I guess it's not the first I've heard of it but doesn't it seem odd for the gameplay itself to be copyrighted/copyrightable by the game's creator? Doesn't it seem just ludicrous if we were to try to do the same for board games or sports?
A video of someone playing a copyrighted game has value separate from the game, and the person producing that video almost certainly has copyright of their own over it, but the video clearly derives from the music, images, and other materials provided by the game. Under most circumstances, the person publishing or streaming the video should be able to defend their usage via fair use; fair use specifically mentions uses like "commentary" and "criticism".
Similarly, people who upload/stream "reaction" videos, where they watch another video and provide commentary, can defend that usage via fair use.
Fair use doesn't mean that the video/stream does not derive from the copyrighted game or other material, but rather that the video/stream may legally use that copyrighted material.
Fair use only exists in case law, and treaties have the power to override the Constitution itself (IIRC), let alone things like case law or the legal code. That's why TPP is such a game-changer.
Treaties do not have the power to override the constitution itself.
To quote the Supreme Court case Reid v. Covert (1957), "this Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty".
"Treaties do not have the power to override the constitution itself."
While I agree that should be the case, it is sadly a bit more nuanced[1]:
Under the Constitution as originally understood, the short answer is: “No, a treaty can’t override the Constitution. The treaty has the force only of a statute, not of a super-constitution.”
But the full answer is more complicated. This is because the Founding-Era evidence does suggest that the Constitution enables the federal government to acquire significant—although not unlimited—additional power by entering into treaties.
...
In 1783, the Confederation Congress debated and approved a treaty with the Netherlands despite recognizing that the terms of the treaty might interfere somewhat with freedom of religion. Thus Congress impacted the exercise of religion, an area over which the Articles otherwise gave it no authority.
And it doesn't matter anyway, because trade pacts in the US have been enacted through Congressional-Executive Agreements rather than the treaty ratification process for decades.
Right: Assuming treaties were intended to override the rest of the Constitution is basically making the claim that everyone who ratified it back then was an idiot.
Specific applications of fair use appear in case law, and the question of whether any particular use qualifies as fair use would require determination by the court if sued, but fair use itself exists in statute, specifically 17 USC 107: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107
A game is not a movie. Its core value is interactivity. You already pay a high price for purchasing the game itself. In addition to that the game company gets free advertisement.
Fining someone or taking their content down for just streaming a gameplay is unproportional.
Furthermore, the person who is playing the game is creating content. The streamers usually talk and show their image to entertain people. If the video game company is allowed to take down the video, or block his/her entire channel, that ought to be a clear violation of the streamer's rights.
Law itself is ancient, it has perfected its concepts and continues to evolve. The issues with digital rights aren't hard nor new to law, all disputes in this area could be solved just by following basic law principles case to case. The legislation has always been hesitant to make just laws. Rights are won with fights and struggles.
Too many people are ignorant on the matter of digital rights. One could argue every point of view with a harsh relativism. People forget easily that Slavery was once legal, women not allowed to vote... The people ignorant back then resorted to reasonable but unjust arguments too.
In the end it's our world and our rights.
In regards to interactivity, it depends. It's true enough for chess surely which is a bazillion years old and basically just a set of rules, but a modern game's entertainment value is also the content to a varying degree and not just the interactivity.
I guess it's not the first I've heard of it but doesn't it seem odd for the gameplay itself to be copyrighted/copyrightable by the game's creator? Doesn't it seem just ludicrous if we were to try to do the same for board games or sports?