Nintendo is hoping to wrap up its lawsuit against gamer Jesse Keighin, aka EveryGameGuru, after he failed to answer the complaint. The game giant seeks $17,500 in damages for copyright infringement, including streaming pre-release games and sharing links to emulators. In addition, Nintendo requests a broad global injunction to prevent future infringements, even for games that do not yet exist.
But how is it deemed illegal when Nintendo “loses” pre-release games in the wild and somebody “finds” it and shows it off on YouTube? Game reviewers are bound by NDAs and have contracts with Ninty - but these “criminals” don’t. So what’s the crime here? Publishing something Ninty didn’t want to get out yet? And how is this copyright infringement when he never stated that he’s made a Mario game? Or is trying to sell Mario-themed stuff? It’s an official game from Ninty, so what does this have to do with copyright? Where did he copy it?
Same with the “circumvention” … if you can easily make a copy of the key from your own device - which you’ve legally bought and where you only need a paper clip to do it - what are you circumventing then? If you buy a lock, it usually comes with the keys on a keyring that’s “locked” to the loop. Is removing a key from that keyring also “circumventing” then?
The big problem here is that most people doing law have no idea about the technical stuff. And until that changes we’ll see lots of these ridiculous claims going through.
The legal system exists to be manipulated by rich people, for rich people.
We can blame all the rubes that said “they’re a business and they need to make money!” for why these corporations now have the power of gods.
Theoretically any streamer could get sued for copyright infringement by the copyright holders. This is because they own the gameplay, irrespective of whether someone plays it themselves or watches someone else play it. That’s why Nintendo sues for copyright infringement. Usually game companies understand streamers correctly as free advertisement (sometimes even paid) and don’t sue.
Edit: I can imagine they look at broadcasting playing their game in a similar way to someone reading a book out loud publicly. Which is also copyright infringement.
I agree with you on most of your points. And just wanted to clarify this.
Do they, though? They create the world, but the player is the one controlling the action.
If I publicly read a book, I replay the contents verbatim. Basically an exact copy. But playing a game IMHO is more like fan-fiction. I’m making my own story and thus there should be no way to get any legal case against showing/publishing this to others.
That being said, if you monetise your videos and make money from them, it becomes a whole different story.
Yes, the streamer adds to the experience (i.e. how he plays, commentary, …), but a narrator put their own spin on a story. Intonation, the timing of pauses, etc. all requires skill and changes the end result.
Good point about fan fictions. I think fan fics are more like mods in the way that they expand on the world/media without distributing the original media itself.
But yeah I also think it’s dumb that playing a video game could be considered copyright infringement. The same goes for small clips from movies, which are the exact opposite of detrimental to the popularity of a movie.