Thread:AuraMasterNeal/@comment-4991685-20150314034911/@comment-4991685-20150314210718

"...Considering the current US copyright law is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was made almost 16 years ago, it is in serious need of an update. Copyright is an amazing thing, but if abused, it is a very dangerous thing. We have fair use for that, but the definitions of fair use are currently very vague."

We differ, here. I am Canadian, so I was working with the Fair Use/Fair Dealing laws here, which are actually quite specific. Fair use here covers the taking a trademarked, copyrighted, etc. material and using it for the purpose of research, private study, Criticism and Review, and News reporting. However, considering EA is an American corporation, I'll let this go.

"Copyright law should only apply when the violation in question has a significant negative impact on the market of the original work."

Define "negative impact". Its easy to count up the revenue you have, its much harder to determine just how much potential revenue you lost, and how. And what of the many, many Let's Players who only have several views? Are they negative or positive? What I'm trying to say here is that that is just as vague, and much more exploitive than any current laws.

"Take, for example, the ongoing debate on Let's Plays as fair use. They can bring significant revenue to the games that are played (I could list off a dozen games that I only bought because a youtuber introduced them to me), but it is unclear at best under current copyright law if they are actually fair use."

Just bringing up the Canadian laws again, Let's Plays could very easily be filed under "Criticism and Review". I'm not sure what the deal is in the states.

"Since they have no negative impact on the markets of the games used, and, in fact, have a quite positive impact, that is one example of something that should clearly be fair use and isn't."

What of the let's players who openly dislike the game? They'd make a negative impact on sales, but, again, by Canadian law they're legally aloud to say their mind due to Fair Dealing over here.

Also, considering the number of American Let's Players there are that go along unhampered, I have reason to think you may be exaggerating the issue, or perhaps misread somewhere. I can't say for sure though.

"As EA will in all likelihood not be making a significant amount of money from Spore anymore, and has an even lower chance of making a Spore 2, the community making a sequel would probably have no significant impact on the market of the original."

That's still using EA's intellectual property without permission. That's the very thing copyright is supposed to protect.

"However, EA being the company it is, they would take their 'rights' given to them by the outdated copyright laws and send a cease and desist almost immediately."

And it'd be completely within their rights to do. I'll push this back onto you for a moment and ask: Imagine that you made a car. It got pretty popular for a while and then some enthusiasts decided they'd market a slightly-different car of the same name, without your permission, and taking all of the profits. Would you ask them to stop? Would you let them use your idea without your permission?