<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/07/31/sims-4-updates-to-include-safe-to-stream-setting-because-copyright-is-broken/>
"It’s been a decade or so since one of the silliest ways to combat the symptom
of a broken copyright system came to be: safe streaming settings in video
games. Because of the way licensing works for the musical compositions in video
games, and because some games include mainstream music a la
Grand Theft Auto,
special settings have to be put in the menu of these games that prevent
copyrighted music from being played while game-streamers do their thing. The
whole thing is quite silly, since there can’t possibly be anyone at all that
believes that listening to a let’s play video game stream that includes
copyrighted music somehow replaces anyone’s impetus to buy that music
elsewhere. It’s just part of the game that comes along for the ride.
But like I said, it’s been a decade of this, and apparently there are enough of
us that are cool with the status quo, since EA just updated
The Sims 4 with
this same safe to stream setting. Notably, this is a game that came out ten
years ago and just got this setting.
If you go into the the Music section of Game Options, you’ll now see a “Safe
for Steaming” toggle that allows you to play only the music that’s safe for
streaming.
TikToker @jeremy_gonewild explains the update thusly: “This blocks
copyrighted music from playing on your Sims radio when they listen to the
radio.”
But, Jeremy cautions, “This isn’t about build mode music, or the
Create-A-Sim music, that stuff is fine. This is preventing a Simlish version
of Last Friday Night by Katy Perry from coming on your Sims radio while
you’re livestreaming, earning you a copyright strike.”
The game allows for this kind of music to be played in game, but the moment
it’s done as part of a let’s play stream it suddenly becomes a problem. And
while that’s all technically true as a matter of current copyright laws, what
is most useful in this for our purposes is to highlight how absurd this all is.
If a streamer of this game happens to have some copyrighted music playing in
the background… who gets harmed? Is a musician really losing a sale due to a
video game stream? Are viewers of the stream going to refuse to listen to the
song on some other streaming service?
Or is it actually more likely that some music will be discovered by a new
generation via video game streams like this? Especially because these “simlish”
versions of mainstream songs that were introduced into the game were done so
with the expressed purpose of promoting the artists and giving them more
visibility."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
