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On July 07 2017 00:01 Ancestral wrote:
Can someone explain to me how tournaments aren't a simple fair use copyright issue? It's a transformative work; it uses the source material, StarCraft Broodwar, to facilitate high-level competitive multiplayer gameplay.
It doesn't compete with the source material itself: people aren't going to not buy SC:R because they watched a tournament. In fact, it's exactly the opposite many times.
The fact that Blizzard can wave a magic wand and cancel a tournament honestly seems like it's overstepping their copyright to me, and if such language is in the EULA, it should be unenforceable.
The most they should be able to say is tournaments should require valid game keys for any copies used, and that they cannot present the work in a defamatory way, e.g., replacing unit quotations with Hitler quotations. Someone get Leonard French to talk about this LOL.
There is no legislative law to say its a transformative work, and there are no court rulings to say they're transformative either.
And how are they overstepping their copyright? You need the owner of the IP's permission to do anything big like this tournament. That's not overstepping at all.
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On July 07 2017 06:40 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2017 00:01 Ancestral wrote:
Can someone explain to me how tournaments aren't a simple fair use copyright issue? It's a transformative work; it uses the source material, StarCraft Broodwar, to facilitate high-level competitive multiplayer gameplay.
It doesn't compete with the source material itself: people aren't going to not buy SC:R because they watched a tournament. In fact, it's exactly the opposite many times.
The fact that Blizzard can wave a magic wand and cancel a tournament honestly seems like it's overstepping their copyright to me, and if such language is in the EULA, it should be unenforceable.
The most they should be able to say is tournaments should require valid game keys for any copies used, and that they cannot present the work in a defamatory way, e.g., replacing unit quotations with Hitler quotations. Someone get Leonard French to talk about this LOL. There is no legislative law to say its a transformative work, and there are no court rulings to say they're transformative either. And how are they overstepping their copyright? You need the owner of the IP's permission to do anything big like this tournament. That's not overstepping at all.
A legislative law huh? A law made by the process of making laws?
But you're right - it comes down to a court ruling, and as far as you and I apparently know, there's no precedent. Funny Blizz didn't push the envelope on it until they were enough larger than the scene to ward off all efforts in the courts.
"You need the owner of the IP's permission to do anything big like this tournament. That's not overstepping at all.
"
Yes, that is what Blizzard's lawyers believe to be the case.
Fair use is very broad, but it may not seem like that given the wealth and power of holders of large IPs and their ability to stonewall the legal system.
I'm hoping Blizzard can find a way to get what they want without causing damage, but we do have a precedent for that in which the opposite has happened.
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A legislative law huh? A law made by the process of making laws?
Like, I meant specifically a law that labelled such things as creative works. It either has to be laid out by a new law, or there has to be a ruling. The act of someone's gameplay has not been recognized as transformative.
Fair use is very broad, but it may not seem like that given the wealth and power of holders of large IPs and their ability to stonewall the legal system.
This wouldnt be fair use though. Fair use would be taking another work and using it for commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, etc. Having countless of hours of someone's IP broadcasted for entertainment is not fair use.
Yes, that is what Blizzard's lawyers believe to be the case.
The reason why Blizzard's lawyers believe this to be the case because that is the law.
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On July 07 2017 09:38 lestye wrote:Like, I meant specifically a law that labelled such things as creative works. It either has to be laid out by a new law, or there has to be a ruling. The act of someone's gameplay has not been recognized as transformative. Show nested quote +Fair use is very broad, but it may not seem like that given the wealth and power of holders of large IPs and their ability to stonewall the legal system.
This wouldnt be fair use though. Fair use would be taking another work and using it for commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, etc. Having countless of hours of someone's IP broadcasted for entertainment is not fair use. The reason why Blizzard's lawyers believe this to be the case because that is the law.
"Fair use would be taking another work and using it for commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, etc."
You literally type "etc." in your response and then claim this in particular is not fair use. You were right originally; there has been no major court precedent settling the question definitively.
Obviously, a review using video game footage would be fair use, and is far from transformative. You also put "commentary" in the list (it seems you copied the Wikipedia article, order and all, verbatim). Would commentary on the aspects of strategy and gameplay of pre-recorded match be fair use?
