When he came on board, ESA Boss Mike Gallagher (left) promised to flex the video game industry's political muscle, and that's just what he has been doing since taking over in May.
With its new captain at the helm, the video game industry has definitely amped up its lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C.
A mid-year report filed with the government shows that the ESA spent $1.4 million during the first six months of 2007, a 24% jump over the same period of 2006. ESA lobbying efforts focused on the following issues:
anti-piracy, Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), P2P file sharing, First sale, Technology Mandates, anti-circumvention (i.e., mod chips), media violence, First Amendment protection, entertainment industry ratings systems, parental control technology, content/video game sale regulation, retailer enforcement of ratings systems, Internet privacy, Internet gambling (???), a variety of trade issues, Virtual property taxation
The ESA lobbied a panopoly of federal government entities, including the White House, Senate, House of Representatives, Customs, Copyright Office, Patent & Trademark Office, Department of Justice, Department of Commerce, Department of Homeland Security, U.S.Trade Representative, FBI, National Security Council, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, Department of Treasury, State Deparment, National Security Council, and the Patent & Trademark Office.
GP: Some of the ESA's issues are obvious. Others, not so... Where are they heading, for example, with Internet gambling? Virtual property taxation? P2P file sharing? First sale?
Via GameSpot
Comments
http://www.theesa.com/files/firstsale.pdf
Presumably, the ESA’s position is based on the publishers' lack of enthusiasm for the used game market, though at this point, it can plausibly attack only the application of the first sale doctrine to downloaded games, not games in general. The ESA would prefer it to be unlawful for purchasers of downloaded games to transfer copies to other people, even if the original buyers delete their own copies immediately after the transfers. So the only way to legally transfer ownership of downloaded games would be to transfer the hard drives.
Something else in the ESA’s statement stands out: It says, “Someone who buys a legitimate copy of a videogame in CD format, for instance, has the same right to re-sell, lend or give away that copy as someone who buys a book in hard copy format.” Absent from this list of authorized activities is renting the game. Like the sale of used games, publishers don’t seem too fond of rentals, as evidenced by the statements often found on game boxes (“rental … is strictly prohibited”).
But the right to rent lawful copies of console video games (though not PC games) is expressly allowed under the Copyright Act. 17 U.S.C. 109(b)(1)(B). I assume the publishers would argue that purchasers of video games contract away their right to rent games based on the message on the back of the box, but the publishers are apparently uninterested in testing this argument, since plenty of video stores openly rent video games. Publishers might also argue that video games are only licensed, not sold, and therefore not subject to the first sale doctrine, but I don’t see anything on the particular game boxes or in the instruction manuals I just looked at to support this argument.
Are you responding to the Gamestop AO policy?
I know that Steam possesses the ability to allow game transfers. With their new Orange Box coming out they are allowing users to 'gift' duplicate copies of games already purchased to others. However, there are some problems with it.
First, I'm pretty sure they're only allowing it if you already have a copy. They understand that people would be upset to purchase the same thing twice, so they allow the transfer. Trouble is that this is not the case with ANY software, just this one specific instance.
Second, they specifically say 'gift' and in their conditions say that you can't sell the extra copy. I know that you could regardless and they wouldn't know either way, but still it would technically be a violation of their terms.
So can they allow transfers? Absolutely! They've proven this. Do they? Nope! Even when they do it is severely limited.
Gallagher is a gamer, he knows full well that games like Second Life only make up a small percent of the MMO Market, so, it would be far wiser to suggest that money earned through game-playing is income and therefore subject to tax in that manner? Or is it already?
Does this sound as ridiculous as I think it does?
Sounds like the ESA is becoming the RIAA.
After all, I'd say that something like Virtual Property taxation a matter of consumer concern, it's also something that, if installed, will spread to other countries like wildfire, you can be certain of it.
