DrediOf course there is case law covering music copyrights. What hasn’t been tried in court is what constitutes as tranformative art in this context. Traditionally music copyrights are very strict.

I’m saying that youtube is very much willing to drop content without due process from it’s platform to please the companies it has partnered with to create yt music.

And it really should be obvious that there is extensive case law on what constitutes transformative use of music. Likely not specifically in regard to streaming or online video, but in fields that make the decisions also applicable to that. Which is what I was arguing against when you said

DrediThe gaming part has been tried in court, so that is definitely the case. Music hasn’t

I mean, I don't even know where to start with the absurdity of that statement.

silentbogoI highly doubt that. Over 60k copies sold - for a sad, epilepsy-inducing, badly voiced, niche game - that's more than good (that's just steam, not including >$100K backing from KS, and buyers from other platforms and OSes,or even failed Android port). I'm not sure what kind of sales they were expecting... mainstream doesn't buy "sad and depressing". And the ones that bought it, did it not really for the game itself, but for "emotional journey". Regardless of how many times they appear on game awards shows and how much media attention they get - if people aren't interested, they won't buy. That's a simple case of expecting more than deserving. Pretty sure without streamers and media attention that number would've been much-much lower.

And with that whole article - it's an opinion piece backed only by few words from a short interview of a single indie dev of a now defunct two-dude company (who's last game sold over 500k copies on PC alone, regardless of streaming arguments, btw). Just words, no facts, and very weak on arguments. E.g. who in their sane mind would compare any single-player title that costs any amount of money to the most popular AAA F2P multiplatform multiplayer game and based on this idiocy later suggest that this is an indicator of declining single player experience. And IGN are really confused as to why AAA studios and publishers focus on online games nowadays - it's not because SP is becoming less popular or in-demand, but because they can cling to rolling updates and DLC, and milk more cash off that singular cow. Better RoI, in other words.

1) So your opinion of a game is a definitive judgement on whether or not it can be seen as a good game, or whether it deserves to sell? I know that you're trying to not say that, but you are failing at it. The first sentence of your post is essentially "hey, their game sucks and they sold more than I think they deserve to, they should stop complaining". Not only are you placing yourself as some sort of arbiter of what is a "good game", but the attitude you're expressing towards smaller developers is pretty terrible.
2) Speaking of "opinion [...] just words, no facts, and very weak on arguments" - your post above definitely qualifies. I mean, sad and depressing media don't sell? Have you heard of country music? Ballads? Romance novels? Romeo and Juliet? Titanic? Just like horror films are immensely popular, so are heaps of media genres where the main focus is intense feelings of loss, sorrow, etc.
3) You're casually grouping "streamers and media attention" as if it were the same thing. Isn't this entire discussion about how streaming differs from other forms of media?
4) You're essentially mistaking absence of evidence with evidence of absence. It is utterly impossible to reliably test the effect of these things - you can't do a blind a/b test of releasing and marketing a game, can you? As such, logically any evidence that streaming is hurting sales for anyone means that it happens - it obviously doesn't tell us the scale of the issue, but again, that would be impossible to actually study in any reliable manner. We have (though imperfect, the best available kind of) proof that a relatively high profile indie game saw evidence of lost sales due to streaming. What, then, about lower profile games, that don't get asked for quotes by the media, or don't have the reach to get any kind of publicity?
5) In extension of that, you are essentially arguing that we should accept an imperfect system because someone wins within that system, despite that being largely down to chance and connections. Is that really the gaming industry you want? It sure isn't the one I want.

I never said that that IGN article was great, nor that I agreed with its main points around SP games being a lower priority for AAA studios, I posted it as a source for what I said previously about some developers seeing lost sales due to streaming. There's been a decent resurgence in SP games since 2018 too. As to the rest of that "hey, making money is obviously the only goal anyone cares about" rant ... that's on you. I still have more hope for humanity than that.

DrediWhat hasn’t been tried in court is what constitutes as transformative art in this context.

Not true at all. While I'm not going to cite specific cases, similar forms of transmitted entertainment have already been ruled transformative and therefore protected. Streaming falls right in line with those rulings. Whether you transmit over the internet or over the air to TV's is irrelevant to the premise and judgment of those court rulings.

ValantarNo, but you were essentially arguing that this is how the law works, so we should give up on debating if that is how the law ought to work.

No, not at all. I'm responding to the claims in this thread that there is legal ambiguity, which there is not.

All laws should be subject to scrutiny.

lexluthermiesterNot true at all. While I'm not going to cite specific cases, similar forms of transmitted entertainment have already been ruled transformative and therefore protected. Streaming falls right in line with those rulings. Whether you transmit over the internet or over the air to TV's is irrelevant to the premise and judgment of those court rulings.

I’m looking at this from my local point of view (eu/fin). In here that hasn’t been tried in court yet, but maybe it has in the states. It would make sense for the bar for transformative art to be pretty low in this case.

I should have been more clear in my messaging about the international context.

A thought crossed my mind -- by Alex's argument, beyond just streaming, there's an IP violation for someone simply looking over your shoulder.

DrCRA thought crossed my mind -- by Alex's argument, beyond just streaming, there's an IP violation for someone simply looking over your shoulder.

