I want to state up-front that what follows doesn't actually pertain to myself or my channel,
at least not at present.
I never have, with the notable exception of a minor blip here and there - 'blip' as in
'small object', not 'blip' as in 'utterly irrelevant video hosting website with draconian
half-wit moderators'.
But that doesn't mean it isn't a problem.
Twitter, Failbook and even YouTube had their anuses all aflutter over the past week due
to the rollout of Google's new copyright policies and dramatically overhauled content I.D. system.
I said it then, and I'll say it now: I find it profoundly hypocritical that many of the
same voices who fell conspicuously silent *cough*AngryJoe*cough* when Google+ was forcibly
integrated into the site a month back at the expense of our privacy...
suddenly piped right the fuck up now that Google's earth rending incompetence is cutting
into their bottom line!
And I call double hypocrisy on the profligate dipshits who were all salt and vinegar this
morning... until they received personal phone calls from Capcom, Nintendo and the like and
had their grievances individually ameliorated.
So basically...
content I.D. is a problem...
right up until the moment it is no longer YOUR problem.
Christ knows I've been accused of it enough, I ought to know the word for that is motherfucking
'elitism', asshole.
If you're going to enforce these addlebrained copyright policies, what's good for the goose
out to suffice for the gander, and as imbecilic as this happens to be... it will plummet to
an even deeper concentric circle of discognizant corporate Inferno if suddenly these policies
are miraculously lifted for people like, say, Angry Joe... just because his channel happens
to be roughly the size of an Xbox One.
All the while, the hapless serfs - absent a corporate rabbi with a key to Google's literal
and figurative back-door - find their channels closed in response.
That's the dictionary definition of 'elitism', and in fact, it's already beginning to fucking
happen!
Prominent YouTuber receives copyright strikes.
Prominent YouTuber complains.
Prominent YouTuber receives timely phone call from Capcom of America.
Prominent YouTuber falls suspiciously goddamn silent.
Learn the pattern, because you'll be seeing an awful fuckin' lot of it over the coming
weeks.
The issue?
Well, primarily it's the issue Let's Players have been dealing with for nearly half a decade.
Simply put: Publishers and developers believe that they made the game... therefore...
they own the gameplay... and broadcasting entire games - or even momentary swaths of
them... constitutes a light form of internet piracy.
While I certainly believe the bloated-ass Let's Player community could stand the YouTube
equivalent of a culling of the fuckin' HERD... facts are facts... and simply put... the facts
are not on the publishers' side.
Publishers own code.
Publishers own art resources, and narrative structures, and intellectual properties, they
can even own specific game features.
They do not own gameplay.
Gameplay isn't presented courtesy of Electronic Arts.
It's an Electronic Arts / Popped-collared fratfuck getting baked in his barka-lounger
CO-PRODUCTION!
Here's an idea, you miserly shitbags!
Nintendo!
Go ahead and start your own Let's Play channel!
Turn your console on, slide the disc into the tray... and don't let a player anywhere
near the fuckin' controller.
Let the opening crawl replay 100 times in succession, capture and upload that shit to
YouTube... because without the player...
THAT'S what you own, motherfucker!
How do we know the facts aren't on the publishers' side?
Because, in most cases, they haven't copyright claimed actual gameplay.
Relegating themselves, rather, to something they do own... which generally falls into
the category of music.
Which, to their credit, they do own!
But that they have restricted themselves almost exclusively to music speaks volumes of the
level of confidence they have in their legal dominion over actual gameplay footage.
Saying Konami can 'own' footage of my friend MangaMinx playing Silent Hill... is like saying
Triumph can 'own' footage of me driving my motorcycle down the fuckin' freeway.
Take me out of the equation.
Film the motorcycle sitting idle in a garage for 5 hours and tell me how large your fucking
audience is now, Triumph.
And the minute a half-way articulate lawyer brings that argument before the Supreme Court...
is the exact moment we cease to deal with Viacom(or anyone else)'s half-cocked, Orwellian
copyright horseshit.
I'm RazörFist.
God - fucking - SPEED!