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Video Game Movies "Not Creative Expression"
GamePolitics is one of many that is reporting on the impending removal of video game movies from the video hosting site Vimeo. While they have agreed to leave machinima alone, all walk-throughs, strategy videos, pvp battles, raids, etc, will be deleted on September 1st. "The Vimeo staff does not feel that videos which are direct captures of video game play truly constitute 'creative expression.' Further, such videos may expose Vimeo to liability from the game creator(s), as we have already seen action from popular video game companies against videos such as these... Gaming videos are by nature significantly larger and longer than any other genre on Vimeo ..."
Just sayin'.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Because if gamers saw the actualy game play from the absolute garbage developers are putting out, they'd never buy games.
Let 'em, I say. There are other sites which are better suited for such things, such as YouTube or Revver.
Hell, folks could even make money on Revver!
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Vimeo owns the site; they can do what they want with it. What's the big deal?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Never heard of them. Wake me up when significant sites like YouTube start doing things like this...
Because if gamers saw the actualy game play from the absolute garbage developers are putting out, they'd never buy games.
This is why I rent console games. If it sucks, I'm out a rental fee. If I like it, I'll send back the rental copy and buy one of my own. Of course, you don't have that option for Wintendo games, but that's not my problem. :)
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I can't be the only one who read the title and expected a story about Uwe Boll...
It's called a takedown notice. That should shield you from any liability -- if the creators care, they send you a notice, and you make the video go away. Problem solved.
Of course, the real reason is:
Gaming videos are by nature significantly larger and longer than any other genre on Vimeo ...
Really? Have they not seen Wormtooth Nation?
But there you go -- they're not really afraid of litigation. They're afraid of file size...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
For anyone who has raided they can quickly figure out 1/2 the battle to learning a brand new boss is to be creative. You go into the instance and have no idea how any of the abilities work or any of the mobs. You need to use your wit in order to figure out how a the mechanics of the game works. I would argue PvP is more creative. Quick decisions every second on what to do, and where to be. Might as well ban all sports if you are singling out games.
The "these do not truly constitute creative expression" bit is just a cop-out for them to save face. They just don't want to come out and say "The only reason is that we're afraid of getting sued by the game companies and we're a bunch of poor pussies who can't afford lawyers. So please stop investing in us now that you know we're too poor to withstand even a small lawsuit."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You weren't. That was my initial reaction too...
I feel sorry for whomever they put on the task of discerning which videos fit these categories. Boring.
Video capture of gameplay for the sake of the gameplay is about as creative as live capture of a sports event for the sake of the sports event.
Never heard of them. Wake me up when significant sites like YouTube start doing things like this...
Cue "First they came for the jews" letter.
If they are creative expression then they're unlicensed derivative works. You lose either way.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Cue "First they came for the jews" letter.
A video game thread that wasn't about Wolfenstien just got Godwin'd...
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
It may not be creative expression but it is wanted by the crowd under the social network banner. A big lose of potential visitors. I guess they have a great amount of game-play vids and are saying enough is enough, it does cost us to host them but there is nothing we can get in return. Someone filming real life will get bared next since this isn't creative expression either.
With better resolutions, less BS moderation, and a 'better' community.
So far I really haven't seen anything more than the potential of better resolutions. They are just as free as Flikr or Youtube in "Eww, I don't like that, delete" button useage, and frankly I haven't really seen anything being hosted by them that wasn't already everywhere else. Other than a few 'name' players like Improve Everywhere using it to host their videos, there hasn't been much of a drive for me to visit it.
I wish them luck, but I have a feeling they are going to suddenly discover starting out tough on content really isn't going to help them gain market share.
Much, much too early in the discussion to summon Godwin.
Walkthroughs don't constitute creative expression? Watch the series of videos linked from this thread. It's the best look at a terrible game you'll ever see. Sometimes funny, often insightful, and very informative about a interesting and influential chunk of game history.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
I think that walkthroughs, or gameplay videos do not necessarily show creative expression. Your watching a video on how to do something. The equivalent is reading a do-it-yourself book. I can see why Vimeo can take on the same view. The posters are not taking the game and throwing their own twist on it, just simply posting a copy of it. Now that the devil's advocate is gone.. Personally i agree with what other people have been saying. Posting walkthroughs and similar could bring about legal issues in the future. In a way, they are promoting creative expression with more intensity seeing you will be watching "videos with a twist" more than other stuff.
Uwe Boll also came across my mind but I was thinking the recent deal between EA games and United Talent Agency.