No there isn't.
Public performance is the issue, not private use where someone may be watching also.

Caring1No there isn't.
Public performance is the issue, not private use where someone may be watching also.

My thinking is less me playing on the living room TV and more along the lines of playing in a cyber cafe and there's a posse gathered around.

DrCRMy thinking is less me playing on the living room TV and more along the lines of playing in a cyber cafe and there's a posse gathered around.

A bit of an edge case, but I'd expect that to still be seen as a private performance.

Would you still expect it to be seen as a private performance if it was a movie the store manager pulled up and everyone started watching? See what I mean?

If you take a situation where someone showing a movie would not be kosher and assert the same IP violation would be present if someone was clicking through a powerpoint presentation (or using any other software for which they have a license), I would submit the problems with such an assertion to be self-evident.

DrCRWould you still expect it to be seen as a private performance if it was a movie the store manager pulled up and everyone started watching? See what I mean?

If you take a situation where someone showing a movie would not be kosher and assert the same IP violation would be present if someone was clicking through a powerpoint presentation (or using any other software for which they have a license), I would submit the problems with such an assertion to be self-evident.

That's the thing though: whether or not there's a problem also has to do with the specific media product in question. If you set up a play session of a short, narrative-heavy, linear game with a single ending in a public place and invited anyone around to watch, that would likely be considered a public performance on the same level as if you did the same with a movie. If you did that with, say, a competitive multiplayer game? It suddenly becomes very difficult to say that what's been shown is even remotely equivalent to the sum of the game experience. Most traditional media are treated similarly as most of them have a lot of traits in common (fixed form, length, contents open to interpretation but not manipulation, etc.), but games vary wildly in all of these aspects, so you can't use the same standards on them. I mean, nobody would demand royalties if you got up on a soapbox in a park and started reading aloud from a new popular novel either, partly because nobody would stick around and listen to the whole thing, so the performance fails to meet any kind of reasonable bar of replacing the experience of reading it for yourself.

Alex did not have "short, narrative-heavy, linear game" in mind when she made her assertion, nor would any like-minded IP holder. And regardless, I would also speculate "short, narrative-heavy, linear game" would not be sufficient for them to win their suit. [Insert obligatory jab at modern AAA singlepayer games here. Reminds me of the If Doom was done today video.]

The best case I can see for an aggressive IP holder would be if some sort of interactive movie became popular in the game streaming world (perhaps as a meme?), and they were able to use a win in that case for litigations of a broader scope.

Hey, it really matters little what I think anyway. At the end of the day, it just depends on if an aggressive IP holder ever decides to see how far their power can stretch. I'd venture a guess that any such attempt could end similar to when the FBI tried to force Apple to write software et al. for them. This particular situation re Alex just sounds to me like someone being salty.

DrCRAlex did not have "short, narrative-heavy, linear game" in mind when she made her assertion

Hey there, you keep getting something wrong, you keep calling him a "her" and "she". Alex Hutchinson is a dude!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Hutchinson_(video_game_director)

mobile.twitter.com/bangbangclick

Plan your future responses accordingly.

lexluthermiesterHey there, you keep getting something wrong, you keep calling him a "her" and "she". Alex Hutchinson is a dude!

Coming from Agent Smith, that's pretty sus. [Translation: My error, initially misread the article.]

DrCRComing from Agent Smith, that's pretty sus. [Translation: My error, initially misread the article.]

No worries, was just pointing it out to you.

DrCRAlex did not have "short, narrative-heavy, linear game" in mind when she made her assertion, nor would any like-minded IP holder. And regardless, I would also speculate "short, narrative-heavy, linear game" would not be sufficient for them to win their suit. [Insert obligatory jab at modern AAA singlepayer games here. Reminds me of the If Doom was done today video.]

The best case I can see for an aggressive IP holder would be if some sort of interactive movie became popular in the game streaming world (perhaps as a meme?), and they were able to use a win in that case for litigations of a broader scope.

Hey, it really matters little what I think anyway. At the end of the day, it just depends on if an aggressive IP holder ever decides to see how far their power can stretch. I'd venture a guess that any such attempt could end similar to when the FBI tried to force Apple to write software et al. for them. This particular situation re Alex just sounds to me like someone being salty.

It really ought to be obvious, but apparently it needs spelling out: Hi! My name is not Alex Hutchinson. To clarify: that I am arguing for something that in some part roughly aligns with what AH said, does not mean that my arguments nor my stance is identical to his. It's entirely possible that he and I disagree on some, most, or even all of this. I don't know him, so I have no idea. Regardless of this, saying "AH wasn't talking about that" as a counterargument to what I said ... isn't much of an argument. I haven't said anything about any lawsuits either; I've argued that there are good reasons why there ought to be some sort of licensing system in place for commercial use of games, as there is for all other forms of media, and that I would prefer such a system to mainly prioritize small creators and developers. You're welcome to disagree with that, but at least have the decency to argue against what I'm actually saying, please.

The second sentence did not speak to your submission? I'm sorry of the first sentence proved to great a sticking point for the rest of the post to be recognized. I'll respectfully step away from this conversation and wish you the very best regards.