Game Streaming Platforms and Technology (xCloud, PSNow, GeforceNow, Luna) (Rip: Stadia)

[hughJ]

I can think of a lot of examples, both simple and convoluted, that are by no means unambiguous (to me, at least). There's a lot of steps, and permutations thereof, between what was classically considered an end-user's discrete hardware device and services like GFN that utilize an interactive video stream sent from a datacenter. The only concept that seems unambiguous to me would be something akin to 1 nontransferable license = 1 concurrent human user. Other than that you're getting into the technical weeds because pretty much everything to do with computers involves abstraction layers of hardware and software, copying/reading/accessing/transferring of data, and any component, or even part of a component, can exist anywhere and involve countless third parties despite the content never being actually utilized by anyone other than the licensed user.

I suspect the only thing that needs to happen to resolve this is for Valve, Epic, etc to change their publishing terms with IP holders such that they agree to have their content accessed on any hardware, singular or plural, local or remote, so long as it's only operated by the 1 licensed user. If need be, they can adjust the revenue split accordingly to encourage any holdouts. The larger established studios are obviously another matter, but that kind of goes with the territory right now.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No parallel you say ? Then why does YouTube's terms of service prohibit the upload of copyrighted content even if the video is for private use ?

They can't enforce independent viewing and don't want to get into a legal fight for users abusing their platform? There's no prohibition of me uploading video rips to Google Drive or Windows Drive AFAIK.

It's the opposite. Again user license's don't grant Nvidia themselves the right to access content even on behalf of the copy holder.

It still managed to stand the test of time and it's near unambiguous what is and isn't allowed. An end user's copy of the content still doesn't confer the right for external 3rd parties like Nvidia to access it for them.

What if I hire a remote Windows server with a company, install Steam on it, and use remote play? How does that fit in? What if I then let my friends access my server and log in to their Steam accounts to stream their games - how does that fit in?

I don't share your faith that copyright works perfectly with streamed content and there's nothing to be confused about. Copyright was invented when the copy was always physical and in your presence. It's since been stretched to fit protection of copyable IPs as the only legal mechanism to support that, and it may have been stretched to breaking point where its principles just plain don't work.

Let's say I buy a book, but I'm blind, so I hire someone to read it to me. Is that copyright infringement as they are accessing the copy without having paid for it? What if I send them the book and they read it over the phone? What if I have a webcam that shows the pages and they read it remotely? What if someone else has a web cam and my copy of the book and shows the pages to the reader who reads it remotely? Or what if I keep possession of the book, stream it via webcam to one person, who streams it as video to a second, who provides a realtime transcript to my remote reader, who reads me the words?

 

[milk]

Does a HDMI to VGA conversor break copyright? What if it converts the signal into digital video stream and transfers it through wi-fi to another device? What if instead of direct wi-fi it goes through the web?
When exactly does jt start to be copyright infringement?
Oh yeah, but this is completely un-umbiguous. Hur durrr.

 

[pharma]

Why ‘The Long Dark’ Developer Is Wrong To Pull The Game From GeForce Now
March 3, 2020

With GeForce Now we are essentially just renting computing power. I’m hitching my ultrabook to Nvidia servers so that I can play games I already own on hardware that doesn’t have beefy graphics cards.

Maybe if the service gets good enough, I’ll decide to stop upgrading my gaming PC and put all that saved money into games. (I mean, I probably won’t because I love upgrading my PC, but others might).

Right away you can see the problem with Lierop’s reasoning. He refers to GeForce Now as a platform instead of a service. If GeForce Now were a platform and Nvidia had sold copies of The Long Dark without permission, that would indeed be problematic, especially if Hinterland Studio was cut out of the sales. Not just problematic but also, I imagine, very illegal.

That is clearly not the case, however. This is more akin to a gaming cafe where you can login to a gaming PC and access your own Steam account and play your own games using rented hardware. Gaming cafes provide the hardware, not the software. They shouldn’t have to ask permission to do so from every game maker out there. That’s preposterous. (Note: This seems to have been Nvidia’s thinking and they apparently didn’t expect the reaction from publishers and devs, and honestly they probably should have anticipated it, so some of this falls on Nvidia’s shoulders, too).

