What authority does Nintendo have to prevent Evo from streaming Melee?

[Raistlin]

I can't think of any copyright or trademark infringement that creates, especially if Evo is streaming the game for free. We aren't selling or making copies of the game, it's just people playing it. Does anyone know why they can do this? Also, how the hell did Evo not figure this out months ago?

 

[RODO]

Was just about to say something about this. Idk why they chose to start doing this now

 

[Otto_]

http://www.shacknews.com/article/79223/nintendo-monetizing-fanmade-videos-on-youtube/

"We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property."
whut
if EVO still stream the melee events, what could Nintendo possibly do? sue? in that case, for what?
I want to see the whole mail N sent to EVO

 

[Aenglaan]

A very good question indeed. How did something like this happen? EVO is just streaming people playing the game, not giving pirated versions of the game for free or anything. Besides, Nintendo should be happy that one of their own games is going to be at this event, drawing more attention to the company's games. In other words, this is free advertising and Nintendo's unhappy about it?

 

[Raistlin]

Exactly what I was thinking, Aeglaan. Where is the downside for Nintendo here? They get free advertising, free publicity, and a showcase of the best players of one of the old Smash games for new players to see to build of hype for Smash 4. Instead, they're throwing a wet blanket over everything, without any authority I can think of. The actual content being broadcast, the fights, isn't anything they created. They may have created the medium, but I'm not sure why that gives them authority to control content shared through that medium.

 

[pickle962]

Way to be a bunch of ***holes Nintendo! Considering your latest console isn't doing so hot right now, it might behoove your stupid ***es to let EVO stream Melee! After all, it just might improve sales for ssb4 when it comes out! The fact that people donated LOTS of money just so Melee could be one of the games shown at EVO only to find out you banned it from being shown is probably one of THE coldest moves I have EVER seen from a company in a while! Don't be surprised if something bad happens to your website or if people stop buying your products for a while!

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

why do you have to make your font so goddamn hard to read pickle

 

[Jaedrik]

Unfortunately, some companies think they owe their success to "IP", and irrationally protect it at any cost.

 

[wezai]

I think it's because such an old game is being streamed while Brawl is not (correct me if I am wrong) might cause the wrong impression on all the "casuals" Nintendo is so worried about. They want to give the idea that SSBB and SSB4 are gonna be the best games, and people by streaming their old games just say, heyy your new Smash games are ****, Melee was good but Brawl and SSB4 is not worth being at EVO.

That might be the case, but at any rate, that is just dum from Nintendo. There a freaking big effort by the community to get Melee at EVO and then Nintendo just slaps the face of everybody and say no?

Guess Nintendo is just about the casuals now, they don't care about their core gamers who still enjoy their best classics. :/

 

[Arturito_Burrito]

A very good question indeed. How did something like this happen? EVO is just streaming people playing the game, not giving pirated versions of the game for free or anything. Besides, Nintendo should be happy that one of their own games is going to be at this event, drawing more attention to the company's games. In other words, this is free advertising and Nintendo's unhappy about it?

How? Maybe it happened a couple of years ago when brawl wasn't allowed to stream at MLG. I expected this but it seems that ignoring half of your community leaves you unprepared. It looks like you weren't the only one surprised when no one should be.

 

[rawrimamonster]

It has to be someone in their legal department that's new. It literally has to be, there is no monetary or copyright reason that could possibly be behind this. The only thing I can think of is they want to protect the casual players from seeing theres people BETTER than them at games. I don't think I'll be getting a WiiU at this point, this is beyond the stream ****. It's Nintendo going a completely opposite direction than what Nintendo gaming is about. I think I'll be getting a ps4.

 

[Shaky]

Melee players must really ignore everything related to brawl. It happened at MLG 3 years ago and nothing has changed since.

 

[Renji64]

 

[Broshadian]

This makes me so mad. I read that people are tweeting Nintendo of America or whatever but I don't use twitter so I don't know if that's actually doing anything. I'd definitely make an account just for that though.

https://www.change.org/petitions/ni...bros-melee-to-be-streamed-at-evo-2013-2#share

 

[etecoon]

Melee players must really ignore everything related to brawl. It happened at MLG 3 years ago and nothing has changed since.

this, it isn't a new thing and has nothing to do with melee being an older game. don't expect nintendo to give a **** about any petition or tweets, you are not their target demographic.

