Illegal usage of MARP content on YT channel

[Kale]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Nwrp ... LHw/videos

Contains videos that clearly belongs to the inp database up to 'H'-ish, by quick glances 1st places of stuff submitted here with aggravating aspect ratio and terrible bitrate. I'm pretty sure none of the players here gave any permission whatsoever to these gentlemen so here we go.

Before going into head-bumping report this and considering it's Google (hint: the channel report button is disabled), I'd like to confirm with people about how licensing works here.
To my knowledge, given that an inp is a derivative creative work of MAME and given neither MAME nor MARP has any explicit licensing page contract for those, it currently falls in some kind of "no license" limbo.
https://choosealicense.com/no-permission/

Having an explicit non-software condition declared anywhere (either on MAME or on WolfMAME inp signature) can resolve this case and future ones easily. A quick roundup here, all possible options sans the versioning mumbo jumbo here under The Licenses tag.
Doing that in code shouldn't be hard, also we need an inp version bump sooner or later anyway due of a critical bug, so before delving into the matter I also would like to confirm there's enough interest in the matter.

[Weehawk]

I don't think MAME or MARP have any legal rights here that could be asserted in any way, shape, or form.

[giro-X]

Hi Kale, my team and I are actually well aware of that channel's "work" since almost an year, and managed to get down one video about a replay that was uploaded without permission and in low quality from a random user. But we managed to report that video only because the AEX channel also had a video (with permission) of that same replay and was uploaded earlier in time, so the reason of video ban was that the video had been stolen.
We still didn't figure out how to report the guy behind the channel (and we even know who he is), for his endless mania of picking up random expected-to-be-cool INPs with no permission and too often without even claiming who the author is. We will be very glad to cooperate in any possible way.

The videos made cover also several replays that have already their own video uploaded by the actual author of the replay, I think of BBH's Giga Wing score, Vertex DAN's Flash Point counterstop, to name some examples that I remember. It's been a while since I checked.

[giro-X]

On my personal experience, he used one of my replays too obviously against my will, Don Doko Don score I uploaded on MARP years ago. It was a very low score, with several mistakes, that could definitely use some refining which I never did yet for lack of time, so it doesn't make up for a great content anyway. But even if it was, the guy never had my permission. I have my channel, if I want to show something mine, I do, not him.
When I found out about that video, what I simply did was writing a pacific, non offensive comment where I told to audience who I was and that was one of my replays, I didn't even mention the no-permission factor.
How could I dare - comment was removed and all comments were even disabled for that video only.

[GHEMANT]

This channel doesn't insert the name of the player and catalogs everything as mame world record (a meaningless wording). The person back this channel is called "Poiu" and is a person who has not respect for the authors of the original replays. He thinks he can do what he wants by trampling on anyone's rights.

[giro-X]

I'm slowly waking up and regaining conciousness about the whole topic.
The main issue on reporting a Youtube channel or video, here, is that the person/creator actually involved in the stolen content has to report the abuse. They won't let you report otherwise.

also we need an inp version bump sooner or later anyway due of a critical bug, so before delving into the matter I also would like to confirm there's enough interest in the matter.

You have my interest on this part.

[Jck]

To my knowledge, given that an inp is a derivative creative work of MAME and given neither MAME nor MARP has any explicit licensing page contract for those, it currently falls in some kind of "no license" limbo.
https://choosealicense.com/no-permission/

I asked a lawyer about this matter and she told me that everything that can be even loosely defined as "creative work" is always subject to copyright, even if I post it online on a free website like MARP. So if I don't want my INP published on that channel I can ask the owner to remove it and he must respect my will. Unfortunately Weehawk is right and MARP cannot (and it doesn't even want to, I think) do something on behalf of all the users.

About the report button on YouTube: could it be disabled maybe because the channel has already received several copyright claim by AEX and other players? As Giro-X already said, on behalf of AEX and "its players" I already successfully claimed the copyright of several videos, but I think only because AEX published them first and the Google's algorithm decided that they were the same videos without further investigation. After this incident, in May 2019 the owner of the channel contacted me (it's italian, btw) and tried to threaten me with allegedly counterclaim reports that I'm still waiting to receive after several months.
At first I tried to have a conversation with him, but I let it go when he defined his work as a "a tribute to great players" and "just videos of silly little games" in the same sentence.

side note: as per Wikipedia's definition of "Derivative work" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work) I don't think an INP falls in this category.

[dan]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC67nOw ... 8gOK0xLa2g

Some of the videos on his channel have been uploaded without permission from the author, and I know some my friends who are angry.

[Weehawk]

I asked a lawyer about this matter and she told me that everything that can be even loosely defined as "creative work" is always subject to copyright, even if I post it online on a free website like MARP. So if I don't want my INP published on that channel I can ask the owner to remove it and he must respect my will.

I'm not sure an INP file can, even loosely, be considered a creative work.

An INP file is simply a recorded sequence of inputs to the game. As such, I think they would be considered facts, which cannot be copyrighted. Like a sequence of chess moves.

Also, I can't believe anyone wants to see the inside of a courtroom in connection with their use of MAME. Unless we're strictly talking about game software that is in the public domain (there are a few), even if you own the physical ROMs, unless you dumped the data yourself for personal use, you obtained it through a copyright violation.

[Jck]

I asked a lawyer about this matter and she told me that everything that can be even loosely defined as "creative work" is always subject to copyright, even if I post it online on a free website like MARP. So if I don't want my INP published on that channel I can ask the owner to remove it and he must respect my will.

I'm not sure an INP file can, even loosely, be considered a creative work.

An INP file is simply a recorded sequence of inputs to the game. As such, I think they would be considered facts, which cannot be copyrighted. Like a sequence of chess moves.

Also, I can't believe anyone wants to see the inside of a courtroom in connection with their use of MAME. Unless we're strictly talking about game software that is in the public domain (there are a few), even if you own the physical ROMs, unless you dumped the data yourself for personal use, you obtained it through a copyright violation.

Good points! I'will report them to "my lawyer", just for the sake of the conversation.
And of course no one will ever want to try to enforce the law in a case like this. It's all just about an interesting topic and an annoying dude who probably has already abandoned his project.

[johnmcallister]

Has the idea of creating a youtube channel for marp and providing videos been discussed before. Might be able to generate enough funds to pay for some of the hosting cost. I'm sure people would help with making the videos and getting them up, I would be one of them.

[mahlemiut]

I've kinda been thinking about maybe streaming some INPs (as I look at confirming the scores), or at least those replays that are interesting, or just plain impressive. Not sure how great an idea it might be, just putting it out there.

[Haze]

I don't think anything can be considered illegal about this tbh.

If you submit something like this you're submitting it for public review, and that includes people being able to make videos.

[mahlemiut]

I'm not one for fancy layouts, but this is an example of what I might do, as far as potentially streaming some good quality MARP INPs...

osb-marp-1.jpg (291.79 KiB) Viewed 27540 times

[mahlemiut]

Going to give this MARP stream idea thing a shot in about 10-15 minutes. Check https://www.twitch.tv/mahlemiut if you're curious (or whatever)