The ICE has used the DMCA to illegally and wrongfully arrest people who modded their systems to accept discs other than US discs as 'pirates', when all they wanted was to play foreign games. What part of that sounds like Piracy?
If you've heard of Michael Moore, you should know that 75% of the shit he says is assinine, and the rest is just bullshit.
Oh, and Hillary will fuck the nation over on her socialist healthcare plan.
She won't do it. Which honestly is good, because to be truthful, if you've ever been to a nation with state sponsored health care, you'd notice thtat the lines are insanely long and filled with Hypochondriacs.
I can't really tell :/ .
I'd be a little wary about holding up Michael Moore as some sort of paragon of virtue and honesty.
@ the article
I too would like to get an explanation of the ESA's stances on some of the touchier issues in that list.
I for one am against:
-The DMCA (I feel that IP owners have the right to protect their IP, but not at the expense of the valid consumer)
-Taxation of virtual property (If a person makes money off of virtual property, then that is income and thus taxable as such)
- Ending First Sale (a very important aspect of property ownership. Would be very hard to enforce a resale royalty outside of the retail scene. I am for rentals and used sales payinga small royalty to the IP owners on that income but not the same as a new sale)
I support:
- Removing region coding (pointless in out age. Consoles can be coded to support all regions and rating systems with ease)
- Protecting games under the first amendment (obvious)
- Rating reform (in the form of wider console and retailer support for the AO rating, not really changing the ratings or the process)
- Homebrew gaming (This is a complicated issue, but a valid one and a valid use of mod chips. When you sell a console, you lose all rights of protecting the form of the console. Just as Ford cannot stop people from modifying their cars, console manufacturers do not have the right to stop us from changing the functionality of our consoles within legal restraints of course)
I could go on, but don't have a lot of time.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Honestly, most of these questions seem pretty obvious, though I'd agree Internet gambling is up in the air. The ESA, if it has sense, would oppose virtual property taxation. It would increase documentation burden on the industry members (remember, the ESA is about the industry--the ECA is about the consumers), and have a chilling effect on sales of MMOs from players who don't want to deal with the issue.
P2P? It seems pretty obvious their stance would oppose "open" P2P, as it can be used to distribute pirated software. Nothing new here; no industry dealing in media has ever liked P2P, except when they're running the trackers to save bandwidth (see the Blizzard Downloader, for example).
First sale? There's no question on this at all. The industry doesn't like used game sales. The more games sold used, the fewer are sold as new copies. The industry (the ESA's members) make their money on new sales. All of the money from used sales goes to the store. This is something the industry has griped about in the past--resale of used games, while good for the consumer (generally) isn't good for the industry.
It has nothing to do with IP, and everything to do with trying to control the market.
Of course I know that Moore twists the truth sometimes. If you look at stuff like NewsCorp, they do this every day and minute. You don't see Bill O'Reilly, Ann CUNTer, or Rush Limbaugh going out, trying to do a documentary(let alone an somewhat honest one). But he's going out on his own time to set stuff for the better. I mean, every other country has public health and therefore outrank us in health and average lifespan(it's already proven on Moore's website). Rejecting the idea of healthcare means one probably knows it only as what patronized mixed bag Reagan called it or from what they heard on the "News". It's not wether Michael Moore gets the facts down right or not, it's his message. And I can agree with all of those. In fact, he got the awards not for his messages, but how well he made the documentary(still regardless imo of factual accuracy).
Jacko also called Moore a "bag of wind", oy. Are you like Jack Thompson? KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE!
Thanks for the first sale update.
Downloaded games are usually 'activated' through the web, and many require a net connection in order to use. I'm not entirely sure how the Steam network works, but I'm guessing you can't just copy your hard-drive and give it to someone else.
So I think First Sale is still valid in this case. Transferring the activation code is no different than transferring the CD-key when you sell the CD.
If there is a mechanism for "activating" the license, and you can't activate it if someone else has, then the mechanism is in place for you to transfer that license to someone else. And the retailer/publisher should not be allowed to tell you that you cannot do that.