Can I at least link him to my armour for a stat boost?
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
So, some random video site removes gaming clips because they're scared of getting sued, then gives a lame excuse as to why they did it, and this is front page material on Slashdot? Bullshit.
When the Avalanche NHL team moved to town, they'd play an incredible game, but you couldn't get details even from local media.
The best example: "And in sports, the Broncos were idle. Now to weather..."
They decided what was news, even when the event happened and was attended by 16,000 people.
I am a member of the Starcraft community TeamLiquid.net who's members have used Vimeo recently for uploading videos of themselves playing and giving advice. I can not see how anyone can say this isn't creative expression.. But I don't know how I can let Vimeo know I am against this decision.
Does anyone have a link to where I can lodge a complaint about this?
I'm posting as anonymous since I am a Connected Ventures employee and I am in the same office as Vimeo. Connected Ventures owns College Humor, Vimeo (sort of), and Busted Tees.
The major push for this came down from the legal department. Within the past few months Vimeo has received a hand full of orders from the likes of EA and other industry giants to take down videos of their games. Video sharing sites in general have a hard time turning a profit, e.g. YouTube, and Vimeo is no exception. At this point it just didn't make sense for Connected Ventures and IAC to fight these orders in court. IAC is the Internet mega-corporation that owns Connected Ventures along with Ticket Master, HSN, and many other populate sites.
While Vimeo moderators and staff will whole-heartily defend and enforce this policy, most of the staff don't really feel too strongly one way or another about it. Aside form the massive amounts of work that they will now have to do to further moderate the community.
The bottom line is that everyone at Vimeo is a good person, and not some right wing anti-technology troll. It came down to implement this policy, and that was the end of it. There are so many C&D Orders you can just throw out before you need to buy a suit.
You're not.
I like Vimeo: It has a very clean interface (at least with AdBlock, dunno how it looks without it), and the videos can be quite a nice bitrate (though it needs some precise pre-decoding to get the desired results).
;-). (for example, notice how I tried to line up the music to the cuts, and building up the 'tension' as the video goes on).
Besides that, there are some awesome (short) movies on there, and it's been a great site for me to randomly browse and discover some gems (on a whole other level than the amusement of a general YouTube video brings me).
More on topic: What's the deciding factor when watching a game's video that it constitutes creative expression?
For instance, I have one video on there of a trailer for the Alpha version of a mod I'm working on: Whereas some might see this as a "direct capture of video game play", I put way more thought into that when creating it, or at least tried to
Another example would be (game) footage of a player who's incredibly good at the game he's playing: You know the sort of video; Raging rock music lining up the several great shots he pulls of during a match.
Would this also not be 'creative content': Imho it's telling an, albeit short, story too.
I realise I'm free to go elsewhere, but as noted before I quite like their layout (as opposed to the cluttered interface of YouTube, who recently started to also allow higher quality videos).
Though when they will be taking my video offline, I'll definitely have to be on the lookout for another host (besides my own site).
My thoughts exactly. I read the summary and here's what I got:
"Irrelevant 2-bit video hosting site decides to become even more irrelevant by removing some of their small collection of videos."
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Screw Vimeo.
As a Technical Writer I can say confidently that writing instructional material like game walkthroughs takes a lot of creativity and talent. Furthermore, playing a game in a formulaic fashion suitable for publishing as a no-frills walkthrough takes a lot of discipline and trial-and-error.
Technical communication is a skill to be learned and perfected, but it also takes talent and creativity to identify your audience and communicate effectively. For instance, you'd use a different literary voice to write a point-and-click adventure game walkthrough than you would to write a character strategy guide for Super Smash Bros.
Vimeo is a service that pushes bits over the UDP protocol and provides a navigation and search interface for end users. They're one of a zillion streaming video sites. What the hell do they know about creativity?
I expected a rant from a screenwriter about video game movies (and perhaps comic book movies) choking out other purpose-written scripts, because of the popularity of the game or comic automatically ensuring a box office hit, while a new script is a total unknown.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
I imagine a marketing guy at Vimeo laughing maniacally at us, /. readers, while counting a fat cash bonus.
I imagine the entire "staff" of Vimeo, (a fat, neck-beard in his parent's basement) getting pissed off when he gets his hosting bill, spending hours typing and spell-checking a press release, and then getting even more pissed off when a paragraph makes it to /. only to garner comments that amount to "Who the fuck is Vimeo?"
