyright, perhaps they may have an argument on the trademark side. That could be interesting. I'd get the popcorn out for that sort of civil suit.
When it comes down to it, ultimately we are at the mercy of Google, Facebook, Twitch, et al. in that whatever they decide to do will stomp on the content creators e.g. like Youtube approach to China Uncensored.
The only real difference I see from traditionally licenced media - which admittedly is a major one - is that unlike a piece of music, literature, film, TV, etc., each playthrough of a game is a specific realization of the (near infinite) possible playings of that game. Or put more simply, the game we see played on a stream isn't the product of the developer alone, but rather a collaborative effort between (among others) the developer and the streamer, and removing either from the relation would make the thing in question (a game stream) impossible. Traditional media are open for interpretation, can be presented and realized in many ways, and are of course affected by the medium through which they are experienced, but they still have a somewhat fixed form, while claiming the same for a game is much more difficult. This could at least be an argument for lower royalties compared to more fixed media like music where the effort is more centered around the creator.
(Of course music royalties are massively skewed towards record labels, and artists get far less than they should, but that's another debate entirely.)
IMO, game developers should form a rightsholder organization similar to what record labels have and start demanding royalties from streaming platforms. But these need to be reasonable, and they need to differentiate between ... let's call it commercial and hobbyist streaming (as well as similar distinctions for other fair use exemptions such as analysis or criticism). Hobbyists making little to no money off their work should obviously not need to pay royalties for streaming games, nor should reviewers, critics, people doing content analysis, or anyone else whose use of the game falls outside of what could be termed "professional streaming". And this would obviously need to not be policed by bots, as we all know what a recipe for disaster that kind of system is.
The flip side to this argument though is that companies should pay us (consumers) for mining our data & selling it like a commodity!
Devs/pubs don't get to have their cake and eat it too. If they want royalties, then they also have the obligation to pay for the advertising they get, on a per user/viewer basis, that results from streaming sessions. But as @Dredi stated above, streaming is a transformative activity and falls under the umbrella of fair use. Claims of royalties are therefore not applicable.
As for whether their obligation ends at the point of purchase: again, that depends on the nature of the purchase. Any game purchase - just like the purchase of any media product - gives you a licence to use it for private, non-profit uses. The same goes if you buy a CD, LP or FLAC file (or movie, TV show, etc.). If you want to play it in public (including on a stream), you need to pay a different license fee for public presentations, which are not covered by the standard private license.
That license is what fair use grants exemptions from for critical, educational, analytical and artistic uses. One could argue that the streamer is a performer that simply uses the game as a prop in their performance, and that is true to some extent, but it is the central prop without which the activity in question would be impossible (you can't stream a game without a game to stream), and that nonetheless doesn't grant exemption from the need to license the work for public presentation. If you use a piece of music in your theatre production, you still need to license it for public presentation, even if the context dramatically alters the perception of the music, if you remix it, if you only play parts of it, etc.
As I said: there are many good arguments for reforming our current licensing system for media, but scrapping it outright and making everything a free-for-all under the umbrella of "but it's free advertising!" is a cop-out that is ultimatiely nothing more than a raised middle finger towards artists everywhere.