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Edit history:
Koatl: 2011-06-29 11:59:51 pm
Koatl: 2011-06-29 11:59:00 pm
Koatl: 2011-06-29 11:57:58 pm
Koatl: 2011-06-29 11:50:48 pm
Greetings SDA.

I registered here to share some important information with you all, as I am a longtime fan and viewer.

Over at SRK there is an individual named UltraDavid who is an attorney specializing in intellectual property, contracts and internet law. He wrote an article regarding this bill which was posted on the front page. Not only does it affect streaming of video-games, but also even loading them to youtube (and therefore potentially this sites video host). I don't know what can be done about it, but I figured if more people know about it, perhaps someone will know what can be done, and there will be more people willing to get involved in doing something about it.

The article can be found here: http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/29/trolling-the-stream-by-ultradavid/

In case you'd rather just read it now, I'm posting it in the next body of text. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of this post where it says "UPDATE" though.

"David “UltraDavid” Graham (for Shoryuken.com) explains why, if bill S.978 passes, you could be jailed for streaming video games, or even uploading them to youtube;

The United States Senate is in the process of considering bill S.978, a bill “To amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright,” or as you might know it, the Anti-Streaming Bill.  There’s been some discussion about what it really means and how it would affect stuff we care about, so I’d like to clear everything up.  To be blunt, if passed it would pretty significantly reconfigure American copyright law in ways that could honestly really hurt internet culture in general and our video game communities specifically.

So what does it do?  Its stated purpose is to attack the online streaming of copyrighted works, specifically films and live television.  It tries to do this by criminalizing some electronically transmitted (read: internet) public performances of copyrighted works.

Background: the law is split into criminal law and civil law.  In (very) short, criminal is for things designated as crimes (like murder and theft), can involve jail time, and is handled by the government, whereas civil law covers everything else, doesn’t involve the risk of jail, and can only be sued over by whatever entity actually got screwed.  Copyright law has both criminal and civil law sides, but with a few significant exceptions copyright mostly sticks to civil law in practice.  That means that only the copyright owner can sue you for infringement, and the worst thing that can usually happen is that you either get a cease and desist letter and stop what you’re doing or you  pay the copyright owner some dough.  While that can be really costly (up to $150k per infringement, although that’s very uncommon), you can’t get sent to jail.

More background: there are four major exclusive rights granted to copyright holders, including the exclusive rights to reproduce a copyrighted work, to distribute it, to modify it, and to perform or display it.  Streaming a copyrighted video game audiovisual work can involve all four of those rights, but most obviously it’s a performance of that work transmitted to members of the online  public. Infringements of the performance right have only ever been handled by civil law, that is, subject only to getting shut down or to paying the copyright owner some money; there’s never ever been a criminal penalty for an unlicensed  performance of a copyrighted work.  This bill breaks with all previous copyright history and tradition by criminalizing some unauthorized performances.  Here’s the text: http://t.co/eAgrD96.

According to the bill as it’s currently written, if you engage in “public performances by electronic means” 10 or more times over a 180 day period, and if either the total economic value of those performances exceeds $2500 or the cost of getting the copyright holder’s permission to perform exceeds $5000, then you can potentially get fined and put in jail for 5 years.  Jail.  FIVE YEARS.

Just to hit you over the head with this, that means that if you stream a game like Street Fighter 4 or Starcraft 2 (or a movie or a song etc) only 10 or more times in a full half year, and if you make a bit of money doing it, you either need to have a license from Capcom or Blizzard etc or you risk going to jail.

Amusingly slash horrifyingly enough, it gets worse.  The wording of this bill is so vague that “performance” could count for a crap-ton of what we who understand the internet would consider very different things.  The offense is defined super broadly: “public performance by electronic means.”  That includes live streaming of copyrighted audiovisual works, of course, but it almost certainly also includes recorded YouTube videos of copyrighted audiovisual works, whether they be match vids, game footage/live shot hybrids, movies, TV shows, music, and so on.  Going off other legal precedent, it might even cover embedding an infringing YouTube vid and videos of kids lip syncing to music.

In essence, a bill intended to limit the unauthorized live streaming of films and TV could result in potential jail time for a lot of people doing very different things.  While the bill’s sponsors might not have known how wide-ranging its effect could be at first, they’ve been confronted with that since the text was released and they show no signs of pulling it back.

