On April 02 2012 13:44 rename wrote: it has been established in this thread that sooner or later you will going to get DMCA'd if you stream using copyrighted music... be it fair or not.
important questions what have not been answered yet: Has a player actually gotten a license to use copyrighted music on their streams? Anybody has any idea what the costs exactly are and how to actually get one? Do you need multiple licenses for different music/labels?
1) No player has a license.
2) They are very expensive (not proportional to the income you make while playing music), but getting one is usually as easy as contact the relevant music collection agency.
3) In the US, at least, there are three major organizations, all which have different members. Paying all three will generally cover all main-stream musicians, but not always.
Can't you merely compare this situation to Cinematic experiences as well?
Perhaps the fact that you can't video tape a film whilst in a theater and sell it as pirated material has a similar relation to how playing music on a stream to make money works... Don't get caught?
I figure as Esports gets larger (and is worth more money) that the legal world will begin to be involved.
You only need to ask yourself one question. One question.
Are you profiting from this stream. Yes or No. Just answer the question please, don't dodge. Dodging the question is the hallmark of a liar.
If you answered Yes, and you're streaming Taylor Swift(or ANY prominent music), you know as well as I do, that you weren't allowed to, and whoever manages her business WILL rightfully clamp down on you. No, you didn't get authorization from her. No, you didn't.
I don't care what streaming service you're using, or if it's just an mp3 on your hard drive. You cannot generate profits off of someone else's music without their express permission.
Contact some new up and coming musicians. Some no-names or people that no one's ever heard of. Play their music. It's win-win.
On April 02 2012 13:44 rename wrote: it has been established in this thread that sooner or later you will going to get DMCA'd if you stream using copyrighted music... be it fair or not.
important questions what have not been answered yet: Has a player actually gotten a license to use copyrighted music on their streams? Anybody has any idea what the costs exactly are and how to actually get one? Do you need multiple licenses for different music/labels?
1) No player has a license.
2) They are very expensive (not proportional to the income you make while playing music), but getting one is usually as easy as contact the relevant music collection agency.
3) In the US, at least, there are three major organizations, all which have different members. Paying all three will generally cover all main-stream musicians, but not always.
About 2) What is expensive? For some streamers 500$/year might be expensive, for others maybe not.. Also i found this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange where it says proportional fees can be also done for Internet Radio - but im not sure if this organization covers video streams.
About 3) Is there a service that helps you cover everything/most, without that much hassle? And if not - is there legal framework for twitchv providing that kind of service?
On April 02 2012 14:47 D_K_night wrote: You only need to ask yourself one question. One question.
Are you profiting from this stream. Yes or No. Just answer the question please, don't dodge. Dodging the question is the hallmark of a liar.
If you answered Yes, and you're streaming Taylor Swift(or ANY prominent music), you know as well as I do, that you weren't allowed to, and whoever manages her business WILL rightfully clamp down on you. No, you didn't get authorization from her. No, you didn't.
I don't care what streaming service you're using, or if it's just an mp3 on your hard drive. You cannot generate profits off of someone else's music without their express permission.
Contact some new up and coming musicians. Some no-names or people that no one's ever heard of. Play their music. It's win-win.
You're leaving out an important fact, it doesn't matter if the individual is not profiting off the stream because Twitch is. Even when you aren't a partner/revenue sharing, posting a video on YouTube or streaming a song on Twitch is still commercial use. Twitch is liable for profiting off of it and therefor would have to comply with a DMCA take-down notice even if you aren't the one earning the profit.
Its not worth anyone's time to worry about. When the RIAA comes a knocking at TwitchTVs door then address it. Until then let the good time roll, no one is building a business off of playing copyrighted music. The music is just a nice background. If it was feasible to pay the fees required companies like MLG would do it, it isn't.
I'm surprised to hear that streamers aren't allowed to play copyrighted music because honestly, don't they all? If that's the actual rule regarding the issue then why does it seem like it's never enforced? Seems like a joke to me, just as much as a hypothetical law that would force policemen to ticket drivers who turn up their radio to max with their windows down and let the whole neighborhood hear the music. Shouldn't action be taken against that sort of situation because people who don't pay for radio are getting to hear the music? Just an example.
On April 02 2012 15:00 Areon wrote: I'm surprised to hear that streamers aren't allowed to play copyrighted music because honestly, don't they all? If that's the actual rule regarding the issue then why does it seem like it's never enforced?
Because Twitch only has to comply with the rule and enforce it to a certain degree to stay safe from lawsuits, they don't need to go out of their way and ban anyone that breaks it. As long as they take down any content when the copyright holder asks them to, they can keep functioning. The only time you see a channel taken down is when a copyright holder has issued a take down request to Twitch and Twitch takes action on it. That's the same reason you'll see tons of copyright material all over YouTube, and even though YouTube has several measures in place to filter that material out - you'll sometimes see a popular video suddenly get pulled after months of being fine because of a claim by the copyright holder.