If I purchased The Long Dark on Steam, I should have the right to play it on any hardware or service that supports Steam. I bought your game, how do you have the right to tell me I can’t play it? What if my PC broke down and instead of buying a new one I started using GeForce Now exclusively? Now, because of arbitrary decisions by these studios, I can’t access the games I paid for.
...
Some people think Nvidia ought to be giving game devs and publishers a cut of GeForce Now’s revenue. I’d like them to explain to me how that would work. There’s no game sale, no transaction, so how would Nvidia pay? This isn’t like Pandora where artists get a royalty for each time a song is played. We already own the games we’re playing. Nvidia is only making money based on providing us with a service to access those games. They would need to split up the revenue between thousands of games and studios with no metric to do so. It’s an absurd request. Again, the benefit to game makers is the wider audience and potential for increased sales. And just to be cool to their customers, I suppose, and earn goodwill instead of losing it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2020/03/03/why-the-long-dark-developer-is-wrong-to-pull-the-game-from-geforce-now/#62d641b9ad2d

 

[pharma]

This is similar to how Internet Cafes are generally required to pay a license fee to publishers for any games run on a machine (per machine, not per user) in their establishment regardless of whether a player owns that game or not.

The Steam PC Café Program allows licensees to offer Steam, SteamVR and select titles in their establishment(s). Internet cafes pay a license fee to Steam to run a Steam PC Café Server in their establishment, and cafe client machines are connected to the same server. The also paying for use of Steam's tools to collect information on what their clients are doing with their steam accounts.

No money goes to the publishers through Steam, any licensing fees are done directly with publishers. Below is a Q&A from an Internet Cafe owner:

I thought games like WoW were meant for 1 computer/user or something like that in the EULA?
I have contact with Blizzard and paid them a licensing fee for being able to do what I do with their older games. The newer ones like Starcraft 2 and Wow do not require a license agreement as all the players actually own the game and have their own accounts.

Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/kn9c2

 

[Lurkmass]

They can't enforce independent viewing and don't want to get into a legal fight for users abusing their platform? There's no prohibition of me uploading video rips to Google Drive or Windows Drive AFAIK.\

It's illegal to upload copyrighted content on either Google or Windows Drive and it goes against their terms of service. How this is enforced is entirely another different matter.

What if I hire a remote Windows server with a company, install Steam on it, and use remote play? How does that fit in? What if I then let my friends access my server and log in to their Steam accounts to stream their games - how does that fit in?

I don't share your faith that copyright works perfectly with streamed content and there's nothing to be confused about. Copyright was invented when the copy was always physical and in your presence. It's since been stretched to fit protection of copyable IPs as the only legal mechanism to support that, and it may have been stretched to breaking point where its principles just plain don't work.

Let's say I buy a book, but I'm blind, so I hire someone to read it to me. Is that copyright infringement as they are accessing the copy without having paid for it? What if I send them the book and they read it over the phone? What if I have a webcam that shows the pages and they read it remotely? What if someone else has a web cam and my copy of the book and shows the pages to the reader who reads it remotely? Or what if I keep possession of the book, stream it via webcam to one person, who streams it as video to a second, who provides a realtime transcript to my remote reader, who reads me the words?

It would depend on what the company was doing. If they were just setting up a remote server but you're the host then it's fine since the copy of your content isn't shared with anybody else. If you're NOT the host like we see on GeForce NOW then you and Nvidia would be in violation of copyright since you're both illegally sharing content. It's the same principle with torrents really ...

As far as the sharing of physical copies of the content are concerned, that is not enforced and it can't be done on a practical basis. Preventing sharing of digital content is enforced regularly.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If they were just setting up a remote server but you're the host

What's the difference between having a PC at AWS serving me Steam games and having a PC at nVidia service me Steam games?

If you're NOT the host like we see on GeForce NOW then you and Nvidia would be in violation of copyright since you're both illegally sharing content. It's the same principle with torrents really ...

What? Torrents are about illegally duplicating content. No content is being duplicated at GFNow beyond the user's paid content on their Steam account which they are entitled to do. There's a licensing agreement as to how many copies of a Steam game you can have around the world. If GFNow was allowing people to share each other's libraries, that'd be like torrents, but they're not.

 

[Lurkmass]

What? Torrents are about illegally duplicating content. No content is being duplicated at GFNow beyond the user's paid content on their Steam account which they are entitled to do. There's a licensing agreement as to how many copies of a Steam game you can have around the world. If GFNow was allowing people to share each other's libraries, that'd be like torrents, but they're not.

