Have you ever watched a guy play through Black Ops on youtube? Or felt nostalgic and wanted to relive some of your favorite levels from Mario Brothers in a video? Or maybe you thought that the new Miley Cyrus song was hilarious and just had to post a video of you lip-syncing it. Well, thanks to Bill S. 978, those who post copyrighted material could end up facing serious fines, or up to five years jail time. You can check out an article here for details.
While the intentions of this bill are fantastic--preventing the illegal access of videos and movies/music online so that the companies that publish them can make money and, in turn, make their products more affordable, the wording of the bill has the "Let's Play" society for video games in knots. The phrasing of the bill eliminates the posting privileges of all copyrighted material, sans the consent of the owner. That means that the videos of guys blazing through World of Warcraft and Spyro the Dragon will soon swiftly come down, if the bill passes.
This stirs some controversy in the gaming world as video game companies such as Blizzard and Nintendo get a blast of free advertising from Let's Plays and online streaming. Personally, I've purchased at least a dozen games after watching Youtube streams of the game footage, and I'm sure plenty of you have as well.
Of course, Mass Petitions are already in the works against this bill.
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