 

[Shiri]

this, it isn't a new thing and has nothing to do with melee being an older game. don't expect nintendo to give a **** about any petition or tweets, you are not their target demographic.

Finally, someone with some damn sense.

 

[Still Alive]

this, it isn't a new thing and has nothing to do with melee being an older game. don't expect nintendo to give a **** about any petition or tweets, you are not their target demographic.

I agree 100%.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

this, it isn't a new thing and has nothing to do with melee being an older game. don't expect nintendo to give a **** about any petition or tweets, you are not their target demographic.

Melee players aren't the issue anymore. Go to any gaming news website right now. Check out the front page of Reddit. Type in "Smash Bros" on Google. The issue is everywhere and it's extended beyond sastifying Melee players to showing the world what a bunch of grumpy old men they are, or at least how ridiculous incompetent the Nintendo legal team is. If nothing gets fixed the Smash community will remember this longer than anyone else, but the bad PR from not letting Melee be streamed will be far beyond any potential PR damage some idiot at Nintendo could've imagined.

 

[Matunas]

Doesn't matter it is already back.

 

[Mewtario]

Nintendo:

 

[Vudujin]

Capitalism at its finest. Thanks, Obama.

 

[Charlesz]

Is it still blocked?

 

[nessokman]

I think it is inside their rights, I'll look through some laws and see

 

[john!]

you know, i wouldn't be surprised if some hater sent a fake "cease and desist" to the evo organizers, who found out it was fake after nintendo contacted them due to public outcry after the announcement. youtube videos/channels have been taken down before using this method. plus it seems very unusual for nintendo to do such a rapid 180... it's not really possible to put enough pressure on such a large corporation to make them reverse their decision in such a short amount of time.

 

[Lock]

17 USC § 106 - Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
The owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; (5) to display the copyrighted work publicly.

17 USC § 106A - Rights of certain authors to attribution and integrity
The author of a work of visual art—(3) shall have the right to prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification of that work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation, and any intentional distortion, mutilation, or modification of that work is a violation of that right.

if EVO still stream the melee events, what could Nintendo possibly do? sue? in that case, for what?

17 USC § 504 - Remedies for infringement: Damages and profits
(a) In General.— Except as otherwise provided by this title, an infringer of copyright is liable for—(2) statutory damages, as provided by subsection (c).
(c) Statutory Damages.— (1) The copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17

 

[Raistlin]

@Lock, thanks for the law citations. That's an incredibly broad power, but I guess I can see that. I appreciate that Nintendo backed down though, because that was very dumb of them.

 

[Lanowen]

I don't think those laws apply. I think it falls under fair use, especially since the content people are bringing just by playing competitively is tranformative, and especially if they have commentary at EVO it would make it even more so which would make the stream fall under fair use. If EVO is also nonprofit there is basically nothing Nintendo can do to sue. I'm pretty sure this issue has come time and time again, especially with youtube and monitization, but (hopefully) if EVO isn't monitizing the stream then it shouldn't matter.

What companies like to do a lot of the time is just send out cease and desists even when they don't have legal grounds. It's part of the organizations responsibility to not back down either. Nintendo probably backed down because of the attention they got, knowing they weren't in the right and could have gotten much more backlash than they are going to get already.

 

[ScubaF_ingSteve]

I don't think those laws apply. I think it falls under fair use, especially since the content people are bringing just by playing competitively is tranformative, and especially if they have commentary at EVO it would make it even more so which would make the stream fall under fair use. If EVO is also nonprofit there is basically nothing Nintendo can do to sue. I'm pretty sure this issue has come time and time again, especially with youtube and monitization, but (hopefully) if EVO isn't monitizing the stream then it shouldn't matter.

What companies like to do a lot of the time is just send out cease and desists even when they don't have legal grounds. It's part of the organizations responsibility to not back down either. Nintendo probably backed down because of the attention they got, knowing they weren't in the right and could have gotten much more backlash than they are going to get already.