What would obviously not be fair use is transmission of cracked binary files or source code. Blizzard owns the game assets. As you said originally, despite your recalcitrance now, whether or not Blizzard owns every second of video footage of the game generated by every player in history is not definitive.
It is "the law" so far because the copyright holders have more resources than the tournament organizers.
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You literally type "etc." in your response and then claim this in particular is not fair use. You were right originally; there has been no major court precedent settling the question definitively.
etc as in something along those lines. This wouldnt be along those lines.
Obviously, a review using video game footage would be fair use, and is far from transformative. You also put "commentary" in the list (it seems you copied the Wikipedia article, order and all, verbatim). Would commentary on the aspects of strategy and gameplay of pre-recorded match be fair use?
It'd probably be fair use to an extent, not an entire Ro28 tournament. There is also a time component to fair use.
What would obviously not be fair use is transmission of cracked binary files or source code. Blizzard owns the game assets. As you said originally, despite your recalcitrance now, whether or not Blizzard owns every second of video footage of the game generated by every player in history is not definitive.
As far as the law is concerned, yes. That was a huge problem in the Dota 2 scene because people with tickets who had access to replays of tournaments were able to cast over the replay and the owners of the league could not do anything directly about it because they don't own any of the assets except the voice recordings of the casters.
It is "the law" so far because the copyright holders have more resources than the tournament organizers.
It is the law because of the state of laws on the books.
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On July 07 2017 10:04 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +You literally type "etc." in your response and then claim this in particular is not fair use. You were right originally; there has been no major court precedent settling the question definitively.
etc as in something along those lines. This wouldnt be along those lines. Show nested quote +Obviously, a review using video game footage would be fair use, and is far from transformative. You also put "commentary" in the list (it seems you copied the Wikipedia article, order and all, verbatim). Would commentary on the aspects of strategy and gameplay of pre-recorded match be fair use?
It'd probably be fair use to an extent, not an entire Ro28 tournament. There is also a time component to fair use. Show nested quote +What would obviously not be fair use is transmission of cracked binary files or source code. Blizzard owns the game assets. As you said originally, despite your recalcitrance now, whether or not Blizzard owns every second of video footage of the game generated by every player in history is not definitive.
As far as the law is concerned, yes. That was a huge problem in the Dota 2 scene because people with tickets who had access to replays of tournaments were able to cast over the replay and the owners of the league could not do anything directly about it because they don't own any of the assets except the voice recordings of the casters. Show nested quote +It is "the law" so far because the copyright holders have more resources than the tournament organizers.
It is the law because of the state of laws on the books.
I invite you to post what law you think it is that says every frame of a video game generated by anyone is under the sole ownership of the owner of the videogame. Because in that case, you cannot even record yourself playing legally, even if you don't share it with anyone.
I'm not being snarky or sarcastic - I'm not familiar with the law and the specific part that states that unambiguously. So please post it, since you seem to be aware of it.
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On July 07 2017 10:08 Ancestral wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2017 10:04 lestye wrote:You literally type "etc." in your response and then claim this in particular is not fair use. You were right originally; there has been no major court precedent settling the question definitively.
etc as in something along those lines. This wouldnt be along those lines. Obviously, a review using video game footage would be fair use, and is far from transformative. You also put "commentary" in the list (it seems you copied the Wikipedia article, order and all, verbatim). Would commentary on the aspects of strategy and gameplay of pre-recorded match be fair use?
It'd probably be fair use to an extent, not an entire Ro28 tournament. There is also a time component to fair use. What would obviously not be fair use is transmission of cracked binary files or source code. Blizzard owns the game assets. As you said originally, despite your recalcitrance now, whether or not Blizzard owns every second of video footage of the game generated by every player in history is not definitive.
As far as the law is concerned, yes. That was a huge problem in the Dota 2 scene because people with tickets who had access to replays of tournaments were able to cast over the replay and the owners of the league could not do anything directly about it because they don't own any of the assets except the voice recordings of the casters. It is "the law" so far because the copyright holders have more resources than the tournament organizers.
It is the law because of the state of laws on the books. I invite you to post what law you think it is that says every frame of a video game generated by anyone is under the sole ownership of the owner of the videogame. Because in that case, you cannot even record yourself playing legally, even if you don't share it with anyone. I'm not being snarky or sarcastic - I'm not familiar with the law and the specific part that states that unambiguously. So please post it, since you seem to be aware of it.
