Should Game Streamers PAY License Fees? 

Sad thing internet has been there for decades already, and we still don't have much progress in legal part.

@@Gridfen in fairness to the legal system, it takes a very long time for a new law to be passed since everyone must agree and obviously some would rather benifit themselves over the general public, and this along with new ways to overcome the legal system in many ways constantly makes it pretty difficult to keep patching up the loopholes and missing laws

The wheels of justice turn very slowly. And unfortunately it’s going to be a lot of older people that don’t understand technology making the decisions. Just look at the Google/Oracle case recently. The jury got it right but a judge reversed their decision. Not saying all cases will be like this or that all judges are clueless.

The DMCA was actually extremely forward thinking for 1997, with the exception of section 1201 (anti-circumvention violations). It paved the way for sites like RU-vid, Twitch, Twitter, reddit, etc to exist. Before the DMCA was built there was no such thing as a safe haven, websites were personally responsible for everything users uploaded. The DMCA allowed websites to remain a safe haven and drop responsibility for what their users upload so long as they follow the DMCA claims system. And the DMCA claims system is even very forward thinking as well. It doesn't just protect rights holders, it also protects people using content. When you get a claim on RU-vid and any other site, you can freely submit a counter claim. Websites *have* to give you the option of a counter claim and they *have* to not judge the counter claim. If someone claims your content on RU-vid, put in a counter claim and RU-vid will legally have to put your video back up within 10-14 days, according to section 512 of the DMCA. I don't understand why people think it has been unprepared. Without it we wouldn't have RU-vid because RU-vid would be sued every time any user uploaded copyrighted content. Without it people would get sued straight away, or get C&Ds just for alleged copyrighted content, but the DMCA system allows claims to be used instead. And the counter claim system protects false claims, but before the DMCA you would just get sued or C&Ded, both of which would have ended up in court costing you tons of money. And on top of that the DMCA is a very open law. The Library of Congress can add exceptions to the law, and are required to look through it every 2 years or so. They've added tons of exceptions so far, and places like archive.org can exist because they have been granted a DMCA exception. It's absolutely got its flaws, but it was a very very forward thinking piece of legislation for 1997.

The flaw in "if it still works, it ain't broke"

Annnd thats why nobody cares about nintendo games. Lolz!

@@are3287 IDK man, the Switch has been the best selling console for almost 24 consecutive months now. Sales figures indicate that people do indeed care about Nintendo games.

@@ZenataUSA why would someone buy a ps4 or Xbox when next Gen consoles would be coming out so soon?

The only people that don't care about Nintendo games are Nintendo. I just want new F-Zero.

Also when super Mario Odyssey came out, people were demonitized because they showed cutscenes.

Found the Redditor lmao

@@waldolemmer 4chan* But I don't go there either

@@waldolemmer lmao normie thinks Greentext comes from reddit

@@floppa_9530 >d*ge avatar >lmao >haha dude ur a normie quite the ironic statement. Besides it's quite obvious from his reddit spacing that he is a redditor

And didn't clip the important things

Ye, so now the idea is that streamers pay for the games since noone wanted to pay stadia.

That Hutch idiot has worked for studios, on games and now on hardware that gives explicit permission and free will, for streamers to play, and CCs on RU-vid to let's play. Even Stadia had to make an announcement distancing themselves from his idiocy.

Gotta say this video really aged like wine when it comes to this point LMAO

On the other side of things, there are so many games I never bought because I had already watched someone play them. Spiderman, Ratchet & Clank, Assassins Creed etc

Yes, but, on the other hand, you’re watching the videos because of the games. If the videos were just of gamers verbally reviewing games, they wouldn’t get as many views.

Well this was the argument the movie industry used against pirating. People said that because pirating, movies/genres were more popular and therefore increased movie ticket sales. As long as a streamer doesn't have a endorsement/sponsorship deal that they can play the game, I agree that its Theoretically breach the copyright. Whether or not really forbidding streaming is a double edged sword as you see in the AMV with movies/series. Think its copyright but game developers should understand that its free marketing so should endorse it

Problem is that you can just as easily argue the other way around, just like with movies and songs.