Just like I can purchase a ticket to a concert, and then hand it to my buddy, I should be allowed to buy a copy of HL2 through Steam, and then transfer activation rights to my buddy's Steam account.
If it's done right, I can no longer play HL2, because my Steam account should recognize that I no longer have the "license key" to play HL2, and my buddy's account does. Transfer of usage rights complete.
So because news corp does it more its okay for Moore to do it less?
Fuck news corp, I don't watch that shit. Fuck Moore and his bullshit too.
I don't trust the asshole who lies to me twice anymore than I trust the asshole who lies to me constantly.
I have been mulling over a service like that for a while (nothing implemented). It would be nice to have a service that allows a transfer of rights between software users. It could all be done through the game service itself and they could probably charge a small liscense transfer fee on top of it. I would not object (although a free transfer would be better)
The problem the ESA seems to have is that there is currently no way to guarantee this. Steam and PopCap are possible means to this end, but until these types of service are the only means of PC gaming it would never work.
Currently, I believe that games through Steam are tied to that account, but there are no ways to transfer that.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Currently, I believe that games through Steam are tied to that account, but there are no ways to transfer that.
Yes, but "no way to transfer" != "illegal to do so". I want companies to step up and say "we don't want you to", and not to try to hide behind the facade of "it's our right to do so".
If it's merely "we don't want you to", then any mechanism that enables you to is just an annoyance to them. But I don't want them sicking the cops on you just because you've figured out how to do so without their permission.
We all love Clover, all over this land
We all love Clover something something..
And it's not the advert for the butter.
Also, why has the News Ticker stopped?
So I think First Sale is still valid in this case. Transferring the activation code is no different than transferring the CD-key when you sell the CD.
Indeed. I've occasionally see people who've only recently acquired a relatively old game ask their friends if they have a CD key for the game they no longer use. In such a case the friend would be essentially loaning their CD key (and as such their license to use the game) to their friend. It's essentially the same thing as loaning out the game itself. This is somewhat different for console games as they sell the game itself, not a license to use the game.
Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying
Basically, Lobbying is an effort from a group or organization to convince politicians to support legislation in their favor. It is a very valid for of petitioning the government. It is when money starts changing hands that lobbying starts to get shakey.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
I guess we'll just have to wait and see :/
It does make you feel nervous, doesn't it?
This is bad in two ways off the top of my head; it A) presumes guilt of infringement, and B) since when did the consumer need to notify the manufacturer when they're selling or lending something they bought? I don't need to let the book publisher know when I sell or loan to a friend a book I've purchased so why does the ESA assume this is true for games?
Uguu~
You know, instead of using a knee-jerk reaction to "socialized medicene" or at Moore (You only hate him because he criticized Bush and said things you don't want to hear) you might want to find evidence of wether ANYthing he says is proven.
@blackice:
Where exactly have you heard about Moore? The news? A friend? A friend who saw it on the news? NEWSCORP, oy? We should just agree to disagree since insults get us nowhere oy.
P.S. If anyone STILL hates Moore, that means you support EVERYTHING the Bush Admin has spewed onto our country and NewsCorp COMBINED!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!(and Jack Thompson too! >:)
Plus, The US is the only modern, wealthy, and industrialized, country that's without public health, but is No. 37 on WHO list.
And the sources: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur200706.pdf
http://www.iom.edu/?id=19175
http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-44.html
http://millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/presidentialreco...
/nixon/oval?PHPSESSID=b813e56b3017d097cd176720bc10fc74
http://www.nhs.uk/Aboutnhs/howthenhsworks/Pages/HowtheNHSworks.aspx
http://www.cbpp.org/4-5-07health.htm
Hell, even Family Guy and The Simpsons support Healthcare.