I'm sure you can, but broadcasting and monetizing that is a completely different issue. The CEO of Afreeca isnt recording these tournament games for his own enjoyment later.
Overall my point was this, if you take a clip of you playing BW. A certain company is going to own the graphics, the artwork, the sound effects, music, sprites, UI, and all the assets that go with it.
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On July 07 2017 10:20 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2017 10:08 Ancestral wrote:On July 07 2017 10:04 lestye wrote:You literally type "etc." in your response and then claim this in particular is not fair use. You were right originally; there has been no major court precedent settling the question definitively.
etc as in something along those lines. This wouldnt be along those lines. Obviously, a review using video game footage would be fair use, and is far from transformative. You also put "commentary" in the list (it seems you copied the Wikipedia article, order and all, verbatim). Would commentary on the aspects of strategy and gameplay of pre-recorded match be fair use?
It'd probably be fair use to an extent, not an entire Ro28 tournament. There is also a time component to fair use. What would obviously not be fair use is transmission of cracked binary files or source code. Blizzard owns the game assets. As you said originally, despite your recalcitrance now, whether or not Blizzard owns every second of video footage of the game generated by every player in history is not definitive.
As far as the law is concerned, yes. That was a huge problem in the Dota 2 scene because people with tickets who had access to replays of tournaments were able to cast over the replay and the owners of the league could not do anything directly about it because they don't own any of the assets except the voice recordings of the casters. It is "the law" so far because the copyright holders have more resources than the tournament organizers.
It is the law because of the state of laws on the books. I invite you to post what law you think it is that says every frame of a video game generated by anyone is under the sole ownership of the owner of the videogame. Because in that case, you cannot even record yourself playing legally, even if you don't share it with anyone. I'm not being snarky or sarcastic - I'm not familiar with the law and the specific part that states that unambiguously. So please post it, since you seem to be aware of it. I'm sure you can, but broadcasting and monetizing that is a completely different issue. The CEO of Afreeca isnt recording these tournament games for his own enjoyment later. Overall my point was this, if you take a clip of you playing BW. A certain company is going to own the graphics, the artwork, the sound effects, music, sprites, UI, and all the assets that go with it.
I don't want to argue on this forever, since I admit I'm not an absolute expert, and I assume you aren't either (correct me if I'm wrong).
Based on my understanding of copyright law, if the company owns all assets generated with the original assets, then it would have to be illegal to have recordings of yourself, the difference being that the company wouldn't care. If, however, tons of recordings were incidentally found on your hard drive in a related case against you, they would be admissible evidence against you.
The only distinction that could be made is if revenue is generated using content generated by users vs. revenue that is not.
A further question, given initiatives like BWOpen, is if an original engine that perfectly emulates the mathematics and rules of BroodWar is protected under fair use, i.e., whether the rules themselves are tantamount to original IP. For example, is it illegal to stream yourself playing Dungeons and Dragons if you show no original assets whatsoever, and only use the rules? You could rename every class, race, item, and monster, but still follow the rules as far as their logical abstraction.
I'm not arguing streamers should have unfettered rights to use content generated from games in any arbitrary way, I'm saying that given the lack of court precedents on many of these things and the many nuanced components, what matters most is that the copyright holders have tons of money, and streamers and tournament organizers don't, and sponsors aren't going to step in and fight legal battles on behalf of sponsored tournaments.
Imagine if a nominally free small-time indie game blew up like StarCraft did, and the roles were reversed. Sponsors, tournament organizers, and players had combined billions in the bank, but the lone developer in his mom's basement failed to capitalize on it. I can only imagine he'd be comparatively hard up, even if copyright attorneys took his case up for free.
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United States33629 Posts
On July 07 2017 00:01 Ancestral wrote:
Can someone explain to me how tournaments aren't a simple fair use copyright issue? It's a transformative work; it uses the source material, StarCraft Broodwar, to facilitate high-level competitive multiplayer gameplay.