@@DD-fs7pg Not really, if someone streams a whole movie or song and I watch/listen to it.. that's the whole experience. I got it. Games are something where part of the experience is you making choices and/or experiencing success when you manage to pull off something or figure out something or test your ideas etc. If you can watch a video of a game and get the whole experience .. it's not a game.

lolz 😂

And bet you are the guy streaming movies to everyone just because you bought it for 20 bucks.

@@Fablemaner the difference there being streaming a show or movie is not interacting in a new way with the material. Everyone watching experiences it the same way. When it's a game streamed the viewer doesn't get the experience of owning the game and can't play it themselves. So you're not watching the same content you'd see if you paid for the game itself because you would play it differently even if you tried to copy it to perfection. So no, streaming a film to viewers and streaming a game to viewers is not the same thing. Different laws should cover these things.

@@MinistryOfMagic_DoM Interaction with the product has nothing to do with it at all. When you buy a movie, you don't OWN that movie. You can't open up a theater and play the movie for thousands of people just because you paid $20 for it. You have to... license... the movie for mass viewing. Games are literally no different. Buying a game doesn't mean that you own the content, therefore what makes you think you have the right to stream content, that you don't own, to thousands of people? Just because a website was created and managed to become popular? That doesn't give you the right to do what you want. It's basic copyright and IP laws. You don't "own" any digital media you buy, whether it's a CD, Movie, or video game. You are buying a license for a SINGLE USER to use the content. It's literally in every single package of anything you buy. Does it need to be updated? Maybe, I don't care for many RU-vid videos about games anymore now that I can afford to buy them, and Twitch is just slowing dying site anyways so I stopped frequenting it. I'm happily content which ever way the law decides to go, mostly because I didn't decide to make my entire career in a gray area of the law.

@@MinistryOfMagic_DoM No, the same laws should and do cover that thing. For instance, the design of a CPU or a GPU are intellectual property. Their output may or may not be intellectual property, but whoever holds it is not determined by who designed the GPU. Same for games, theres no way they could make people stop streaming their games legaly. The most would be... well, cutscenes.

I bought the Metro series and the Witcher series on both gog and steam just to support the devs. I do not ever plan to play metro cause I am not about the horror parts but I am fine with spending my money supporting studios that I like. Usually if the community feels so strongly about something I am fine with putting some money towards it just to get those devs some extra money even if I will never play that game.

You have to realize somehow that people like you are the exception and not the norm.

@@Gatitasecsii I fully understand that I was not trying to say my way is the only way or anything I was just telling of my situation.

@@nycbball1 and kudos to you for it! I do something similar for mobile games. If I feel like the game is really solid and I'm enjoying it a lot, then I'll happily drop a few bucks into it as a way to support this game which I could've continued playing for free. Good devs deserve support, especially in a time where EA and Activision exist... 🤢

You’re the exception

Incredible how the world actually has some fucking nuance, isnt it?

I actually agree with Linus and Luke on this one.

well I would have bought detroit become human if it was released on steam on launch because I like to choose my own paths which is the gameplay the most important thing for a game. If it is possible to watch it all and has dull gameplay they should have made a movie rather a game.

I always thought something like this would be the ideal solution. Not only for a game, but for every copyright material. For example, if you use a music which the autor does not allow to be used in a youtube video, we could say that author is entitled to % of video revenue proportional to how long the song plays, and different authors can have different percent they decide to take from people's videos. It's much better than content id which takes all revenue from 5 second clip in 30 min video. I like the idea of it being voluntary, but I feel like that might easily turn into legal issue. Just 1 careless or greedy streamer forgetting to turn the thing on and 1 game dev who feels like they've been wronged would be all it takes

Game developer can try to sell a streaming edition that comes with additional tools/skin for streaming. Though what tools out might be I have no idea.