Server admin: We're running our of disk space.
PHB: Just delete a bunch of videos.
1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
In a way, they are promoting creative expression with more intensity seeing you will be watching "videos with a twist" more than other stuff.
You mean stuff like THIS FAN GAME VIDEO WILL BE FLAGGED?
Can I at least link him to my armour(sic) for a stat boost?
Yes, but Godwin is Epic so it has to a full Tier 6 set and only provides protection from Shadow Magic.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
If the user has any control of a character on the screen, he's performing a creative expression. Contrast this with, say, recording an in-game video sequence -- that's not at all creative on the user's behalf.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Go with open source games and eliminate our addiction to non-free games. Then there would not be any issues with video game movies at all.
Armour is spelled correctly, you ignorant American. Armor and armour are both legitimate ways to spell the same word. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-our.2C_-or
Armour is spelled correctly, you ignorant American. Armor and armour are both legitimate ways to spell the same word. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-our.2C_-or
Breath in... and out.
I'm an ignorant Brit. living in Canada so you can bite my hairy Hobbit ass you pedant.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
I imagine that GameVee.com would be more than happy to pick up the slack.
Remember that /. story a few weeks ago "Your Mashup is Probably Legal?" It talked of a group of copyright experts who issued Fair Use guidelines for the use of copyrighted material in videos. In it, they issued 6 guidelines. Quoting:
FOUR: REPRODUCING, REPOSTING, OR QUOTING IN ORDER TO MEMORIALIZE, PRESERVE, OR RESCUE AN EXPERIENCE, AN EVENT, OR A CULTURAL PHENOMENON
DESCRIPTION: Repurposed copyrighted material is central to this kind of video. For instance, someone may record their favorite performance or document their own presence at a rock concert. Someone may post a controversial or notorious moment from broadcast television or a public event (a Stephen Colbert speech, a presidential address, a celebrity blooper). Someone may reproduce portions of a work that has been taken out of circulation, unjustly in their opinion. Gamers may record their performances. (emphasis mine)
PRINCIPLE: Video makers are using new technology to accomplish culturally positive functions that are widely acceptedâ"or even celebratedâ"in the analog information environment. In other media and platforms, creators regularly recollect, describe, catalog, and preserve cultural expression for public memory. Written memoirs for instance are valued for the specificity and accuracy of their recollections; collectors of ephemeral material are valued for creating archives for future users. Such memorializing transforms the original in various waysâ"perhaps by putting the original work in a different context, perhaps by putting it in juxtaposition with other such works, perhaps by preserving it. This use also does not impair the legitimate market for the original work.
LIMITATION: Fair use reaches its limits when the entertainment content is reproduced in amounts that are disproportionate to purposes of documentation, or in the case of archiving, when the material is readily available from authorized sources.
Then one would think you would at least know the correct Canadian spelling of "armour".
Then one would think you would at least know the correct Canadian spelling of "armour".
I'm lexdisic you heartless bastard! *weeps*
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Connected Ventures, the company behind vimeo, made another significant change on one of their sites this week that I can only attribute to some sort of legal advice. Collegehumor.com removed the "R-rated" category on their pictures index page, and it took me a full two days to find an obscure link to the "R-rated" section in the footer of their homepage. I missed out on self submitted college coed 'boobies' pictures for at least 48 hours. I barely made it.
Vimeo is the only video service on the web that can do HD video worth a damn. I tried Veoh and other related sites, and they flagged my video as containing copyrighted material (ironic because all of it was material I had worked ~3 months to create from scratch), had problems with uploads not appearing or processing, or were grainy low-resolution trash like YouTube. I know a lot of people are using it for game mod videos, for example.
They're hardly irrelevant.
Do you care about online video? Does quality mean anything to you?
If the answer is yes to either question, you oughta check out Vimeo, because in a sea of competition the quality of their product really stands out.
There's too many people complaining to target anyone in particular, but Vimeo has made three claims:
1: direct capture videos of games (that aren't Machinima) aren't particularly creative.
2: Hosting such videos constitutes a possible legal liability.
3: Such videos tend to be longer and take up more space than average.
#3 is almost certainly true. #2 is apparently true, i'm willing to take their word that they've had to deal with legal action already, and that regardless of how it would turn out in court they don't feel like dealing with the hassle. And you know what? In my experience #1 is true too. I've seen a lot of direct capture videos, and although there are some exceptions for the most part they are often interesting and often informative, but they are very rarely creative. "That's cool" does not automatically equate to "that's creative."