This is what KeSPA tried to go to court with against Blizzard a long time ago. The fact that they eventually dropped the case and kowtowed to Blizzard (changing their tone 180 degrees, releasing a statement that explicitly ceded all rights belong 100% to Blizzard), combined with the fact that no esports organization in the entire world has tried to challenge any publisher on the copyright to tournament broadcast, leads me to believe they have been advised by credible IP experts/lawyers that there is no chance in hell of winning such a case.
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On July 07 2017 12:44 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2017 00:01 Ancestral wrote:
Can someone explain to me how tournaments aren't a simple fair use copyright issue? It's a transformative work; it uses the source material, StarCraft Broodwar, to facilitate high-level competitive multiplayer gameplay. This is what KeSPA tried to go to court with against Blizzard a long time ago. The fact that they eventually dropped the case and kowtowed to Blizzard (changing their tone 180 degrees, releasing a statement that explicitly ceded all rights belong 100% to Blizzard), combined with the fact that no esports organization in the entire world has tried to challenge any publisher on the copyright to tournament broadcast, leads me to believe they have been advised by credible IP experts/lawyers that there is no chance in hell of winning such a case.
It doesn't lead me to believe that, because I don't read into things so much. Blizzard was far richer than KeSPA. That's a fact. And it is also a fact wealthier litigants do better, on average, concomitant with how much wealthier they are.
http://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1181&context=law-review
Hence, the entire comment I made, which I won't repeat as it's mere pixels above.
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51620 Posts
Blizzard far richer than KeSPA? You do realise that KeSPA is made up of members of some of the richest companies in the world, including Samsung, SK and Hanjin right?
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On July 07 2017 12:44 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2017 00:01 Ancestral wrote:
Can someone explain to me how tournaments aren't a simple fair use copyright issue? It's a transformative work; it uses the source material, StarCraft Broodwar, to facilitate high-level competitive multiplayer gameplay. This is what KeSPA tried to go to court with against Blizzard a long time ago. The fact that they eventually dropped the case and kowtowed to Blizzard (changing their tone 180 degrees, releasing a statement that explicitly ceded all rights belong 100% to Blizzard), combined with the fact that no esports organization in the entire world has tried to challenge any publisher on the copyright to tournament broadcast, leads me to believe they have been advised by credible IP experts/lawyers that there is no chance in hell of winning such a case.
There is also the possibility that the costs would be too high for KeSPA to go this route even if they could win, so they didn't try. In my limited understanding, it could be like this:
KeSPA decides to file a suit against Blizzard. They consult some IP lawyer. IP lawyer's eyes bulge out of this atmosphere and explains that Blizzard would
1. Send a cease and desist right away, which KeSPA would either have to follow while fighting the case or violate while fighting the case with the potential of having to pay egregious fines later (imagine a cost/game or second televized of their leagues).
2. Hire a massive team of lawyers that would swamp KeSPA's team with paperwork forcing KeSPA to hire an equally large team to handle, something that KeSPA is ill equipped to cover in terms of hourly rates or retainers compared to Blizzard.
3. Blizzard then drags the process out as much as legally possible, incurring even further costs on KeSPA. All while potentially not broadcasting and thus losing public interest and fervor or while broadcasting and incurring more fees should they pull out of the suit.
At this point if KeSPA pulls out, they would most likely be counter-sued for damages and potentially for violating the IP license if they had opted to do so. Now they have to cover a lot if not all of Blizzard's legal fees and other such expenses (hourly wage for people showing up to court, for example).
These are just some possibilities, again within my limited knowledge of how it can happen on the civilian level.
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On July 07 2017 10:28 Ancestral wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2017 10:20 lestye wrote:On July 07 2017 10:08 Ancestral wrote:On July 07 2017 10:04 lestye wrote:You literally type "etc." in your response and then claim this in particular is not fair use. You were right originally; there has been no major court precedent settling the question definitively.
etc as in something along those lines. This wouldnt be along those lines. Obviously, a review using video game footage would be fair use, and is far from transformative. You also put "commentary" in the list (it seems you copied the Wikipedia article, order and all, verbatim). Would commentary on the aspects of strategy and gameplay of pre-recorded match be fair use?
It'd probably be fair use to an extent, not an entire Ro28 tournament. There is also a time component to fair use. What would obviously not be fair use is transmission of cracked binary files or source code. Blizzard owns the game assets. As you said originally, despite your recalcitrance now, whether or not Blizzard owns every second of video footage of the game generated by every player in history is not definitive.