What about the monetary limits?  Well, they actually aren’t that high.  If you don’t think our major streamers, casters, and uploaders make $2500 over a full half a year, you’re crazy.  Keep in mind, the wording of the bill is “the total economic value of such public performances to the infringer or to the copyright owner.”  Total, meaning revenue from live streaming, plus revenue for replays, plus compensation by a tournament for coming to stream in the first place, and so on.  And economic value, as in not net profit but just the amount of revenue coming in.

Because almost every use of an audiovisual work online can be considered a public performance, this might drastically change how people behave online.  No longer is the penalty for uploading infringing videos just getting shut down or having to pay the copyright owner.  If the vids become popular, you might go to jail.

Now, obviously some companies, including video game publishers like Capcom and Blizzard, tend to take a hands-off approach to the constant unauthorized streams and replays our scenes pump out.  So why worry?  Surely they wouldn’t send us to jail.

But that’s only in a world where the performance right is merely a civil law provision, where the only ones who can bust infringers are copyright owners.  Jamming the performance right into criminal law means that the government gets involved and gets to decide whether to bring charges on its own.  Whereas for now video game publishers can (and usually do) let infringing live streams and replays slide, in the future the government might be able to bring criminal charges regardless of whether the copyright holder says to.  In practice the government tends not to go after infringers unless notified by copyright holders, but if it wants to it can go after infringers anyway.

I don’t want to be too alarmist here.  It strikes me as very unlikely that the government would take the time and money to put someone in jail for streaming a Marvel vs Capcom 3 tournament.  But since this would be a totally new thing, I can’t say for sure; I don’t think anyone can.  I also don’t think it’s a great idea to ever play Russian roulette, regardless of whether the gun has a hundred chambers or ten thousand.

I think the consequences for our relationship with video game copyright holders are obvious.  It would no longer be good enough that Capcom takes a hands off approach to us publicly performing their copyrighted works, because the government could still bust us if it wants.  I can’t imagine that many people would risk jail time by engaging in publicly viewable, easily findable unauthorized performances like tournament streams or popular YouTube vids.  The result might be that the only people streaming or putting up replays are those who have licenses from copyright holders explicitly allowing them to do so.

And I think that would be a disaster for our culture.  It means the gut gets slit right out of our media side, because while having a few big names and groups is great, without voluntary participation by whoever wants to be involved I feel like we’ll lose a huge portion of the vibrant, fast-moving dynamism that I love about our scenes.  Maybe we’ll be able to get permission easily, but in my personal experience it’s been anything but easy for video game copyright owners to grant licenses.

When I was writing this, one of my friends said, “Dude, but like, you’re a lawyer who practices this exact kind of law.  Aren’t you like totally stoked that pretty much every streamer and uploader ever is gonna need to pay you to get all licenses and stuff for them from Capcom and Blizzard and Microsoft and all that?”  No, that would suck.  Would I trade the viability of my community for some dollars?  EAD.

I think a good chunk of what this is about is just the old guard not understanding what’s happening nowadays.  Technology like free, instant, and relatively simple mass streaming or uploading by anyone to infinite viewers all over the world is just… really new.  And I think the entertainment industry has no idea how to approach that, so instead of taking advantage of it themselves, they’d rather make sure everyone else has a hard time coming in instead.

Companies like Capcom are starting to understand how streaming or casting tournaments and match footage can be really positive for them, but they don’t know how to do it themselves, so they let us do it instead.  But traditional film and television companies, who are the real drivers behind this bill, have even less of a clue.  It seems natural to us that if we can watch a show on live TV we should be able to watch it live on our computers too, but that’s barely even on the radar for TV companies.  The vacuum left between how we want to watch shows and how the content publishers want to give them to us has been taken up by streamers, and that makes the streamers money and the copyright owners mad.

Even worse, the people in government are so clueless as to how to approach all this that they’re letting themselves get run over by an old industry attempting to destroy or seriously harm the development of newer technologically literate communities.  They have no thought for how copyright owners can benefit from streamers rebroadcasting live TV, usually complete with ads and all, to people who don’t have TV and otherwise wouldn’t be able to see the content or the ads.  They don’t consider how video game community streamers, casters, and uploaders are making games more popular and valuable, or how they’re filling vacuums of competition and entertainment that the older entertainment companies are simply incapable of filling themselves.  They just have this knee-jerk, 2nd millennium theory of copyright and ownership that reacts very negatively to any loss of control.