Even if it's the user's copy, GeForce NOW still has to duplicate it for their customers use. Making new copies of content is a right that remains exclusively for the publishers so Nvidia doing this without permission is very much in violation of their rights.

 

[AzBat]

Even if it's the user's copy, GeForce NOW still has to duplicate it for their customers use. Making new copies of content is a right that remains exclusively for the publishers so Nvidia doing this without permission is very much in violation of their rights.

What if the user downloads their game to NVIDIA's server themselves & then streams it?

Tommy McClain

 

[Lurkmass]

What if the user downloads their game to NVIDIA's server themselves & then streams it?

Tommy McClain

'Streaming' the content technically is making a new copy and it's not just the user that's doing it but it'd also fall on the responsibility of Nvidia as well since their facilitating it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

'Streaming' the content technically is making a new copy...

I disagree. Streaming is creating a video of the game data. The actual data of the game is not transmitted anywhere.

 

[AzBat]

'Streaming' the content technically is making a new copy and it's not just the user that's doing it but it'd also fall on the responsibility of Nvidia as well since their facilitating it.

Explain remote desktop software then? Wouldn't that mean every OS, app & data transmitted by remote is creating new copies & thus the whole market of remote access is illegal?

Tommy McClain

 

[Lurkmass]

Explain remote desktop software then? Wouldn't that mean every OS, app & data transmitted by remote is creating new copies & thus the whole market of remote access is illegal?

Tommy McClain

Remote functionality is fine. What isn't fine is sharing digitally copyrighted content which is the sole reason why publishers raised an issue with GeForce NOW.

It's totally fine to have your own personal cloud gaming setup but having an external party like Nvidia doing it for you isn't especially since their business is predicated on accessing content they don't own.

 

[upnorthsox]

Explain remote desktop software then? Wouldn't that mean every OS, app & data transmitted by remote is creating new copies & thus the whole market of remote access is illegal?

Tommy McClain

Is GFN Using remote desktop? Do you login to an actual Windows 10 Desktop and have to install the software (and any patches or drivers or whatever?) or do you login to GFN user page and whatever software you've chosen is available to launch?

 

[Malo]

What isn't fine is sharing digitally copyrighted content which is the sole reason why publishers raised an issue with GeForce NOW.

Yeah that's the sole reason...

 

[BRiT]

What if the user downloads their game to NVIDIA's server themselves & then streams it?

Tommy McClain

AFAIK... Not allowed. The users can not install arbitrary software.

 

[AzBat]

Remote functionality is fine. What isn't fine is sharing digitally copyrighted content which is the sole reason why publishers raised an issue with GeForce NOW.

All that content is copyrighted.

It's totally fine to have your own personal cloud gaming setup but having an external party like Nvidia doing it for you isn't especially since their business is predicated on accessing content they don't own.

So you're saying the only way you can legally cloud stream a game is to install your own hardware, you're own OS, you're own Steam client & you're own copy of the game. Then put that all in your own datacenter. What's next you need to own the fiber too? You can't own own the whole chain to the streamed device. I guess if I was renting the smartphone I would be illegally streaming it to a device I don't own?

Tommy McClain

 

[AzBat]

Is GFN Using remote desktop? Do you login to an actual Windows 10 Desktop and have to install the software (and any patches or drivers or whatever?) or do you login to GFN user page and whatever software you've chosen is available to launch?

No idea about GFN. Trying to get to the heart at the legality of all game streaming services. I'm particularly interested in Project xCloud. If what he says is true(& don't believe it is) then Microsoft will have the same problem making every Xbox OG, 360, One & SeriesX game streamable.

Tommy McClain

 

[idsn6]

Is GFN Using remote desktop? Do you login to an actual Windows 10 Desktop and have to install the software (and any patches or drivers or whatever?) or do you login to GFN user page and whatever software you've chosen is available to launch?

GFN's launcher opens Steam on a remote Windows desktop, from which you download and install a game onto their server and stream its display back to your home.

 

[AzBat]

AFAIK... Not allowed. The users can not install arbitrary software.

Just a "what if" question. Don't really care if GFN actually allows it or not.

Tommy McClain