Google Stadia director says streamers should pay companies.

[Asrialol]

I would be perfectly fine if the DEVELOPERS got royalties from streamers.
However, we all know that money will go into the pockets of overpaid CEO's and their Shareholders.

So. The money goes to them who makes sure the games are made, the ones responsible for the product, and the shareolders. And that is bad why? The developers only make the game. The CEO runs the company.

[Axaion]

Yeah no, he can sod off
And so can stadia while were at it.

[kranur]

Sort of true. Especially as some streamers/youtubers or whatever get sponsorship to put commercials of other products.

See 6 minute videos out which 2 are blabbing about a product.

[Jester Joe]

Well, your post is a bit misleading. In the original tweet, he talks about those who stream a game they haven't bought. So if you've bought the game, you shouldn't have a problem streaming that game, but if you haven't bought it, and on top of that, you want to make a profit from it by streaming, well, I'm afraid I agree with Alex Hutchinson

And for everyone else, before giving an opinion, I recommend that you read well the source of what was said and the context, because it is not the first time someone's words have been taken out of context.

Greetings

Reading his entire post doesn't paint the image you're saying at all.

If you read JUST one of his tweets yeah

Streamers worried about getting their content pulled because they used music they didn't pay for should be more worried by the fact that they're streaming games they didn't pay for as well. It's all gone as soon as publishers decide to enforce it.

https://twitter.com/BangBangClick/st...05552560836609

That does sound like "If you didn't buy the game". The second one though says-

The real truth is the streamers should be paying the developers and publishers of the games they stream. They should be buying a license like any real business and paying for the content they use.

https://twitter.com/BangBangClick/st...05553454288896

Quite clearly not the same, when he's talking about paying for licenses for the right to stream.

[Thage]

On legal paper, yes, he probably has a point, especially for streamers that monetize their content. However, Nintendo has already tried this before. It's widely considered a laughably poor decision that only led to their games not being streamed widely anymore. It is not practical to attempt to enforce, unless you have a legal team as large and well-paid as Nintendo's corporate lawyers, and even then it's questionable if it's worth the trouble you'd incur.

Furthermore, one could make the argument that once one has exchanged currency for goods, the producer no longer has the right to dictate what the consumer can and can't do with that product, outside of establish terms of use/end-user license agreements the majority of which are often unenforceable in court if they include stipulations against streaming, mostly because the law is decades behind the technology curve in just about every way imaginable (not helped by the fact that apparently the overwhelming majority of Representatives and Senators are hopelessly technologically-illiterate, as the various 'big tech' hearings put into terrifyingly stark light).

Thirdly, this would open up a can of worms that nobody rational who isn't the head of a floundering, dying, failed console launch would want to open up. Streaming is probably the biggest source of free advertising the games industry has enjoyed since its inception. How many people do you think jumped on the Minecraft train because Pewdiepie streamed it and they wanted to play on his server? How many people downloaded Fortnite and began purchasing microtransactions because they wanted to play with Ninja? How many people went back and actually gave Dragon's Dogma a shot after it seriously underperformed (it sold about 1/20 the expected copies at launch, but has regularly been one of Capcom's strongest sellers since) because streamers showed off the game? How many times have we seen players come into WoW or Classic and crash servers because they wanted to play with, say, Sodapoppin or Toweliee or Asmongold?

Sure, normally "work for exposure" is some ol' bullshit, but that's when it aims downward. A company trying to screw an artist into working for exposure is a cheap move; a streamer bringing attention and sales to a game is free advertising. You think marketing budgets are bloated now? Imagine the budget bloat if they didn't have free advertising to hundreds of thousands of prospective customers every day.

[Benitora]

So. The money goes to them who makes sure the games are made, the ones responsible for the product, and the shareolders. And that is bad why? The developers only make the game. The CEO runs the company.

Yes and no.
CEO's of both EA and Activision are overpaid. If they where to cut their pay to a regular CEO level of other equivalent companies of similar values, and then they can get small royalties from whatever the streamers are making, then fine.

But they won't of course do that. Cutting their own pay so that their workers can actually get some more money? Nah man, fuck that, let's fire a few hundred folks instead despite have record years of income.

Job security in gaming development is disgustingly bad, and it needs a complete rework before the CEO's get even a dime more.

[Azerate]

It's funny that people are bringing up the royalties system present in some other types of media as an excuse to do the same to streamers & games.

Royalties are wrong in the first place. And they shouldn't be a thing. If you buy something, you should be able to with it whatever you want. Show it to others, lend it to others, play it while others are watching, listen to it while other are watching etc. Royalties are just one of the degeneracies of capitalism. They should kept getting limited in places they exist already, not getting extended to new avenues.

Don't use a bad system that already exist as an excuse to introduce more bad systems similar to the ones already existing.

[Thage]

However, I do agree with the creative director who originally made the comment and I do think it will be a point of contention sometime in the future. Streamers are profiting and making an entire living in some cases off of sharing someone's work from the masses.

In fairness, sorry for the pun, it's mostly because streamers providing commentary/reactions are considered transformative, which under Fair Use allows them to use the copyrighted material without obtaining a commercial license. I believe, but may be mistaken, most streamers' legalese is that they are providing criticism, commentary, and (especially for streamers like Pewdiepie whose brand is built around comedy) 'parodying' the material in their streams. As I mention in the above post, it's mostly just a strong indicator of how badly law lags behind the tech curve that there's no real legal response to where streaming fits into things because it can be stretched to fit Fair Use policies.