This is not law yet.  Quick recap if you don’t know how a bill is passed here: one house of Congress (either the House of Representatives or the Senate) has to pass a bill, then the other house has to pass it, then the President has to sign it.  Each house has committees, or sub-groups that specialize in certain areas, that have to agree on bills before the rest of the house decides whether to actually pass it.  All that’s happened so far with this bill is that it’s been agreed to by its committee.

But the good money is on it being passed.  It enjoys bipartisan support; it was cosponsored by two Democrats and a Republican.  Its goals were identified and proposed by the Obama administration.  And if anyone in government is on the fence, it has the weight of very significant traditional entertainment industry lobbying behind it.

Tl;dr: This is not a good look.  I don’t know how to yell loud enough to the government that this is a huge mistake, but man, I really feel like we have to try.

David “UltraDavid” Graham wants you to understand how many rewrites this article needed before he could get through it without murder-cussing the clueless older generations who run the government and entertainment industries.  Seriously, it was… a lot.  In real life he’s an attorney with specialties in intellectual property, contracts, and internet law.  His entertainment and video game practice is based in Los Angeles but counts clients across the country.  He can be contacted on his site at www.DPGatLaw.com, by email at David@DPGatLaw.com, or by PM at UltraDavid on Shoryuken.com."

UPDATE: The article on SRK was updated with this link: http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/ten_strikes?akid=700.450896.5hVZPC&rd=1&t=1

The poster of the article claims it is the easiest way to make yourself heard.

Also, in the comments section, someone said the following:

This article inspired me to actually create an account and start posting here, after months of lurking. I just want to give a big Thank You to David for all he does for the community and specifically for the info on this bill.
To everybody else wondering what to do about it, here is a link to find your representative in the House of Reps https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Write them, and mention the bill by name S.978, expressing the reasons why you disagree with its passage. Maybe even cut and paste sections of David’s letter. Be sure to mention that you are a registered voter and will be following the results of this bill closely. I fully disagree with the attitude that there is nothing we can do about it and whatever will happen is out of our hands. Maybe writing to your rep won’t make a difference, but not writing to them definitely won’t.
Thread title:  
Waiting hurts my soul...
I'll worry more once it passes the Senate, then I'll be contacting my state's representatives.
gamelogs.org
definitely a better solution than contacting your state's senators first
Cigar Man
I'll declare my own nation-state.
Waiting hurts my soul...
Quote from arkarian:
definitely a better solution than contacting your state's senators first

Me and my senator aren't on speaking terms.
We all scream for Eyes Cream
Great one Video Game related bill gets shot down, another one rises up. Good ol' USA government.
.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Koatl. I've got my fingers crossed this bill doesn't pass, or at least gets changed before it does pass.
The Speedrunning Teacher
Quote from Koatl:
Just to hit you over the head with this, that means that if you stream a game like Street Fighter 4 or Starcraft 2 (or a movie or a song etc) only 10 or more times in a full half year, and if you make a bit of money doing it, you either need to have a license from Capcom or Blizzard etc or you risk going to jail.

...

What about the monetary limits?  Well, they actually aren’t that high.  If you don’t think our major streamers, casters, and uploaders make $2500 over a full half a year, you’re crazy.  Keep in mind, the wording of the bill is “the total economic value of such public performances to the infringer or to the copyright owner.”  Total, meaning revenue from live streaming, plus revenue for replays, plus compensation by a tournament for coming to stream in the first place, and so on.  And economic value, as in not net profit but just the amount of revenue coming in.

Basically, so long as we're not making any money ourselves for showing media on live stream, we're good to go. Considering that the only money that SDA has ever raised is for charity, I'd say we should be in the clear.
.
Don't you get some ad revenue for doing /commercials on justin.tv? :<
The inclusion of uploading videos to youtube makes it seem like it's more than just "if you make money for showing media on stream."  Hope this dies in committee.
Weegee Time
Quote from Zyre:
Basically, so long as we're not making any money ourselves for showing media on live stream, we're good to go. Considering that the only money that SDA has ever raised is for charity, I'd say we should be in the clear.

Something can have monetary value even if you're not benefiting from it.  That's especially true because if you stream on any service, the host is making some kind of revenue off of it.