If you've taken a direct capture video but you've also added your own content on top to make some kind of social commentary or make a joke or tell a story, or used the engine in unusual ways to do the same, then congratulations, your video is creative and you can probably get it in as Machinima or a music video or some other category. But if all you've got is a capture of some people playing a game as it's meant to be played then that's not very creative at all.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
It's spelled 'arse'.
Excuse me sir, but I do believe you mean "hairy Hobbit arse".
Kind regards,
Mr. P. Edant
Armor is what you wear to protect yourself from damage. Armour is a brand of hot dogs.
Red vs. Blue = Machinima.
PS: If you don't know what a word means try wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima) And yes that is a picture of Rev Vs. Blue on the freaking page with a nice caption "A scene from the popular machinima series Red vs. Blue."
The only reason I know of Vimeo is because of their game videos. And, after reading: "Gaming videos are by nature significantly larger and longer than any other genre on Vimeo," I'm led to believe that they may also be the most popular and constitute the largest portion of the site's traffic.
So, naturally, deleting them would be the best way to go.
I have a feeling that Vimeo wants to be like the "indie, off-the-wall" video site, whereas YouTube would be more "mainstream." Basically, people who spend 3+ hours a day on their laptops at Starbucks would prefer Vimeo, while the rest of us go to YouTube.
The fear of getting sued makes some sense, but this claim that videos made "in engine" of a game cant be truly personally "creative" is just rediculous. Martin Scorsese didnt build New York, so were none of his movies that were filmed there "truly" creative expression?
Ohh spiteful one tell me who to smote and he shall be smolten!
If you know what you're doing, you can get a decent quality video on YouTube as well. Not to mention the fact that they're in the process of rolling out high-res video as we speak. It's undergoing testing, and some videos are already available in high quality. My first video I ever uploaded had a high-res version made available on the first day they went public with it.
The real question is, do you want to have to give everyone a special link directly to your video in order for them to see it. If your video is only for a specific target audience and you have the capability to make sure everyone in that audience gets the link to your video, sure those small irrelevant sites work fine. If you want it to be easy for a wider audience to find, you put it on YouTube.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Then why would you (sic) a correctly spelled word?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
After seeing my post spawning threads like this, I'm starting to wish for a "-1, crapspawning" mod.
I tried Veoh and other related sites, and they flagged my video as containing copyrighted material (ironic because all of it was material I had worked ~3 months to create from scratch)
One of three things happened....
Some software bot matched the hash code from some content by a media giant to your 'from scratch' work. If it's 100% original content, THAT'S A MATHEMATICAL 'IMPROBABILITY' if they are using something like MD5 or better as the hash function -- a hash collision is believed to be EXTREMELY remote with hashes like those.
If your work samples existing copyrighted content well the bot must be smart enough to hash ranges of content to match copyrighted stuf, doable but a little less unlikely than the above scenario.
The third possibility is that someone with a pulse at Vimeo saw your work and 'mouseslipped' it as inappropriate by accident or they just didn't give a rip.
Hard to tell.
The media giants are fighting to stay relavant and profitable in this age of 'free-content' driven Internet....
* = "the reproduction, reposting, or quoting in order to memorialize, preserve, or rescue an experience, event, or cultural phenomenon"
Once upon a time, copyright meant "If you didn't make it, you don't get to make money off of it."
Somewhere along the line, it became "Under no circumstances do you have any rights to anything we have any power over; and although we reserve the right to rent permission slips to you, don't even think about ever doing anything useful or artistic in any way relating to us."
This is just another small scale case of the general industry trend of backing down and bending over for an unjust cause: abuse of copyright.
Similar situation in society, actually; there is supposed to be a balance of power between the people and the government, and both sides work on changing the law until it is fair.
Well, same should happen with good companies (Vuze, YouTube, last.fm) and "source"(distributor) companies: both sides should push for a balance of power that's fair, and benefits all parties involved (including end-customers/consumers).
There is a solution, too; its so intelligent and obvious that the dinosaurs upstairs will never implement it, but here it is:
Create a good product. Offer it to the customers at a decent price and a try-before-you-buy basis. And if the customer buys that product, then he now owns it, and can use it however he wants (AS LONG AS HE DOES NOT MAKE MONEY OFF OF IT).
Obviously, this is an intelligent business plan which would result in massive long + short term profits and happy citizens and customers, however, so it will never be implemented.
Screw the customers - harvest their money, that's all they are good for!!!