Twitch doesn't have to do anything until notified (as long as they're not encouraging it), as per the DMCA and reinforced by the case Justin.tv won vs the UFC the other day. Currently the copyright holders are just not trolling their site to post take downs yet. And frankly that'd be a retarded thing to do anyway. How often do you see people ask for the name of a song in stream chat? It's free advertising and not the reason people watch the stream. I know this won't stop them, but there you go.
On April 02 2012 15:00 Areon wrote: Seems like a joke to me, just as much as a hypothetical law that would force policemen to ticket drivers who turn up their radio to max with their windows down and let the whole neighborhood hear the music. Shouldn't action be taken against that sort of situation because people who don't pay for radio are getting to hear the music? Just an example.
Drivers aren't profiting commercially while blaring their Radio.
If people would read through some of the thread instead of coming up with random analogies, there wouldn't be nearly as much confusion.
I desperately wish streamers would just play music to themselves but not have it play over the stream.
I would love to learn by watching world class players like Idra, but the blaring sonic diarrhea is such a turnoff that I can't bear to watch it. Sure you can mute it, but I'd miss all the game sounds and particularly the alerts, so it's not as easy to watch.
On April 02 2012 15:57 Chocobo wrote: I desperately wish streamers would just play music to themselves but not have it play over the stream.
I would love to learn by watching world class players like Idra, but the blaring sonic diarrhea is such a turnoff that I can't bear to watch it. Sure you can mute it, but I'd miss all the game sounds and particularly the alerts, so it's not as easy to watch.
And I wish that was easy and free to do :|
Requires paying for software and/or hardware and introduces problems like the audio being out of sync with the image. Its a real pain in the ass trying to make it work from my experience.
Does anyone stream the audio as lossless and use lossless to begin with...? All of them just use 256 or 320... so they aren't making a reproduction of the material...
Complaining about how your stream got shut down and some others didn't is like complaining that you got caught from stealing from a shop but someone you know didn't. Well, at least in the eyes of the law that is.
I can understand why the artists' are protecting their rights as the copyright owners of their music, but at the same time I can't see how using their music in a stream causes them to lose absolutely anything. They most likely just gain from it as increased publicity.
The law is the law, and that is all there is to be said I guess.
On April 02 2012 17:15 nalgene wrote: Does anyone stream the audio as lossless and use lossless to begin with...? All of them just use 256 or 320... so they aren't making a reproduction of the material...
Just because you're not making a bit-for-bit copy of the source material doesn't mean you're not reproducing it. You can drone on about minute technical details like (re)compressing the audio changing it and such, but that's never ever going to hold up in court. Fact is that you're broadcasting someone elses work for commercial purposes (either your own or Twitch's) without permission. Copyright holders can act on that. They haven't so far (except for very high profile streamers perhaps), because the loss of goodwill and required effort don't outweigh the benefits.
tbh im surprised twitch/own3d etc. isnt banned already in germany hail gema even if you have like 1 second of a relatively unknown song in your youtube video its banned by gema in seconds.
On April 02 2012 13:44 rename wrote: it has been established in this thread that sooner or later you will going to get DMCA'd if you stream using copyrighted music... be it fair or not.
important questions what have not been answered yet: Has a player actually gotten a license to use copyrighted music on their streams? Anybody has any idea what the costs exactly are and how to actually get one? Do you need multiple licenses for different music/labels?
1) No player has a license.
2) They are very expensive (not proportional to the income you make while playing music), but getting one is usually as easy as contact the relevant music collection agency.
3) In the US, at least, there are three major organizations, all which have different members. Paying all three will generally cover all main-stream musicians, but not always.
About 2) What is expensive? For some streamers 500$/year might be expensive, for others maybe not.. Also i found this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange where it says proportional fees can be also done for Internet Radio - but im not sure if this organization covers video streams.
About 3) Is there a service that helps you cover everything/most, without that much hassle? And if not - is there legal framework for twitchv providing that kind of service?
Streamers who want to play copyrighted music can get a 'backgroundmusic license' which will cover all songs (well 99%) you play at your stream and of course you also have to own the music and i think you cant have vods but you have to check that out at the organization who provides licenses in your country. You can get licenses like that around 300/400 dollars a year, so not that bad indeed if you really need the music on your stream.
Twitch cant provide it cause each streamer has to have it's own license for broadcasting copyrighted music, only thing twitch could provide is a music database with tracks users could use for broadcasting, but dont think thats gonna be cost effective for Twitch. There are already a lot of providers where you can purchase a account and you get a database with like 10000000 songs which you then can use for streaming.
EPT