So I guess the next question is, are Ustream, Justin.tv, and other streaming services fighting this bill?
so it's only if you're making money from the stream for yourself, correct? Also, it is referring to just getting money via a stream and not
Quote from Koatl:
Greetings SDA.

ust to hit you over the head with this, that means that if you stream a game like Street Fighter 4 or Starcraft 2 (or a movie or a song etc) only 10 or more times in a full half year, and if you make a bit of money doing it, you either need to have a license from Capcom or Blizzard etc or you risk going to jail..


How do you make money doing this? I mean, you can make money in a tournament, but that it separate from making money from the streaming itself.
This sounds like Youtube v. Viacom on a much larger scale. I'm sure none of us care about being unable to watch TV or movies on Ustream or Justin, and we'd rather not see it affect video games. As a matter of fact, this has me spooked and I'd really like to do something about it. I'd write to a senator, but what would be a good persuasion in our favor?

Aren't there are fair use laws that cover this kind of thing?
from red to blue
good luck extraditing me then.
Edit history:
Koatl: 2011-06-29 11:56:55 pm
Quote from andrewg:
How do you make money doing this? I mean, you can make money in a tournament, but that it separate from making money from the streaming itself.


I don't really know. I just saw something I didn't like and wanted to spread the word.

But it could have to do with advertisement. If a channel gets a lot of clicks, there is usually some company/corporation paying for the advertisement to be on that page. I know that most places pay on a "per impression" or "per click" basis. So maybe if the individual is not making money, a high stream/video with many views could be making a lot of money for the host of that streaming/video hosting site. I wonder if they would be targeted by this bill. Makes me wonder about web-hosting sites too. The problem is how vaguely the bill was written. That lack of precision could be used as a weapon.

Like I said though, I really don't know.

@Carcinogen: I updated the first post. Check the very bottom of it for a possible answer to your question.
Professional Second Banana
Assuming Wikipedia's definition of fair use can be trusted, I could see a case being made that game streaming could be considered "commentary" and/or "teaching" (especially if the player has a microphone mixed in).

For what it's worth, there's also the fact that streaming a movie is giving away the entire experience, whereas streaming a game is leaving out the core of what makes the experience a "game" (interactivity).
Waiting hurts my soul...
Quote from Zyre:
Quote from Koatl:
Just to hit you over the head with this, that means that if you stream a game like Street Fighter 4 or Starcraft 2 (or a movie or a song etc) only 10 or more times in a full half year, and if you make a bit of money doing it, you either need to have a license from Capcom or Blizzard etc or you risk going to jail.

...

What about the monetary limits?  Well, they actually aren’t that high.  If you don’t think our major streamers, casters, and uploaders make $2500 over a full half a year, you’re crazy.  Keep in mind, the wording of the bill is “the total economic value of such public performances to the infringer or to the copyright owner.”  Total, meaning revenue from live streaming, plus revenue for replays, plus compensation by a tournament for coming to stream in the first place, and so on.  And economic value, as in not net profit but just the amount of revenue coming in.

Basically, so long as we're not making any money ourselves for showing media on live stream, we're good to go. Considering that the only money that SDA has ever raised is for charity, I'd say we should be in the clear.

Money raised for charity is still money raised. Also, it isn't just you (or the site) making a profit. If the company can show that you had the potential to make $5000 they can claim that as a loss of income on their part and hold you accountable. There's a lot of tricky ways to use this bill in its current form.
Fucking Weeaboo
Good to know that since the government has solved ALL other crimes in the US, they can now tackle the EVIL EVIL crime of streaming video games online!  Cause we have plenty of room in our prisons for all those VIOLENT offenders!
Edit history:
ExplodingCabbage: 2011-06-30 01:27:14 pm
ExplodingCabbage: 2011-06-30 01:26:57 pm
ExplodingCabbage: 2011-06-30 04:59:26 am
ExplodingCabbage: 2011-06-30 04:55:22 am
I know that dude is a lawyer based in the U.S., and I've never even been to the U.S., but I feel fairly confident saying that his interpretation of this bill and its potential effects on video games is completely wrong.

Read the text of the bill here:

S 978 RS

Note that the bill would amend two other statutes. So have a look at each of them.

§ 2319. Criminal infringement of a copyright

There are two changes proposed to this statute.