BAM, problem solved. This totally should be a thing.

are you dumb? Streamers did pay for the game already that they are streaming, whatever they do with it is their problem. you bought it, its your property. You wanna stream while playing it, sure you paid already anyway. Matter of fact thats free advertisement for the game itself. so gtfo here if you think streamers should pay developers for playing their game that THEY ALREADY PAID FOR. Matter of fact, lets make an example out of CoD Warzone, have you seen a streamer that didn't buy a fucking skin? Almost every streamer out there that plays Warzone buys every skin that the game releases for content.. So they are already paying the developers by buying the game. again, stupid people will think "ohh yeah its only fair. blah blah blah" fuck outta here. Another case is the game Among Us, if it wasn't for streamers that game won't even get the sales it got this year at all.

That's a fair argument but then maybe the game wasn't for you, like you would not enjoy it. So you save money to buy a game you will like, I would not buy a From soft game as their just not for me, I know that by watching people play them who are better gamers than me. Which I'm okay with I would get frustrated and not have a good time, and for being entertained is the point. So I can use my money to buy games I will enjoy, but I would not know with out You tube or Twitch.

Even walking sims tend to get traction that way unless there really is nothing more to the game then listen to the story. Even then, summaries exist

Tell tale probably got reduced sales since youtubers spoiled the stories

@@tony-on8xp absolutely. I will never play an interactive story game, watching youtubers play them is both cheaper and more fun.

@@lbgstzockt8493 well thats the problem. You DO realize that these people aren’t working for free, right?They expect to be paid for their work, which is difficult when no one buy your game because they already watch someone else play it. And you acknowledge that you even like them, because you watch those streamers. And I’m not agains youtubers or streamers at all, but like Luke said, I agree that on story driven games it can hurt them. TellTale didn’t “probably” had troubles with this. They literally shut down because of this.

Then don't make shit games! Reviews are exempt from copyright.

I should get paid for uploading 4k Blu-ray rips to RU-vid. After all, it’s free advertising for the film.

@@acojo8205 I get what you're saying, but two points back at ya: 1) a movie and a game are completely different things, watching someone play a game makes you wanna play it too (and thus buy it), watching a movie for free makes you not want to pay to watch it lmfao. 2) this is in fact a way some producers advertise their films, both with trailers, and by 'leaking' low rez copies of the film to pirate sites to stir up early buzz. If you weren't trying to contradict my joke above then I'm sorry for misunderstanding lol.

That is a good point actually. Though not always true, a lot of people who end up watching nearly a whole story game through instead of playing it obviously don't care enough that they deem it as spoilers and therefore likely weren't going to buy it after all even if they thought they "might."

It‘s wrong for me. Unfortunately I have to say that I have seen quite a few gameplays of great indie games, and if those wouldn‘t exist, I would have enjoyed to play them for myself too. But that way I just watched the gameplay and did not buy many of the games that I have watched. If it is already wrong for me, it must be for many others. You have to be honest about that. I am a person thinking about my actions and how they affect others and I feel sorry about this, but there are so many people on earth that just don‘t give a thought about it and are only working towards their own individual gain.

I dont agree at all. Streamers/youtubers are the sole reason that horror games got popular back in the days. Them playing games like FNAF, Slenderman and Amnesia caused incredible boost in popularity and sales of horror games. So I would say that its quite the opposite - horror games are one that benefited a lot from streaming.

I think that's different because those are gameplay based games. Your experience playing them is gonna be different from theirs. Many games that are basically walking simulators where the whole point is learning the story, seeing the scares, etc; are kinda invalidated to many people. Exposure still helps them, but I wonder how much it does compared to people who not buy the game because they experienced it through someone else.

Yup! Hell there's no way I'd have bought games like Powerwash Simulator (yes, really, I have over 30 hours pls help) if I hadn't already seen it being streamed. Although, to be fair, there are games I've decided not to buy after seeing them streamed and realising I really don't want to play them

They gave examples of single player story narrative games. RU-vid and twitch make these games not worth playing as you've experienced the game thru it being in a movie form. It's happened and will continue to happen

@@jeremyvbk67 Well, it is not streamers fault. For example, The last of Us 2 had a poor story telling that make the game unplayable. It was directors fault, not streamers.

