Bill S.978 - The end of game streaming.

[Coupet]

Senate Bill S.978 in its simplest form states that if passed it will be a felony to stream copyrighted content like music in the background of a Youtube videos, web cam cover of songs, “Let’s Play” home made game reviews, anime music videos or AMVs and countless other videos that makes up the Youtube collective.

Senate Bill S.978 states that 10 or more public performances by electronic means taken during an 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted material will land a person 5-years in jail, and depending on what copyrighted material was used a person can be fined anywhere between $2,500 to $5,000.

What are your views on this ludicrous bill?

[Adam]

It won't be passed, there's too much money involved and it'd be impossible to employ.

[Stephen]

what so people wouldn't be allowed to stream games on justin.tv etc? lolll

definitely won't be passed

[Fez]

It will be passed because the bill's consequences to gaming streams are tiny details and the overall bill is being used to *ahem* FIGHT PIRACY. That futile bitter war that results in consumers missing out on good stuff and more and more pirates coming into play.

It will pass because it isn't just about video-games, it's about film and music, if the bill was altered slightly then I'd be fine with it.

Sad but Congress will think this will fight piracy when the direct opposite will happen. Again.

[dbgtz]

What are your views on this ludicrous bill?

I thought America is meant to be about free speech? Surely removing the ability to do covers, "Let's Play" videos and stuff like that just removes this whole free speech thing. To be honest, this will be too hard to monitor and it probably won't pass.

[Recursion]

The USA isn't the be all and end all of the law... whilst people in the UK are pushing for more relaxed laws on remixes etc etc

[Firehorse]

I think laws are just getting stupid, perhaps passing stupid bills is a way of taking attention off politician's failure to effectively deal with the recession.

As if not allowing people to stream content like music in the background of videos is really going to benefit the artist? If anything it would mean less people would discover that music and everyone would just lose out.

I mean piracy is one thing to be annoyed about and has financial impact, but this is just a rediculous waste of time and a youtube entertainment industry killer. Especially since most of youtube's servers are probably in the US.

[Adam]

It will be passed because the bill's consequences to gaming streams are tiny details and the overall bill is being used to *ahem* FIGHT PIRACY. That futile bitter war that results in consumers missing out on good stuff and more and more pirates coming into play.

It will pass because it isn't just about video-games, it's about film and music, if the bill was altered slightly then I'd be fine with it.

Sad but Congress will think this will fight piracy when the direct opposite will happen. Again.

If passed it won't be enforced, it can't.

[Recursion]

I think laws are just getting stupid, perhaps passing stupid bills is a way of taking attention off politician's failure to effectively deal with the recession.

As if not allowing people to stream content like music in the background of videos is really going to benefit the artist? If anything it would mean less people would discover that music and everyone would just lose out.

I mean piracy is one thing to be annoyed about and has financial impact, but this is just a rediculous waste of time and a youtube entertainment industry killer. Especially since most of youtube's servers are probably in the US.

Doubt it, I'd be willing to put money on YouTube using a global content delivery network so that you run off the closest/less loaded server.

[Camy]

Won't be passed, for games anyway. Games companies have just started to realise how good an outlet it is for publicity for their games, so I can't see them wanting to push it through really.