Nintendo Hates You: DMCA Takedowns Of Game Music Continue While Nintendo Offers No Legit Way To Listen
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Well, it's been a measurable amount of time, so we have yet another example of Nintendo doing the Nintendo, which is best described as depriving its fans of ways to celebrate their fandom via intellectual property enforcement while also offering no alternative route for said fans. Whether it's stripping some of the creative fun out of its Animal Kingdom game, nuking fan-made games of Nintendo properties like some kind of IP-version of Missile Command, or just generally being as IP protectionist as possible, it seems that Nintendo chooses restrictive enforcement over creative methods for granting fans permission to be fans at every turn.You will recall that Nintendo is currently embroiled in a controversy, having first disallowed a Smash Bros. tournament that had to go remote over the use of a mod that made remote tournaments possible with the game, followed by rescinding the broadcast ability of a Splatoon 2 tournament almost certainly just because several teams chose team-names that were protests of its Smash tournament actions. The backlash over those actions have been fairly universal, which may explain why Nintendo is now retreating to older, more familiar methods for pissing people off: DMCAing music from its beloved games.Now, they’ve come under fire yet again for taking down YouTube videos with music from Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and Mario Kart Wii. It’s nothing new. Nintendo has been doing it for years, and they’re well within their rights to. GilvaSunner is a YouTuber known for uploading soundtracks from video games, mostly Nintendo. Understandably, he’s had many videos taken down over the years due to copyright claims. In 2019, he posted a tweet that said, “Game over.” It includes a screenshot with emails from YouTube telling him that some videos had been blocked due to copyright claims. However, he didn’t specifically mention it was Nintendo.Now, more than a year later, he followed up on his initial tweet with an update. More videos have been taken down over copyright claims. He specifically mentioned it was Nintendo JP, although it cannot be seen in the screenshots. He's not the only one, of course. Again, I will point out that Nintendo absolutely can do this. It's within their rights. But they don't have to. There are plenty of methods by which it could offer an inexpensive license for people to portray its game music if it wanted to. Or, given that this is copyright and not trademark law we're talking about, Nintendo could simply ignore all of this, as they selectively have throughout the years. The post goes on to note that reactions to these takedowns among Nintendo fans are mixed, which is understandable.But it seems like fans are also finally beginning to ask the right questions.Either way, the consensus is that this whole predicament has a simple solution. Nintendo needs to make the music from their game soundtracks more readily available and in a legal way.“Please put your soundtracks on Spotify and/or other music streaming services,” said GilvaSunner. “Others have already seen the light, when will you?” It’s a sentiment that others share. And thus we have the crux of how Nintendo does the Nintendo. The company patrols and controls its intellectual property with a fervor normally reserved for cult followers, but refuses to offer the legitimate -- and lucrative! -- methods for fans to enjoy that intellectual property.Nintendo, whatever else I might want to say about the company, makes great products. And great art! Being restrictive on the IP side while also being restrictive over where that art is enjoyed is immensely frustrating, both to me and the real, true fans of the company's work.
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posted at: 12:00am on 11-Dec-2020
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Tillis Release Details Of His Felony Streaming Bill; A Weird Gift To Hollywood At The Expense Of Taxpayers
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Earlier today, we wrote about reports detailing the latest attempt to push through a bill to make streaming copyright-covered works online a possible felony, this time being pushed by Senator Thom Tillis, who wanted to attach it to the federal spending omnibus bill. As we noted, Tillis was pushing back on some of the criticism, saying that the bill is very narrowly tailored and wouldn't be used to criminalize random people. Of course, the response to that is twofold: (1) if this is the case, why haven't you released the text and (2) why are you shoving it onto a must-pass funding bill without any of the normal debate and discussion?This afternoon Tillis dealt with the first part of this by finally releasing the text of the bill. And he's somewhat correct in noting that the bill is narrowly tailored. That doesn't make it good or necessary. The key bit is this:PROHIBITED ACT.It shall be unlawful to willfully, and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that''(1) is primarily designed or provided for thepurpose of publicly performing works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law;''(2) has no commercially significant purpose or use other than to publicly perform works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law; or''(3) is intentionally marketed by or at the direction of that person to promote its use in publicly performing works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law. So, the argument is that the "narrow" tailoring here is such that it only applies to websites, not users, if that site is "primarily" engaged in streaming unlicensed copyright-covered works, has no significant purpose other than that, and intentionally markets itself as such.And, to Tillis' credit, this is much more narrowly tailored than previous such bills. It still doesn't explain why the text is only just being released now or (more importantly) why this has to be added to a must-pass Christmas Tree government funding bill.To some extent, the thinking behind this bill is that it's focused on a very specific set of circumstances. There have been websites out there that stream content they host, and those already faced felony charges for the hosting -- but this seems to extend that to sites that stream the content that is hosted elsewhere. Of course, there is a much bigger question of why is this a criminal issue in the first place? It is yet another example of Hollywood trying to pass off what should be a civil issue, where the movie studios and record labels have every right and ability to sue these companies in court, and turn them into an issue that the US taxpayer now has to deal with? It's basically a giant subsidy to Hollywood, taking a private dispute and putting it on the public dime.As Public Knowledge says in its response to the bill's release, "we do not see the need for further criminal penalties for copyright infringement." Indeed.The end result is that this bill is not as horrific as past felony streaming bills, and is, in fact, narrowly tailored. However, that does not change the fact that moving copyright issues away from civil disputes to be handled by copyright holders, to the federal government, is something that we should not support. Indeed, it should be seen as somewhat odd that a Trump-supporting Republican, who claims to be for keeping government out of business, is directly subsidizing Hollywood by having the federal government and US taxpayers take over their own civil legal dispute by turning them into criminal issues.And, more importantly, none of this explains why the bill should be released at the last moment, and then dumped into the must-pass federal spending bill. It's a bad idea. If Tillis really thinks this bill is good and necessary, he should have to defend it as such through the regular process bills go through.
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posted at: 12:00am on 11-Dec-2020
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