@@Kubickz It's happened on games with good stories too. I'm for doing what ever the EULA says. If they say you can't then don't. There's both sides, and they are both right and wrong. Software is weird

@@Kubickz Opinions are not facts. Last of Us 2's story didn't make the game "unplayable". It was convoluted and drawn out. If the story made it unplayable, then it would also be unwatchable, and that clearly isn't the case. You might just have something against gay people bro.

@@jeremyvbk67 people plag good games, multiple times.

yea. and randoms are useless.

@@justabrokeredneck not useless, they're useful if you have to go in round 1 and get insta kicked

Just realized how late I am to this video.... lulzzzzzzzzzzz

@@lostMAYHEM the streamers could just stream games that doesn't require paying for special licensing just to play it on stream, would likely just hurt the developer far more than allowing their games to be streamed without extra fees with the PR nightmare causing lost sales and a damaged reputation that can't be shaken for a few years possibly until the day they go out of business or become mere shells of what they once were.

Hutchinson (hutchison?) is a former EA employee, so this should come as absolutely no surprise.

Software as a service already exists and is widely accepted so what's wrong with Games as a service

then games should be free to play like mobile games.

@@092_deepak_kumar3 One issue of the many revolving around games as a service is that inevitably the game will be permanently shut down and you will never play it again

@@092_deepak_kumar3 So, do you believe in your TV being a service? Every time you turn it on you're charged 1 dollar. Turn it off is 2 dollars.

as long as youre consistent with your definition of walking sim thats a completely reasonable opinion.

IMO this is the shit I always say!! Why would you treat your "game" as if it were a movie when other people stream it? because it's more of an interactive film than a video game!

Yeah that wouldn't work out very well.

How would you get more streamers though? And then you'd also have a long and slow process of trying to ban streamers which if done by a person expensive, and with ai can be easy to trick, if this was to happen companies would choose new streamers but at the end of the day people like to watch streamers because of 1) their gameplay and 2) their personality and filming style, stuff that currently can't be accurately predicted to be enjoyed by people

@@fewik8567 it was a joke

Hell yes

@@fewik8567 Thanks for pointing out the obvious flaws in the joke

its no difference then how your movie explicitly is for personal none commercial, and the value may be in the experience or the story, or the characters, or the enviroment, and you may certainly get some of those from a stream

Even them just giving content creators little bonuses like DLC to make content is huge for those creators. Lot of market share to be gained moving advertising money from clickbait ads and TV ads over to helping up and coming streamers

Makes no sense. I make a game and I'm forced to pay streamers who purchase my game, who want to stream it for free to their viewers? tbh you're most likely talking about game sponsorships, and hell no it should not be mandatory.

@@FoxNZ You pay them because they indirectly will make you a good deal more money then you put in through recommendations. I'm not even saying you should spend a lot, just SOMETHING. Even a free review code to a few select streamers you trust is massive in how many players it can attract to your game

@@FoxNZ Nobody says "mandatory", but you have competitors, don't you. 😉

​@@aidanquiett668 That's still game sponsorship, and it's extremely competitive. No streamer wants to play a game they don't enjoy, and no streamer is going to take $100 or even $1000 to play a game that they wouldn't enjoy either. Even if they already own and play the game I make, they'll just take the $100 or $1000 I have and I get absolutely nothing else in return because, surprise surprise, they already stream the game for free, they'll just become more of a fan because Free Money. Free game codes are just free game codes and you cannot guarantee that the streamer is even going to play the game. And just because a big streamer (say 100 viewers+) streams my game, I still cannot guarantee sales unless the streamer, say, gifts codes of the game to 5 or 10 of them.

Well true but Linus get's excited I don't think he does it on purpose lol.