The first is a change to section b, which is about sentencing for criminal breaches of § 506, which we'll come to later. In other words it doesn't talk about what actually constitutes an offence, only what the punishments for an offence would be. The offence is defined in the amendment to § 506. So this isn't very interesting to us at this stage. (Incidentally, the maximum penalty for the proposed new offence would be 5 years imprisonment.)

The second is a change to section f, which is just adding in a link to a definition of 'performance' featured in § 106. More precisely, the original text

Quote:
(2) the terms “reproduction” and “distribution” refer to the exclusive rights of a copyright owner under clauses (1) and (3) respectively of section 106 (relating to exclusive rights in copyrighted works), as limited by sections 107 through 122, of title 17;


would be changed to read

Quote:
‘(2) the terms ‘reproduction’, ‘distribution’, and ‘public performance’ refer to the exclusive rights of a copyright owner under clauses (1), (3), (4), and (6), respectively of section 106 (relating to exclusive rights in copyrighted works), as limited by sections 107 through 122, of title 17;’.


In other words, this section tells us that for the purposes of the proposed amendment to § 2319, the term 'public performance' is defined as per its definition in § 106. Go have a look at that definition if you like; you can find § 106 here. However, the important thing to note is that THE CHANGES TO § 2319 DO NOT INTRODUCE ANY NEW CRIMINAL OFFENCES. That is done entirely in the changes to S 506.

So let's look at the [b]other statute that S 978 RS would amend.

§ 506. Criminal offenses

Essentially, all the changes here make it such that rather than just the 'distribution' of a work being an offence, the 'public performance' of a work would be an offence too. In fact, all three changes to this section consist of adding the phrase 'or public performance' after the word 'distribution'. Basically, there are criminal offences that already exist involving distributing works in certain circumstances, and those offences would be extended by this bill to include 'performing' those works in the same circumstrances. Let's read the statute carefully and find out what the circumstances are.

Quote:
(a) Criminal Infringement.—
(1) In general.— Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed
(A) [Some stuff];
(B) [Some stuff]; or
(C) by the distribution (OR PERFORMANCE) of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.


Please take note: subparagraphs A and B of paragraph 1 would NOT be amended by the bill we are discussing, S 978 RS. So the law as far as subparas A and B goes would be unchanged.

The remaining changes to § 506 are to paragraph 3. I am going to copy this paragraph in it's entirety, complete with the proposed amendments in brackets, and I suggest you read it.

Quote:
(3) Definition.— In this subsection, the term “work being prepared for commercial distribution” means—
(A) a computer program, a musical work, a motion picture or other audiovisual work, or a sound recording, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution (OR PERFORMANCE)—
(i) the copyright owner has a reasonable expectation of commercial distribution; and
(ii) the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially distributed; or
(B) a motion picture, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution (OR PERFORMANCE), the motion picture—
(i) has been made available for viewing in a motion picture exhibition facility; and
(ii) has not been made available in copies for sale to the general public in the United States in a format intended to permit viewing outside a motion picture exhibition facility.


Nothing else in the entire statute would be amended by bill S 978 RS. I have just listed to you the complete and entire extent of the bill.

So let's recap.

THE ONLY NEW OFFENCE THIS BILL WOULD CREATE IS THE ONE IN THE AMENDED SUBPARAGRAPH C OF PARAGRAPH 1 OF § 506. Criminal offenses.
That new offence is:
To wilfully breach copyright by performing a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network available to members of the public, when you knew, or should have known, that the work you were performing was intended for commercial distribution.


What's more, § 506 goes on to clarify in Paragraph 3 that this only applies to works of which copies have not yet been distributed commercially, and which the copyright owner reasonably expects to distribute commercially.

In other words:

Even if streaming a gameplay video is considered by law to be 'publicly performing' the game, which is unclear, doing so would only be an offence under the amendments in bill S 978 RS if the game you were streaming videos of was a game that had not yet been released, AND which the copyright owners intended to sell commercially, AND you didn't have permission from them to stream videos of their pre-release game.

So how exactly is this going to destroy the ability of the gaming community to show videos of games to each other, again?

Edit: Since this silly movement against S.978 seems to have become rather large, judging by Google, can anyone suggest somewhere with a high readership where I can get the post I've just written posted? I'm keen to point out to the hundreds or thousands of people misunderstanding this bill what it actually says, and why they don't need to worry.

