Publication details
Poor licensing in video game streaming market: room for betterment in the wake of Art 17 DSM Directive
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| Citation | |
| Description | The contribution shall be dedicated to the phenomenon of video game streaming as a distinct type of user-generated content based on video games as works of copyright. Contribution builds upon extensive qualitative and quantitative research and introduces a new perspective on this specific and economically significant industry centred on the exploitation of copyright. The aim of the contribution is to introduce research that has been recently published in the Interactive Entertainment Law Review and the intricate topic of video game law to a wider audience. The contribution shall focus first on the fundamental problem of video game copyright protection, building a common frame of reference. Subsequently, the substantive part of the presentation shall be dedicated to the licensing market in practice. To this end, it will introduce an assessment of available quantitative data in the Who Let’s Play and the You Can Play databases. Moreover, it will focus on the in-detail analysis of end user license agreements and copyright terms. For this purpose, the contribution shall discuss illustrative examples from the most significant game developers, such as Blizzard or Epic Games, while also providing space to indie game developers. Notably, the qualitative assessment reveals poor wording choices that, in fact, significantly limit user-generated content use. More importantly, some examples may also provide severely outdated license terms that showcase the little attention paid to video game streaming by rightsholders. The quantitative and qualitative assessment provides insight into broader licensing tendencies as rightsholders generally support user-generated content creation but simultaneously put obstacles to video game streaming by poor license wording. Significantly, the poor licensing can subsequently be leveraged to take down content due to motivations outside copyright. This has been previously an example, e.g., in cases of PewDiePie or Eroktic where the motivation has been hate speech and racial slur and general criticism of the game in question. Finally, the contribution shall focus on the legal shift under DSM Directive to formulate a hopeful outlook that licensing standards may increase due to the move from take-down to stay-down enforcement consequences. It shall, thus, introduce a limited part of Article 17 DSM Directive while explaining the most significant shift from E-Commerce to the DSM regime. |
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