NOT FOR ALL GAMES, if the game is gameplay heavy, like fps (csgo valorant) or other multiplayer game you can stream it because the content is the streamer, their skill and their humor etc etc, if the game is story heavy, like a movie with near 0 gameplay (gone home or Detroit became human), you need licence because the game is the content, it's like movie, you can't just stream a movie for free just because you buy it

@@pepperbreath35 But the thing with separating games that is story driven and gameplay driven to be licensed or not, makes it so that no one would wants to cover story driven games, thus causing their sales to tank even more. That would be especially true for those small developer that have no money for marketing

I watch games (especially prequels to a game is ant to play) and have no guilt, if they ban these guy they really think I'm gonna buy it? At the most I'll pirate it and if the company went out of their way to block certain videos like 2k entertainment I'm definitely gonna pirate the game I want to play now for their greed

Detroit: Become Human was great on release... But then the release on PC was revived by youtubers and streamers

Fall Guys

I think the argument is that you are paying for a license to consume the content, in this case a game being consumed by playing, and you can't then provide that to other so they can consume it without paying. Like I can buy a song on iTunes, I have the right to consume that content (listening to it) but if I give you the file, you're consuming content without a license and I'm now a distributor of unlicensed music and am screwed. I'd argue that me providing the lyrics to the song (like so many websites do) isn't an issue, since you're not consuming the content as you aren't listening to the song and the song is more than some words (seems to work for the lyric sites). In a similar context, games are consumed by playing and giving out game files is unlawful, but I'd argue letting others WATCH you play aren't consuming the game, just like reading lyrics isn't listening to a song and reading a script isn't watching a TV episode

Actualy, in the US itd be much safer to stream if you pirated it. Piracy may be against the law, but its a small infractions whereas contract damages can be insane. So, if you dont make a contract with them, theres not much to worry about. Its not a copyright violation to stream it, wether you legaly own it or not outside of very specific things such as cutscenes, again, wether you own the game or not.

@@rtg5881 Piracy is criminal with up to 5 years in prison and there is a legal precedent to recover damages through the cost of what you would have spent otherwise

@@dstblj5222 Im aware.

But what did firewatch developers did in case of pewdiepie is simply an example that it is not reliable.

@Dawid aka Grendel The "billboard" analogy fails a bit here. Streamers are performing labor, and should be paid for it. I like the sentiment you're going for though.

The line that's being talked about is the line where games are more like interactive movies, therefore the experience can largely be had though watching a stream or video. Just like everything else in life, things aren't always black and white.

@@kolvis6626 Well... Even story games have replay value because you can usually take your own path and try different options! Like people speed running story games! They are having a completely different experience and showing you new aspects of it! I'm talking about videos like Desyncs!

Actually you “technically” can’t wear a Nike shirt or design on your shirt and use that in a stream. The copyright holder owns the image and you are using it for your benefit. That’s why you see blurs on peoples shirts in commercials.

That's changing because nowadays with the rise of influencers. The success of entertainment nowadays depends on the streamers. Old media is out of touch and still thinks it's the hotshot. Whereas nobody makes a decision to buy or watch a movie based on trailers except if the movie in question is part of an already popular series.

@bruh meme do you realize that's not a license? Are people actually this stupid?

@@lach888c2 nope streaming a game isn't fair use. Even then a lot of terms of service prevent you from streaming. So the only legally safe way to stream a game is to get those rights from the developer/publisher

Listen to music is an end point. You listen to it and done. When steamer play music, The label get nothing however watching game is not an end point. If the game was fun, you'll not satisfy just to watch it. You want to play it yourself, too. So, steamer is generated a demand for game they are streaming. The legal point is always there. Copyright is always there but company can choose to act on it or not. Most of the time, company is smart enough to see benefit of letting Influencer/RU-vidr uses their content/product for free and sometime even encourage them by sending their product for review/unbox, just hope to get more eyeball on it. However, steamer shouldn't act as if they have all control right of the game. It's simply not your game. So, easy solution should be that Steamer should pay if company ask for it or stop using their content and move on to another game that are still free. There's a lot more company that want to expose their game through influlencer and want to avoid pay high price for normal Ads agency. This is similar to how software work. We have paid software and we have freeware & open source.

