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

So I didn't see anyone bring this up so I thought I share this here since I first saw this on the SRK home



http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/29/trolling-the-stream-by-ultradavid/


Just read the whole thing and now image what happen to people like Chain Ace, HomeMadeWaffle, Tai and many other uploaders

The best thing to do now is send a letter to explain why you disagree with this.

Even Nintendo agrees to let us upload/stream their games like Melee/Brawl

The USA Governament would be like "no you can not"

so better get those videos now or just try to do something about it


(sorry I'm kinda lacking energy to say anymore of this but hopefully you read all this)


Discuss

That kinda sucks. Let's go back to bootlegging VHS tapes. Make copies and send them to people who want to watch the tournament.

I thought the best way is just record and upload to Mediafire for a week and then take it down LOL

I'm thinking beyond smash here when this upsets me, i'm upset that the goverment is tip toeing into a total f*** you online. They slowly came in f***ing us up in ways we never wanted, we were only kindof waited about cyberbulling not this s***.

At this rate will be willing to partly give up the internet. This is nuts the rights that will be stolen and years from now the next gen. Of internet users will acept these and more injustices.

We all need to do our part to stand up to them even if this might not affect us now

This is completely unenforcable if it passes.
It would be remarkably simple to acquire offshore hosting and upload videos anonymously.

It's even unlikely that this will go through, it will be lobbied against by radio stations, television studios, and last but not least youtube/google.

yea, even if youtube sides w/ em and goes along w/ it there are plenty of other means of distributing streaming videos out there, anonymously

What do we know about technology? If we have an idea we have a number of times created it take airplanes then we take it the idea and go way farther than ever thought like going faster than sound. Later maybe not now this we be doable to a point where it messes up a lot of people.

None of them make money through uploading... So why is this a problem?

this would be awful, would if affect current videos that have already been uploaded?

GGs government.........

no uploading videos of games to youtube?

sooner or later the whole world is going to turn into russia

Dark Hart said:

None of them make money through uploading... So why is this a problem?

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thing is, they don't need to make money. the government would "come in to stop them", or be allowed to do so, after 10 uploads/streams in just 180 days. and, should they make money, just $2500 in 180 days is enough, i'm pretty sure that more ad revenue is created for say, vg bootcamp or something.

vg bootcamp ftw lol

Uhm don't you need to make money off the stream for it to be illegal?
EDIT: Oops skipped some parts. Good thing I don't live in the US. Maybe it'd be good for me if this bill is passed so other governments can see how ******** it is

Theirs no profit in uploading, so why.

If this actually became an issue, couldn't the big uploaders just send the vids to uploaders from other countries and have them upload everything instead (for Melee, ajp_anton comes to mind)?

What Beat! said.

And just hope whole the world doesn't turn crazy all in once.

Signed the letter at the end and posted this on facebook. This would ****ing suck if it passed

wayyyyyy tooooo much to read...

but I'll give it a go later

I don't want people like HomeMadeWaffle, Stabbedbyanipple, Juggleguy etc to get caught up in all this and I wondering what does the community think about this. Sadly videos like PC vs Ken or Mango vs Armada will be gone and no one can watch it again unless someone downloaded it and such

This makes me too mad to Post anything real. ****ing government Sticking it's **** in everything.

This won't affect the Smash community at all and here's why:

All this bill is doing is changing the penalties for streaming illegally.
"No longer is the penalty for uploading infringing videos just getting shut down or having to pay the copyright owner. If the vids become popular, you might go to jail."

I take this bill to mean that illegal uploaders and streamers, who would normally just get shut down or have to pay a fine, will go to jail instead. People, like those who upload/stream smash videos, who wouldn't currently get shut down or pay fines, won't be affected.

Sounds reasonable.

Sinji said:

Theirs no profit in uploading, so why.

Click to expand...

THERE IS OR THERE'S HOLY **** HOW HARD IS THAT TO REMEMBER?

God this **** irritates me so much. /bitterbitterbitterbitter.

also bill is stupid. Start petitions and ****.

Everyone should take Xanatos' post into consideration.

Firstly, I invite everyone here to my thread: here about technology and law, particularly copyright. Please do take the opportunity to read the first post. I think you'll find it enlightening and informative.

There are a lot of misconceptions that are pervasive in this topic. One of the most common is the sentiment similar to what Xanatos posted. It essentially says: "If you're just a small fry, or if you're not profiting from the video, then it's perfectly legal."

This is false. Copyright makes no such distinction. The likenesses of the characters in Melee and Brawl are both copyrighted. Reproducing these images constitutes copyright infringement*. If you want to test this, try reproducing images of Mickey Mouse that Disney finds objectionable and see what happens. The fact that you do not frequently get arrested for something does not make it legal, just like speeding on the highway.


The harm in creating such insanely high penalties such as a felony for copyright infringement is many:

1) Everyone is guilty. You are all copyright infringers. You do so on a daily basis, and if you think you don't then you're mistaken.

