We should probably talk about the Twitch changes.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > We should probably talk about the Twitch changes.

The 7th Guest: Dec 17, 2003

I'm pretty sure implementation of ContentID was the exact thing I said would happen when we talked about the Google buyout last time

Based on people who have said the scraper mutes music FROM THE GAMES as well as streamers who sing notes, it sounds like the same exact scraper as Youtube's, a scraper that tries to solve an ant problem with a meteor

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 01:47

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 13:12

The 7th Guest: Dec 17, 2003

It does happen on Youtube, a lot. Their scraper is bullshit and will claim public domain music, birds chirping, whatever.

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/27/rumblefish-claims-to-own-copyr.html

I don't know what Twitch's process is, but the arbitrator of a copyright dispute on Youtube, is the company making the claim, rather than Youtube or a third party. So they get to be judge jury and executioner. Hopefully Twitch's process is a lot less painful.

The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Aug 7, 2014

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 01:53

The 7th Guest: Dec 17, 2003

Shadowlz posted:

Good thing Google doesn't care what we think. The Internet will get over it in a week.

Well or Twitch will go under but they got their money anyway so they're fine

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 02:51

The 7th Guest: Dec 17, 2003

I wonder what this means for the charity marathons that use Twitch like AGDQ/ESA. You probably couldn't speedrun Vice City without the entirety of it being muted. I'm assuming they'll leave and go to Hitbox.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 04:02

The 7th Guest: Dec 17, 2003

maniacripper posted:

Whatever happened to the push some shithead developers were on about collecting a percentage/all streamer income because "they made the content". I hope someone stoned some of them to death and the rest backed down in fear.

Nintendo wants to share ad revenue with Youtube Partners who use their game content, ie, Nintendo wants to cut in on someone making 100% of 10 cents per video so they can take 9 cents. Although Youtube doesn't really facilitate that currently. They'd have to change their system to accommodate Nintendo.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 04:42

The 7th Guest: Dec 17, 2003

Original_Z posted:

I remember we had a thread months ago when the Google buyout was just announced and a bunch of people were saying that it wouldn't be that bad and that Google will know that Twitch isn't YouTube and won't put in their restrictions.

How naive we were...can't wait to have to do everything through google plus!

I ranted like a crazy person against ContentID in that thread and I went a little over the top, but at least now people see how stupid a copyright scraper's AI is

I'm not even sure how E3 can continue to be Twitch's official partner if their archived videos are all muted from the licensed music that gets used in video game trailers

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 05:07

The 7th Guest: Dec 17, 2003

Katana Gomai posted:

But they did make the content and deserve a cut if some asshat child broadcasts their game to earn money, OP.

Copyright law is too outdated to be flexible and adaptable to situations like this. For example, if Rockstar places a copyright claim on GTAV footage on Youtube, they alone would collect ad money from that game footage. But that money isn't just theirs. Every musician whose song plays over the in-car radio in the game is an additional public performance. Is Rockstar going to pay according to their needledrop license with ASCAP? They're supposed to. But they won't. Why is it okay for them to be above copyright law?

e: It should also be mentioned that many indie companies provide written permission to broadcasters to monetize videos of their game content. And I believe some larger publishers like Capcom do as well, although I haven't checked lately

The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Aug 7, 2014

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 08:06

The 7th Guest: Dec 17, 2003

Katana Gomai posted:

Where did I say it was? And how do you know they wouldn't (or that ASCAP wouldn't pursue it)? Hell, maybe their licensing contacts already include a clause for such use.

I can't physically prove that they don't pay royalties on the music in a copyright-claimed Totalbiscuit video, no. But new types of media, historically, are ripe for loophole exploitation or lack of precedent. The Writers Strike in 2007 was from companies not paying out royalties for streaming and on-demand video, when they were just becoming a big thing. If there's a loophole or they think they won't get caught, they'll try to pull it off.

Ruminate on this smelly garbage: companies claim copyrighted content that isn't theirs on Youtube. NASA's own videos were claimed and deleted by Youtube because a TV station claimed copyright. There's public domain music that gets claimed by production music libraries because they have a similar but not identical performance in their catalog, such as classical music (there have even been reports of Youtube's own Production Music Library getting copyright claimed by other companies). Companies just kind of do what they want. Consider the Happy Birthday song, which Warner has been collecting royalties on for decades, illegally.

I think that this system doesn't benefit game companies for other reasons as well. Maybe you feel that Let's Plays are not legitimate advertising, but the company's own trailers certainly are, and there will be a lot of trailers during Gamescom soon, but if any publication on Twitch broadcasts those trailers, the archive broadcasts could full of muted audio. Imagine a company giving a keynote conference at Gamescom and the whole thing's silent. And if the scraper were to get confused and think that the music in a Sunset Overdrive trailer sounds too much like Maxwell's Silver Hammer, even the company's own Twitch archive could get muted, and it's much trickier to resolve.

If it's resolved anything like Youtube, you submit a dispute that is then approved or rejected by the company making the claim, rather than an arbitrator. These companies don't actually look at the video in dispute, they just say "oh that song's in the video? Yeah that's ours. REJECTED" which is what happened to the bird chirping video I mentioned earlier. But that's not even the killer, it's the time lost. That video could be muted for days to weeks while the dispute is ongoing. So you lose that ad money but you're also losing out on your advertising opportunity.

I think it would be beneficial to everyone to at least meet in the middle. But a lot of companies already understand the benefit of Twitch and LPs. Awesomenauts, Don't Starve, Dungeons of Dredmor, Orcs Must Die, Killing Floor, Tower of Guns, Legends of Grimrock, Magicka, Terraria, Team Fortress 2, Trine; these are just some of the games that grant permission to monetize videos of their content. If it was all developers/publishers on one side and all broadcasters on the other, that would be one thing, but you've got developers on both sides right now.

The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Aug 7, 2014

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 08:37

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 13:12

The 7th Guest: Dec 17, 2003

You can lose your trademark if you don't defend it, but that's kinda different.

Copyright law was created to promote the cultivation of new ideas, but copyright law as it is used now is mostly about control. Control over how consumers use and access content. I don't think it's about lost sales.

There may be a couple of developers who feel that Twitch and LPs show the entire story of their game to consumers, thus no longer giving them an incentive to play the game, but the reality is, we are trending towards a future of multiplayer-only games, if we're not already there. Certainly MP-focused. And also people do play games for the gameplay too, or else every game would be Gone Home instead of it being the ugly duckling in the pond.

But you said audio copyright holders, and I dunno. It's possible that Twitch just added ContentID because Google forced it on them, simply because That's How We Do It Here at Google. It may not have even been because of pressure placed on Twitch from record labels/RIAA (although Youtube's ContentID -was- because of pressure placed on them from MPAA). They would be right, that a public performance of their audio is infringement. But Twitch is muting human singing and developer audio too, so. I dunno, the RIAA may not be behind it.

The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Aug 7, 2014

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 09:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > We should probably talk about the Twitch changes.