A lot of companies recently have been claiming copyright on games because of sound and cutscenes. Reasons being that by streaming, even when no profit is made and the company is not directly being paid for the use, they have the right to take it down or take them to court.

So fair use is all fine and dandy, but in the eyes of the law, nintendo can easily take down a stream/video because of music, it's something that isn't under fair use since while you can argue fair use on a lets play, nintendo owns the rights to any sounds made by the game, it's their copyright and you are illegally streaming it. Fair use is extremely tricky, but nintendo was 100% in the 'right' to shut down a stream. It's their content and they can take you down for it, they are legally backed in that fact. I'm not saying it wasn't stupid in a marketing sense, I'm also not saying they should have stuck to their guns (hell no), but they were 100% justified in whatever actions they would have chosen to take legally, despite any fair use claim you want to try and throw.

I can't think of any copyright or trademark infringement that creates, especially if Evo is streaming the game for free. We aren't selling or making copies of the game, it's just people playing it. Does anyone know why they can do this? Also, how the hell did Evo not figure this out months ago?

Just because you can't think of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm not an expert on digital copyright law, but I know for a fact that any music or sounds in the game are property of nintendo and streaming it to the masses without approval of the copyright owner is 100% illegal. I'm not sure on any other sort of claims they could make in this sort of case, but they have the legal staff who are experts in copyright law, you're not going to outsmart them. By asking what authority they have isn't the right way to have gone about this, it's about being reasonable and presenting why they shouldn't use their copyright to shut down the show. It's all water under the bridge now, but if this happens again, you're never going to outsmart a multi-billion dollar companies team of copyright lawyers, the correct way is to present reason and state how this as a consumer effects you willingness to further buy any nintendo products.

 

[mixa]

But EVO is monetizing the stream. Don't you have to pay to participate in the chat?

 

[Raistlin]

@Skater Trainer: I wasn't trying to outsmart them, merely requesting someone point out the legal authority, which they did. Obviously just because I couldn't think of it doesn't mean they have it. But I wanted to know what it was, so I asked

 

[pokemongeof]

They are doing this because they are losing money. Like the ban of Profit off Nintendo Game Let's Plays

 

[metalmonstar]

Crazy how short this lasted. I feel like we should have expected this considering how Brawl wasn't allowed to be streamed at MLG. A lot of people claim that is why it was dropped, it may have been a reason but I doubt it was the main one.

The only thing I can think of is that legal was just going through the motions and didn't realize what was actually going on or Nintendo saw that they were just going to put other games in Melee's spot.

 

[UberMadman]

Crazy how short this lasted. I feel like we should have expected this considering how Brawl wasn't allowed to be streamed at MLG. A lot of people claim that is why it was dropped, it may have been a reason but I doubt it was the main one.

The only thing I can think of is that legal was just going through the motions and didn't realize what was actually going on or Nintendo saw that they were just going to put other games in Melee's spot.

Apparently, that is what happened. Go figure, I thought it was weird that the execs would turn down free advertising.

 

[GTZ]

As a T/O this move by Nintendo makes me upset, as a company owner (in the past) it makes sense to protect your intellectual property. I am neutral on this issue.

 

[BaPr]

Wow, even I was upset, and I almost never even played melee (only once or twice at a friends house). Can't believe this affected me lol.

 

[The Ben]

I don't think those laws apply. I think it falls under fair use, especially since the content people are bringing just by playing competitively is tranformative, and especially if they have commentary at EVO it would make it even more so which would make the stream fall under fair use.

Sorry for being late to the party but this depends on how the court's interpretation of the commentary. It's legal to display parts of a copyrighted work in a work used to provide commentary on the original. However, there has been no case in U.S. history that sets a precedence for or against streaming another person's material for sport. Nor has there been a case (that I know of) that defines what the entirety of an ever changing work is. I.E. does Nintendo own the right to someone's controller's inputs' effect on a game? I don't think we've ever had that come up. Simply put, we don't know if it is transformative because the legal precedence for it being transformative or not hasn't been set yet.