2) Selective enforcement. The consequence to having a law where everyone is guilty is that the powerful are able to persecute victims for unrelated issues. Everyone knows this phenomenon in the world of car speeding (and other car laws). The term "Driving While Black" comes to mind, where racist police persecute otherwise innocent black drivers under overly broad laws. Everyone is guilty of automotive law breaking, and the police are free to arrest whoever they want.

3) Chilling effects. This will naturally lead to less online streaming. Today when you put a video out online you might say: "There is a 1% chance that someone will claim it is infringing their copyright, and my video is taken down." This is a reasonable risk to undertake.

Under S.B.978 your new proposition is "There is a 1% chance that someone will claim my video infringes their copyright and I am arrested, put in prison, lose my job, and face felony criminal charges". This is a dangerous proposition! Many people will simply cease to create and release videos which are otherwise perfectly legitimate and valid.

EDIT:
4) Ambiguity in infringement. The law is far from black and white when it comes to copyright. There are many vagaries built into the system which only a judge can decide, and no current precedent exists**. Streaming a video game match online is of dubious legality. Everyone here should remember that just last year, MLG was unable to stream Brawl matches for undisclosed legal reasons. This is because even the THREAT of a lawsuit is scary enough to deter an organization away from broadcasting Brawl. Now imagine if Sundance himself were criminally liable under felony charges. Do you think that he and the multitude of others like him would choose to stream? No way.


Good additional information can of course be found via the Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/06/felony-penalties-proposed-illegal-streaming-senate

*= To the extend not allowed by Fair Use
**= Activision-Blizzard have already been in legal actions with KeSPA over this same issue, on whether KeSPA is allowed to stream SC:BW matches. Though this is of course in South Korean jurisdictions only.

hey if youtube fails we can do what we did before we had smash vids on youtube...use the old dc++ hub LMAO

Thanks AltF4, you saved me from having to write a similar essay myself.

Guys, don't think that these laws that are put into place are small issues. Vague and complex words with hidden meanings that are meant to control free speech are killing us whether it has to do with the internet or our daily lives. Let's stand up for our constitutional rights and contact our representatives. Make your desires known.

This **** would never fly in Europe.

The US government is gonna get counter pick 4 stocked on this one.

The us never admits it's mistakes other than jfk during the cuban thing as a country we are built to ONLY move forward and this is our greatest flaw of all.

We never go back and edit or remove terrible ideas that hurt our now, we are currently paying so many people to not farm when they don't even own a farm. And health care was a terrible idea to be paid for as a group.

Let's have canadians to up load us videos and we'll let them taste real bacon

tempting tempting

Doesn't uploading videos of gameplay fall under fair use? I'm not very familiar with law, but wouldn't this apply more to uploading entire movies or tv shows?

Sentinel said:

This **** would never fly in Europe.

The US government is gonna get counter pick 4 stocked on this one.

Click to expand...

Lol... this **** has already flown in Europe, and it flew first class.

We really do need to CP the government with the authority of the citizenry. Hold them to the fire.

Kal said:

Doesn't uploading videos of gameplay fall under fair use? I'm not very familiar with law, but wouldn't this apply more to uploading entire movies or tv shows?

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Excellent question.

The answer is, of course, it depends. Fair Use is a vague area of law and only a judge can tell you for sure if a use is Fair or not. Unfortunately for you, this mean you'll have to be sued first in order to find out.

Fair Use has "Four Factors" to be considered when judging a use:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

It is not necessary for your video to have all of these. It is not necessary to have a majority of these. You can be ruled unfair while having 3 out of the 4. You can be ruled fair while having only 1 of the 4. It just depends.

I actually am of the opinion that smash videos constitute Fair Use. However as I am not a federal judge, my opinion means little.

The point I was making earlier was that previously, you could test this case without much risk. Your worst realistic case scenario was your video being taken down. But if SB 978 passes, then the penalty becomes felony jail time.

Video game footage uploaded to the Internet has no precedent in US law. It's not clear if it's legal or not. If the penalty if felony jail time, who here would want to be the first person to go in front of a court and find out if it's legal?

Sources / Extra readings:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fair_use
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

That's very very very interesting...

ALTF4 are you studying law by any chance?

DJMirror said:

That's very very very interesting...

ALTF4 are you studying law by any chance?

Click to expand...

No, I'm not actually. My formal training is in Computer Science. I just finished my Masters degree a year ago, I work in network security and cryptographic protocols.

But law has always been an interest to me. The intersection of law and technology impacts me professionally on a daily basis. The more you read about the current state of law, the more you gain an appreciation for how absurd it is.

Did you know that there is a set of illegal numbers in the US? Where merely stating them is illegal?
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Illegal_number

I keep up with organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, Open Rights Group, Creative Commons, Groklaw, and many others. I try to be as knowledgeable I can about legal issues, but no I'm not a lawyer.

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter...hVZPC&rd=1&t=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL8m-0pjOIQ

So there wont be any more Day9TV stuff?

This would never happen in Jamaica. USA would get counterpicked by Usian Bolt.