As far as the law is concerned, yes. That was a huge problem in the Dota 2 scene because people with tickets who had access to replays of tournaments were able to cast over the replay and the owners of the league could not do anything directly about it because they don't own any of the assets except the voice recordings of the casters. It is "the law" so far because the copyright holders have more resources than the tournament organizers.
It is the law because of the state of laws on the books. I invite you to post what law you think it is that says every frame of a video game generated by anyone is under the sole ownership of the owner of the videogame. Because in that case, you cannot even record yourself playing legally, even if you don't share it with anyone. I'm not being snarky or sarcastic - I'm not familiar with the law and the specific part that states that unambiguously. So please post it, since you seem to be aware of it. I'm sure you can, but broadcasting and monetizing that is a completely different issue. The CEO of Afreeca isnt recording these tournament games for his own enjoyment later. Overall my point was this, if you take a clip of you playing BW. A certain company is going to own the graphics, the artwork, the sound effects, music, sprites, UI, and all the assets that go with it. I don't want to argue on this forever, since I admit I'm not an absolute expert, and I assume you aren't either (correct me if I'm wrong). Based on my understanding of copyright law, if the company owns all assets generated with the original assets, then it would have to be illegal to have recordings of yourself, the difference being that the company wouldn't care. If, however, tons of recordings were incidentally found on your hard drive in a related case against you, they would be admissible evidence against you. The only distinction that could be made is if revenue is generated using content generated by users vs. revenue that is not. A further question, given initiatives like BWOpen, is if an original engine that perfectly emulates the mathematics and rules of BroodWar is protected under fair use, i.e., whether the rules themselves are tantamount to original IP. For example, is it illegal to stream yourself playing Dungeons and Dragons if you show no original assets whatsoever, and only use the rules? You could rename every class, race, item, and monster, but still follow the rules as far as their logical abstraction. e.
I think private recordings would be fair use. It's only when you broadcast or copy such content to the world that it matters.
I think comparable examples is if you took a photograph of yourself with a bunch of coke merchandise, or viewing a movie with your family versus trying to broadcast it via the internet. Private vs public use is a big part of it as well.
I don't think your examples are very relevant because at the end of the day, they want to broadcast Blizzard's IP. And if CJ Group gave up 10 years ago, then its settled.
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On July 07 2017 13:06 GTR wrote:
Blizzard far richer than KeSPA? You do realise that KeSPA is made up of members of some of the richest companies in the world, including Samsung, SK and Hanjin right?
That doesn't mean that those backers are willing to gamble millions of dollars on what could effectively amount to the death of progaming, a limitation precedent, and little to no outright profit.
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On July 07 2017 13:06 GTR wrote:
Blizzard far richer than KeSPA? You do realise that KeSPA is made up of members of some of the richest companies in the world, including Samsung, SK and Hanjin right?
I'm sure the KeSPA members were totally ready to spend hundreds of times their teams' budgets to have their top counsel litigate a video game tournament IP case with zero implications for their actual business priorities
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On July 07 2017 13:06 GTR wrote:
Blizzard far richer than KeSPA? You do realise that KeSPA is made up of members of some of the richest companies in the world, including Samsung, SK and Hanjin right?
KeSPA does have powerful corporate sponsorship, but they are not themselves Samsung, SKT, and Hanjin.
And Blizzard has a market cap of $50 billion. It wasn't Samsung vs. Blizzard, it was KeSPA vs. Blizzard.
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Well, this thread is destroyed now. Please someone give me the way how do i delete this thread. ATB is ended now.
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TLADT24920 Posts
On July 07 2017 13:32 K.H.J wrote:
Well, this thread is destroyed now. Please someone give me the way how do i delete this thread. ATB is ended now.
Don't worry, will close it once the discussion above finishes.
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On July 07 2017 13:32 K.H.J wrote:
Well, this thread is destroyed now. Please someone give me the way how do i delete this thread. ATB is ended now.
Don't do that. Let everyone knows this.
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Didn't Gretech (who partnered with Blizzard and owned SC2 broadcasting rights) send or at least threaten to send a cease and desist letter to KeSPA over starting Proleague without finishing negotiations? This is the only source I could dig up.
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EPT