If most of the people here are adults, then more open-minded-ness is expected of you all. Michael has had "Moore" of career than you think:
TV Nation
The Awful Truth
Director of a Music Video for RATM, oy. That group that stood naked in public during a concert. On their chests was the PMCA (sorry for the digression of a digression).
Peace, biznatches, oy. Ni-PAH!
Tye The Czar
I think the term "Money Talks and Shit Walks" rebounds here.
1. DMCA Needs to be repealed and banned. No ifs, ands or buts. It needs to be replaced by a sensible, intelligent law that grants equal protection to both consumers and Companies.
2. DRM is a JOKE! And a Bad one at that. As sony how good things have gone with drm for them. That being said, it's an interesting concept, but one that is impractical in it's current implementations.
3. First sale: The ESa seemed pretty fair minded to me about the whole first sale thing, but they destroy that credibility by supporting the DMCA, which everyone knows is severly anti consumer.
4. 1st amendment: I've always been behind the ESA on this, always and forever. Not much to argue there, they've been knocking them laws down one after another, as Jack Thompson is well aware.
5. Taxation of Virtual Property: Umm, NO!!! How bout we do something important with out time congress, like oh, I don't know, end the war in iraq and put a stop to little adolf junior over in Iran? Geez.
Ok, im done ranting, feel free to argue or debate or scream at me, it's cool, I'm gonna go lie down, heats killing me today.
Ironic little thing, when businesses lose my respect because they spend too much effort on anti-piracy stuff, I tend to pirate their stuff, or just stop buying altogether.
I mean, they're not concentrating on creating a quality product for me to buy, instead they're trying to manipulate our democratically elected government into doing their bidding. They don't want to play by the same rules the rest of us do, why should I?
The ESA helped carry out all those ICE Mod-Chip raids, remember?
Once you take the First Amendment element out of it, the ESA is about as much of our friend as the RIAA is to the die-hard music junkie or the MPAA to the film-geek, i.e. NOT AT FUCKING ALL. Hell, they don't even side with developers, that's why they the IGDA exists.
The ESA represents the big Electronic Arts type conglomerate publishers. They couldn't give two shits about you, the guy who works at the Gamestop, or the developers who actually make the games.
Sure they're doing a bit of free-speech type lobbying.
But as soon as it suits EA and all those companies it's not like they'll keep lobbying for Indie developers.
Screw all these lobbyists. All they do is make sure the giant companies get there way.
Just because you like video games or movies or whatever doesn't mean they're helping you.
They'd just as soon make it illegal to resell games or rent them if they had the opportunity.
And make no mistake, gaming might be having a bit of a hard time now, but as soon as it's over most of the ESA's efforts will be put towards limiting our rights and choices as consumers.
I mean, stuff like diverting the FBI onto corporate interest cases (Mod chip crackdown)
So much for terrorists, huh?
If it escaped your notice that everyone was already aware that the ESA=corporation, ECA=us, then: We know. Don't call people idiots when you haven't even bothered to read what they're saying, especially since they were having a reasonably mature discussion of what individuals think about each bullet point or can tell the rest and what individuals hope (or fear) to see come out of this.
See the (waaaaayyy) above post where it was asked whether there was something we could do to spark the ECA to chime in on these subjects, for what their opinion is worth (far more than us as individuals)? Or the (not so far) above posts wondering how we could find out what the ESA's stance is on each item, and the above posts outlining what some of those points are actually about? There, now feel free to join in in a productive matter or at least not bandy about unmerited names.
What the hell are you talking about? I must have skipped a few pages because you seem to think i'm disagreeing with you on something involving a Mr.Moore.
Micheal Moore is a liar and a hack, who often takes things that people say completely out of context in orderto strengthen his argument. And by the way, that's not my opinion on socialized medicine, its what I observed in Germany.
You're one of those people willing to buy anything you're fed, and that makes you a complete fucking moron. There are few people out there telling the truth, and trusting Micheal Moore and newscasters and bloggers is about as intelligent as trusting the KKK to give you a fair shake if you're black.