@bruh meme Nah man. All creative content is covered by copyright, and when you purchase it, you're purchasing a personal license and the physical media, if applicable. A license for streaming or broadcasting or use in other media is entirely different, and you have to work that out with the copyright holder. This is the case for all creative media.

@@jaylay850 the issue is that most people won't go out of their way to give money to the original creators of the content you are watching. I don't see how you have the right to decide that game devs haven't earned a tip, this should be up to the viewers. Not everybody has the money to a monthly subscription but can maybe donate a few dollars every once in a while. And the same thing applies to games. There are several reasons why people might not buy a game apart from the simplest one that they just aren't interested in it. The older you get the free time you have, so you might not have the time or energy to play the game yourself and youtube or streams let you still enjoy the game. If you watch the vod you can skip parts, or just speed up the video a bit. You might not own a plattform to run the game. Not everybody can afford a ps4 or 5 or a gaming pc. not everybody has the internet speed or volume to stream games. Cost. With a lot of games, especially looking at next gen price increases and an abundance of dlcs, ingame purchases etc. you might not be able to afford many different games but just one or two every few months, which in many cases hurts indies since the pricier but more popular open world game might be your priority. Often times one or more of these reasons will apply and stop you from purchasing the game. As I said before the idea didn't come from me, it was somebody else who suggested they'd love to have the option of adding one or two dollars on top of a donation to support the devs. Especially for games that aren't really worth to play through multiple times like story driven games i think this might be a decent solution. Again: the fewest people will go out of their way to google the game, find the correct dev company or the publisher and look up a way how to donate money to them for just 2-5 bucks. Even if just a hundred people opt in to do that, this would be beneficial for the devs that are partially responsible for your enjoyment and the streamer's success. the thing that pisses me off are people that take art for granted. Who don't see all the months and years of work that go even into 2h long games. All the horrible sides of game dev or literally any media creation. You're shouting at EA for their lootboxes but you aren't doing shit to help the ones that create unique and fresh titles. So if somebody says they want to contribute to funding games even if they for any reason cannot play them, i think that is a great thing and only fair. I don't know how my earlier comment causes you anxiety. Its just the ignorance of people in this comment section thinking there is a simple yes or no answer to such a complex problem and that makes me sick.

Why get a commercial distribution license like a movie theater lord knows some streamers have more or less the same effect.

they don't really... the rights they do have are property rights, and they can kick you out if you film on THEIR property. it has nothing to do with copyright. filming around or near their property they can't do anything about that.

Well said

Siege is still going strong and that's doesn't really have a story

Then they should enforce some demo time max 2 hours game play. And after x weeks its lifted.

People keep saying over and over again “the effect on sales is marginal”. You literally have zero factual evidence to claim this other that your opinion. TellTale ACTUALLY had to close down due to people just watching the story and not buying their games. On story driven games EXCLUSIVELY, this issue should be reviewed on a case by case basis.

@@danielm2018 Did you skip his first paragraph? or you just chose to ignore it to make a straw-man argument? that actually agrees with him.

Two of Beatles are still alive. And the question is “who owns the rights to their songs”? Just because their is a strike for using The Beatles songs doesn’t mean it was one of the two members that initiated it. It’s a double edged sword. On one side it’s good exposure. On the other is getting paid for your IP. You won’t find many that don’t want to get paid for their IP.

I disagree with your point about an individual having a legal defence but not a business. That leaves collaborative groups to go fuck themselves.

@@jumpinjehosephat1877 In that case we should really penalize union busting behavior of corporations.

Even undertale, the story based single player game like what Linus said could be justified to take down videos, only took off like it did because of streamers and youtubers giving it tons of free hype

Whether they bought the game or not has nothing to do with their right to play it.

@@vshadow1115 I’m saying more the play it for an audience . The idea of paying a license fee is crazy. Would probably kill the video game content creation industry

You're paying with looking at ads.