Edited again to remove a probably unjustified accusation I made against an individual.
.
You could post it in the comments of the original thread on SRK.

http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/29/trolling-the-stream-by-ultradavid/
I want off the ride....
Quote from ExplodingCabbage:
In other words:

Even if streaming a gameplay video is considered by law to be 'publicly performing' the game, which is unclear, doing so would only be an offence under the amendments in bill S 978 RS if the game you were streaming videos of was a game that had not yet been released, AND which the copyright owners intended to sell commercially, AND you didn't have permission from them to stream videos of their pre-release game.

So how exactly is this going to destroy the ability of the gaming community to show videos of games to each other, again?


Well the problem is with the definition of performance and especially when the limit of the definition of "reasonable expectation of commercial distribution" you forget that a game is still being commercially distributed while its being printed. And new games, especially those that are selling, get printed for a few years.

Since the fighting game scene has moved onto 'newer' games that are still being 'printed' there is still "reasonable expectation of commercial distribution" cause its still going on.

Or what if you do a video walkthrough (a real performance here) of a newly released game. this is definitely also a problem. What about those who do video reviews? The problem here is the definition of performance and when does it really stop the ball. Cause this is also meant to get at people who restream tv and other such things. How do we know that us making "reviews" or "walkthroughs" or etc aren't a part of the problem domain?

I know this wouldn't really cause problems for older games that arent' printed much anymore, but also. What is the definition of "being prepared" cause well.. if once it goes on the air its all free, there wouldn't be much of a reason to change this bill...

so i donno i'm not wanting to wait and see. you can read it for yourself. but I, myself, am worried because of lack of clarifications.
Edit history:
ExplodingCabbage: 2011-06-30 06:14:17 am
ExplodingCabbage: 2011-06-30 06:12:20 am
ExplodingCabbage: 2011-06-30 06:11:59 am
ExplodingCabbage: 2011-06-30 06:11:07 am
ExplodingCabbage: 2011-06-30 06:10:42 am
ExplodingCabbage: 2011-06-30 06:10:22 am
Quote from RaneofSOTN:
Well the problem is with the definition of performance and especially when the limit of the definition of "reasonable expectation of commercial distribution"


Even taking a worst case scenario interpretation of the terms 'performance' and 'reasonable expectation of commercial distribution', there's nothing to worry about.

Quote:
you forget that a game is still being commercially distributed while its being printed. And new games, especially those that are selling, get printed for a few years.


Yes, but the law is quite clear that this offence only applies when you distribute or perform a work before copies of it are first being sold. Okay, so I concede, and I missed this before, that the phrase
Quote:
the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially distributed
is kind of unclear on whether it means that no copies have yet been distributed, or that not all copies have yet been distributed, but:

1) The phrase 'prepared for commercial distribution' suggests the statute refers to works of which copies have not yet been commercially distributed in any way, rather than works that are currently being distributed.
2) Subparagraph (B)(ii), about motion pictures, explicitly says it only refers to motion pictures of which copies have not yet been sold to the public, and seems to be intended to be equivalent to (A)(ii).
3) It wouldn't make sense for the law on distributing movies pre-sale to be explicitly and substantially weaker than equivalent laws on distributing other works prior to sale.

So I think we can confidently assume that "the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially distributed" means that no copies of the work have yet been sold to the public. In other words, for games, it means that the game is pre-release, not just newly released.

ShadowWraith: Thanks for the advice and I will probably post there later, though I expect that few people will read the comment given how many there already are.
Edit history:
Carcinogen: 2011-06-30 06:31:06 am
Quote from Koatl:
@Carcinogen: I updated the first post. Check the very bottom of it for a possible answer to your question.


Sorry brah, but that tells me absolutely nothing. I wanted to know what a good method of persuasion was, not how to contact a senator by copy-pasting an article through a super official-looking suggestion box that probably leads to a furnace on the other side.

Reviewing the article one more time, I realize that he says nothing of impact in favor of video game streaming; unless you count how he keeps calling the government 'clueless' and that not doing anything about this bill is going to affect our freedom to do so. The 'free advertisement' argument or anything of similar nature is like trying to take down an M1 Abrahms with a potato.
So I posted on shoryuken as suggested by ShadowWraith. I wish I could say I'm surprised to see people still posting there about how terrible this bill is and saying they've written to their representatives, but I'm not surprised at all.
EC: curious what you'd say in response to that user boogityboy who replied to your comment on the SRK article