Who Owns Your Adventure? A Need for Legislative Clarity for Streamed Performances of Video Games

Authors

Harrison Busalacchi

First Page

457

Abstract

Video games contain copyrighted material that could easily be infringed upon by people streaming a performance of them playing the game. However, the streamers can protect themselves from infringement liability by transforming the content in some form or fashion such that their performance constitutes “fair use” of the copyrighted material. This is often accomplished by the streamer providing commentary while playing the game or adding a small video of themselves in the corner of the stream so that the viewers can see the streamers’ reactions to the content. With artificial intelligence seeing exponential growth in the past couple of years both in use and in quality of output, it is only a matter of time before artificial intelligence becomes a prevalent component or feature present in video games. For example, artificial intelligence has already been used to create video game characters that utilize ChatGPT so that the player can provide the character with unique dialogue inputs and in return receive unique dialogue outputs. This Note argues that the mere performance of a video game that utilizes artificial intelligence, without any sort of additional commentary or reactionary video content, is sufficiently transformative as to constitute fair use under copyright law. Additionally, this Note considers the possibility of legislative action providing such protection.

Recommended Citation

Harrison Busalacchi, Who Owns Your Adventure? A Need for Legislative Clarity for Streamed Performances of Video Games, 19 Brook. J. Corp. Fin. & Com. L. 457 ().
Available at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/bjcfcl/vol19/iss2/6