including lets play videos for games.

watch this video, this guy sums up what this bill means: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib7-vSrp6y8&feature=channel_video_title

the bill is not intending specificly for it to be made illegal to post video game footage on youtube but includes them in very broad language meant to prevent people from uploading whole movies or television episodes onto youtube.

what does the community think of that?

This bill is redundant. It already IS a felony. Ever notice those FBI Warnings at the beginning of movies? Yea.

thats so for movies and television. but not for videos of game play. this bill with make it illegal to post any footage of any video game on you tube for whatever purpose, a felony, with up to 5 years prison sentence.

Thats ridiculous. Machinima would be destroyed.

I doubt this will pass, game companies love the free advertising that gameplay videos generate for them. It also creates a sense of community and customer loyalty to a game franchise.

also as explained in the linked video, situations like a little girl singing a song (which is a copy righted material) in a video being posted on youtube would result in a fine and or prison time.

the guy in the video does explain that this bill is not diliberatly targeting gaming but lets play videos are caught between the broad legal terms meant to make severe penalties to uploading movie and television show clips onto youtube (or any video sharing site)

Looks like you need gamers in the Congress.

Woah, that is [censored] up

Someone has been touched by Sheogaroth

it may very well pass since the bills main and intended purpose is to bring heavy penalties against priacy of movies and television shows and it would be a very dangerous move for a congressman to vote against a bill that is strong against piracy, which would enable their politcal oponents to claim they voted for piracy.

as explained in the video the affects of gaming videos is mostly due to politicians ignorance to how video games apply socially (and finiancially) on the internet as opposed to television and movies. and most accidental.

Is that not protected under fair use laws or something?

This isn't even about gamers. Anyone who sings a song and posts it, any movie clips or your favorite stupid movie quotes ("They're eating her! Then they're going to eat me! Oh my GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!"), or even someone reading a book out loud could be at stake.

A great deal of our culture is influenced by copyrighted material. If we can't talk about it, show it, or quote it, then what the hell is the point?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAIR_USE_Act

If this makes it to SCOTUS, I can see Scalia doing http://www.openclipart.org/people/Master-Sayien/fthat.svg and laughing about it all the way to his room.

Yeeeah, I can't see this working well.

There is some sort of copyrighted material in almost every video out there. song, referenve, image. If this passed the amount of videos that would be taken down is insane. Even some legitamit music videos I listen to and watch have some sort of material like this.

This is stupid. What purpose does it serve, anyway?

I'm pretty sure you can't put videos over 10minutes on Youtube, anyway. I suppose this includes uploading songs to Youtube, too?

the only such thing legally like that is public domain. and this bill is talking about copy righted material, which sumarily means that the holder of the copy righted material has complete and total authority on how that material is used, and technically speaking posting clips of shows, songs and in this case video games is unauthorized use. currently how it works is that instead of legal punishment by default you are given a cease and decist order from the legal team representing the owner of the copy righted material, in which if you refuse they can press charges or lawsuits.

but this bill aims to switch it around so that instead of being allowed to use the material until given a cease and dessist, you must first acquire direct and specific permission before you are allowed to upload.

@NI! it includes every thing that is copy righted. so any image, sound, (or any other way of sensing something) of something that happens to be copyrighted, without express permissions (presumably in righting) will be a felony.

I heard about this a few days ago and was outraged. The ignorance of the US Government to Games and Internet Culture baffles me.

Actually everyone can now, they changed it a few months ago. Put videos up that are longer than 10 minutes that is.

All I know is I hope they don't chase after me because I have about 8 videos on Youtube that have copyrighted material in them.

As someone that uploads video game footage that I spend time recording, which is already a struggle with youtube. The government is trying to crack down even harder. It's ridiculous.

This is something myself and a good friend of mine who happens to have a doctorate it political science don't understand at all. Pretty much every single government out there just blunders around making laws for the internet when they don't fully understand what it is. A beast was unleashed when the internet was created, and there's just no way anyone can reign it back in, no matter how much they want to.

you should keep in mind that this bill's purpose is not directly to harm youtube lets plays, but is a sideaffect of trying to crack down on the piracy of copy righted materials such as movies and songs by electronic means.

they simply made the mistake of leaving it as open ended as that, which means the level of which this can opress the public depends upon who happens to be monitoring and enforcing the bill should it happen to become law.

There is a 15 minute limit and if youtube allows you can post well beyond that. I've seen some user videos well over two hours.

Search for "the longest video on youtube"

Ahem, on topic, if this goes through this will kill a significant portion of youtube's traffic. Most of my usage of youtube is for video game guides if I'm stuck and let's plays. I really don't want to have to go back to using GameFAQs like I did oh-so-long ago before people started posting their guides to youtube. *shudder*

No they removed that limit too, I have a video that is 15:43. I remember reading something about them removing the limit as a whole because of their birthday or reaching X amount of users or something of that nature.

heres a link to the bill itself.

try reading it: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s112-978