There is a bill being debated in congress right now, that will make music, movies and such copyrighted media, illegal to stream or make videos of. As it is worded now, this will also include video games.
This means that all streaming or footage of video game tournaments, trailers from E3, Let's Plays* and such, will be considered as illegal material and the makers can be fined for 1000's of dollars or even jailed for 5 years.
In Jail:
Prisoner #1: "I brutally killed my own family. What are you in for?"
Prisoner #2: "I played Super Mario Galaxy."
As for now, this is not illegal to do. Doing a Let's Play*, especially with commentaries, is considered a transformative work and can even serve as free advertising for the game by making viewers want to play it themselves. But because of the way this bill has been worded, everyone that has uploaded or streamed this, will be violators of the law. Everyone with video game material that does not have an exclusive permission from the copyright holders, will be shut down.
* Let's Play: a video game play through, often done with commentaries by the one playing.
It will also be illegal to put videos of yourselves on the internet, singing songs that other people have created. People have gotten record deals because of this. Justin Beiber being one of these people.
Large scale companies will be forced to shut down. Anybody heard of Machinima? "Machinima is the dominant video entertainment network for gamers around the world showcasing gameplay, original shows, game trailers and news."
Do the names "Yogscast", "Chuggaaconroy", "Josh Jepson", "KiloReborn", "ProtonJon" and "NintendoCapriSun" ring any bells? Everyone will be shut down.
"The Big People" in Hollywood are pushing hard on this bill because they want it to go through. And this is understandable as the bill also covers their films. It has just barely been taken up, but people estimate it won't take too long for it to pass.
For more information, you can watch this video:
http://youtu.be/hytigOSjJxc
In the video description, they link to this website where people can give their opinion to the US congress:
http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/ten_strikes?akid=700.450896.5hVZPC&rd=1&t=1
Or you can read this thorough article:
http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/29/trolling-the-stream-by-ultradavid/
As I am not an American, I have no way of directly affecting this. I can't contact the congress. But there are many others that can.
And by creating this topic, I encourage a debate on whether passing this bill as it is, is okay or not. What could be changed? What can be done?
My opinion is that the essence of the bill is all right. Copying copyrighted material and posting it online is not all right. Stealing films, series and music is not okay. But this bill will censor so much that does not need to be removed from the internet, that it needs to be rewritten in order to not unleash a massive battle between law and the internet gamers around the world. Game material is an altering thing, it's ever changing and is "created" as the viewer sees it, by the one playing. The only thing in a game that is copyrighted is the software itself. It should stay this way.