Video Game Streaming on Twitch and YouTube is Probably Illegal

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A few days ago the creative director at Stadia Games & Entertainment Montreal Studio tweeted that video game streamers should have to pay a licensing fee for the games they stream.

I believe that most of the initial anger from gamers stemming from Hutchinson’s comment is due to the history of mutual respect that the games industry seems to have with its players, in general. Games are meant to be fun. Anger is anathema to the idea of gaming, and despite the industry being massive and a lot of developer workplace environments being lousy with unfairness and harassment, publishers still very much market games as fun above all else.

And gamers have supported the industry since the beginning, helping the collective “community” through all the non-fun parts, through the crash in the early eighties, through the media demonizing of arcades, through the government demonizing games that depict violence, so to see “one of our own” like Alex Hutchinson say something seemingly anti-gamer feels traitorous.

But legally speaking, are streamers doing something illegal when they stream games? The short answer is, probably.

Mentioned:

• PC Gamer: Should streamers pay game developers to stream their games?
• [VIDEO] The Google Graveyard is NOT evidence of Stadia’s demise!
• [VIDEO] It’s Okay to Hate Google Stadia
• Among Us sales
• Title 17 of U.S Code

Music credits

• Bossa Antigua by Kevin MacLeod, Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3454-bossa-antigua, License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/