[Alatie]

Right on paper he is correct but its very short sighted and the way he said it makes him a bit of a tosser.
Let's first go after the man himself you know the man who tweeted i am streaming fall guys short moment later the guy that has a Twitter banner of fanart he found online and he went out of his way to make sure you can't see the autograph of the creator or you know he is a hypocrite.
https://gyazo.com/dbcc0cf6c793a32fa102c5f6b23c909d
https://gyazo.com/48bd64dc2e44c8cd95c9831ebd6fbc51
Also devs have been going out their way to pay streamers to play their games streamers turn down games because they get so many offers because having 1200 people watching a stream is nothing short of the best advert you can get.
Yes on paper you could sue them i mean they have lawyers that know the law better than some forum warriors or Alex Hutchinson on the other hand doing so starts a arms race you pay us for streaming well next time you want to showcase your game the price is 10x to make up for me paying you last time.
Also Google came out very shortly after that saying Internet giant asserts that tweets about streamers paying royalties "do not reflect those of Stadia, YouTube or Google" he most likely already got a slap on the wrist.

[Ielenia]

Unfortunately for this person he doesn't understand how the economics of radio vs the economics of video games actually works. With radio, music is the end product, the user simply listens to it. With video games, the end product is interacted with, which requires the user to own the game. There is also the issue of how the radio station makes money vs the streamer. The radio station is being paid directly by advertisers, where as the streamer receives this second hand. Ultimately with radio the end user hears the music, nothing more, its consumed. With videogame the streamer is essentially advertising the game to a potential end user who will buy it if they want to actually interact with it. The argument that the streamer usurps sales is ridiculous, simply because they can't duplicate what it is to play a game for an end user. Chances are if someone doesn't buy your game because they saw a streamer playing it, they were never going to touch your game anyway, probably never even hear of it.

On top of that, with a radio, I can record the music to listen to it again later, whereas with a stream I can't "record the game and play it later".

[Thage]

Among Us.

Case closed.

EDIT: And to further prove that this line of reasoning is nonsensical, game companies sometimes give free copies of their games to streamers so they would stream the game and showcase it to thousands of players. It's literally free advertisement.

Among Us, Minecraft, Fortnite, PUBG, Genshin Impact, Dragon's Dogma, Dark Souls, there are a lot of games that hit off like a rocket after their launch because streamers signal-boosted the game (or, in the cases of some of these, beta streams lit up interest in the product like a powder keg). You would need to be freebasing cocaine or have suffered a significant head injury recently to think the absolute tons of free advertising streaming gives gaming companies doesn't give their marketing team wood for basically doing the hard work for them, so all they have to do is design a few catchy banner and YouTube ads.

[Evaddon]

Just remember companies are here to profit off of you, they aren't here FOR you.

That being said, the gaming industry tries to find ways to milk their communities and playerbases...atleast let us have this one thing

[loras]

If you are profiting from someone else’s copyright you need to pay them a royalty. Period.

Except they already paid.

[Usernameforforums]

It's funny that people are bringing up the royalties system present in some other types of media as an excuse to do the same to streamers & games.

Royalties are wrong in the first place. And they shouldn't be a thing. If you buy something, you should be able to with it whatever you want. Show it to others, lend it to others, play it while others are watching, listen to it while other are watching etc. Royalties are just one of the degeneracies of capitalism. They should kept getting limited in places they exist already, not getting extended to new avenues.

Don't use a bad system that already exist as an excuse to introduce more bad systems similar to the ones already existing.

I think royalties are fine to an extent. Like if the product is free but you created something out of it and put it out for profit, then i believe there should be some sort of royalty for that(ie: unreal engine)

But royalties just for showcasing your work after we buy it for $60? Yeah, piss off. Most people that watch a stream are there for the creators, not the product. Example, just chatting.

[loras]

https://twitter.com/BangBangClick/st...05553454288896

What do you think of this?

Seems like more nonsense from the intellectual property-leeches.
In the end they'll strangle themselves by choking off the free flow of creativity that feeds their sector, which by then will be the greatest tragicomedy that will have been written in years.

[Adam552]

nobody would stream it if they had to pay to.

[Davaca]

The way I see it, streamers are performers and the games are nothing more than their instruments. Other than buying the game, I don’t see why they should pay more to the game company. It would be like asking a musician to pay extra money to be allowed to use a guitar on a concert. Or even charging more for a guitar depending of whether you’re using it at home or living off of playing it.

[Protean]

Edit: I should also add that's the reason why Ubisoft's recent update to their ToS is rather controversial, they basically act as if you've been "hired" by buying their games' "licenses" and so your footage is technically their footage and if it reflects poorly on their company image they have the right to "fire" you at any time.

It's cute but completely unenforceable. One of the rules when writing contracts is that you can't just put stuff in there nillywilly that people don't expect to find. And we all know what to find in a ToS/EULA, so anything outside that basically doesn't work unless it's a separate agreement or effort is made into making you especially aware of it.

- - - Updated - - -

If you are profiting from someone else’s copyright you need to pay them a royalty. Period.

That's not how copyright law works.

[Morae]

I read somewhere that even google distanced from these comments.

[Ielenia]

Among Us, Minecraft, Fortnite, PUBG, Genshin Impact, Dragon's Dogma, Dark Souls, there are a lot of games that hit off like a rocket after their launch because streamers signal-boosted the game (or, in the cases of some of these, beta streams lit up interest in the product like a powder keg). You would need to be freebasing cocaine or have suffered a significant head injury recently to think the absolute tons of free advertising streaming gives gaming companies doesn't give their marketing team wood for basically doing the hard work for them, so all they have to do is design a few catchy banner and YouTube ads.

And it feels rather ironic coming from him considering he's working on a game streaming platform. Is Stadia paying royalties to the game companies for the games they stream to the players? Hmm. I wonder...