You're Going to Jail

[00:00] I know what you are and you disgust me, scoundrel, outlaw, you fungus, what you think the law is just a suggestion, something you don't actually have to follow, you're above it, you're untouchable. I know what you've done, I know you're dirty little secret.

[00:15] You've been in a Minecraft private server at some point in your life, haven't you? Yeah, I thought so. And I might just report you for it. You might be seeing a little minute black show up at your doorstep later on today when the FBI rolls through scooting

[00:29] inside ways to take you away and cuffs. Yeah, so if you don't know what I'm referring to, there was a big old circus performance here at a California state hearing about the Protect Our Games Act, which has been endorsed by stop killing games. And well, it turns out so many of you

[00:46] may just be lifelong career criminals engaging in illegal activities going into Minecraft private servers. Did you know that you thought that you were squeaky clean, a law-abiding citizen, but what you actually are is a scourge. You are a criminal scum, kingpin, degenerate, worm. Did you know that?

[01:06] One part of the bill is around the ability to go on a community server. The author is stating that that's currently allowed right now, so long as you're... I don't want to misunderstand what you said

[01:18] to some member. That's correct. Minecraft is currently hosted by community servers, call of duty community servers, so it's an option that is out there in existence here today. They're illegal and they are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft, Microsoft.

[01:34] For Minecraft, it's gotten a lot of criticism. Now, this is the excerpt stop killing games posted on YouTube, but the actual full source, it gets even worse like the way that she talks about it. I'm going to show you the full clip in a second, but just let that digest for a moment.

[01:49] She is saying that these are illegal. This is a representative for the ESA, the Entertainment Software Association, who's now just coming out here, drop on the hammerdown, branding,

[02:01] fucking private servers and Minecraft and call of duty as illegal. Curious. What Minecraft is legitimately built upon these private servers. Most people that play

[02:14] Minecraft are playing private servers. Well, I guess I can't say most. How about we just be safe here and not exaggeratory. Private servers are a core identity to Minecraft. It is

[02:28] integral to the Minecraft experience in a lot of ways, and now they're just giving this blanket statement of, oh yeah, that's illegal. What? And they are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft,

[02:41] for Minecraft has gotten a lot of criticism because of those community servers, not employing the same safety standards that Microsoft does on their Minecraft servers. Is it like the black

[02:53] market of video games? Yes, in fact, we consider it piracy. We have lawsuits to pending lawsuits against private servers right now, and the United States Trade Representative in their notorious

[03:08] markets reports on counterfeiting and piracy has named some of these big private servers as an notorious market. Thank you so much. As some member, I don't want to ask the same questions as my

[03:21] colleague. Yes, you thought it was all fun and games playing bedwars on a private server with your buddies. Blast for me. You heretics. You are actually just wiping your ass with the law.

[03:33] You are engaging in the black market of video games. Private servers in Minecraft. You make me sick. What were you thinking? I can't wait for you to go to jail. It is a terrible argument that they

[03:48] are putting up here. They're huge stink against these stopkilling games. Protects our games act. It's not surprising. These kind of low tactics have been employed for decades, and will continue to

[04:02] be employed for many more to come. But it is always so surprising how incredibly out of touch the people in power are. That woman that says so it's like a black market of video games. She's not

[04:14] very old. She's not some geriatric fossil. She's not an octogenarian. She's like a relatively young representative, and she just has no fucking idea about anything being presented here yet has authority

[04:27] and power in ruling with what happens in regards to it with no understanding at all. I hate it so much. Now, if the point they were making is like some private servers,

[04:39] do get up to illegal activities or do some bad shit that obviously wouldn't be approved by Microsoft or something, then yeah, obviously. That's happened many times in the past that does exist. There are some really gross, scummy private servers that do illegal shit no doubt.

[04:58] But that's a totally separate thing than what they are saying as this blanket. Oh, yeah, private servers are illegal. We consider it piracy. So this is the ESA, the Entertainment Software Association's position now, branding Minecraft and Call of Duty private servers illegal,

[05:16] and adding that as far as the ESA is concerned, we consider it piracy. So this is Jennifer Gibbons, who's the ESA's Vice President for State Government Affairs. And as illustrated from this article here,

[05:28] it's a load of fucking hogwash. This is dirty barnacles. You can literally download a dot jar file from the official Minecraft website to run your own private server right now. So if it was considered piracy in illegal, why is the official Minecraft site providing these Nair duels with the tools they

[05:46] need to run their own private server? What sense does that make? They're directly participating in this black market of video games. This illegal piracy, it's so fucking cringe man, it's so ridiculous.

[05:59] So the context here is, she was responding to a comment made by Chris Ward who introduced the bill, regarding the possibility of keeping games alive with private servers. And the community servers were

[06:11] brought up as an option because it exists today, which is when she interjects saying that they're illegal, not affiliated, and they consider it piracy that type of shit. If that's the ESA's position,

[06:24] why aren't they asked blasting Minecraft itself for allowing private servers and providing the tools for anyone to set their own up? That seems odd, right? Why aren't they fighting tooth and nail to

[06:36] have them taken down? Don't they want to put a stop to the black market of video games here? And look at this, you got a huge whale on the hook. The actual game creators are participating

[06:48] in it. They got the jar files there. Did they not know that they have the dot jar there? Bro, that's like the Manhattan Project of illegal piracy. And they're just given the keys to the kingdom to anyone. ESA, you got to move right now. Look, I see someone doing something illegal,

[07:04] private servers on Minecraft. I actually can't stop giggling about the fact that they are slapping these huge labels like black market on Minecraft private servers. So there's like fucking 11 and 12

[07:18] year olds in there making like hot wheels and this shit in their private server with their friends. And meanwhile, you have the ESA saying this is the lowest the low society. We got fucking freaks on the loose and these things called private servers. It's illegal. This is the black market of

[07:33] video games. This is a salty spatoon. These are hardened criminals are doing shady dealings in the shadows. And then you look at private servers and Minecraft and 99% of them are like kids just

[07:46] innocently playing in Minecraft and shit. We're making libraries. Like I saw there's a library in Minecraft now that houses like real books in it, which is really cool actually. And that's being slapped with things like black market. It's so fucking outrageous. Now, PCGamer article does

[08:04] illustrate that it is true. The USCR has named particular private servers and it's notorious markets reports in years gone by. But not for the simple fact of existing. Take for example, 2018 reports specifically cited Warman and Firestorm servers as example of notorious markets.

[08:20] Two sites which enabled people to play World of Warcraft without paying a subscription to Blizzard. Which is quite a bit different from the private Minecraft server you run with your pals or community server for an old cod that no one maintains anymore. That's exactly right. There is a huge difference.

[08:34] As anyone with even a slightly functioning frontal lobe would tell you. But we're dealing with California state hearings where I guess reasoning and logic goes to die. We're now they're trying

[08:48] to in terrible bad faith argue that any private server is illegal, a black market, piracy, and then they cite these specific examples of being in lawsuits with these bad actors as proof that

[09:04] all of them are bad. It's so fucking stupid. And unfortunately this mental gymnastics complete bogus baloney does work. This garbage is often successful in shutting things down. The Protect Our Games Act

[09:20] did not make it out of this stage of the legislative process. It's not over. It's been granted a reconsideration. So there's still more to come from it. But it didn't didn't land. It wasn't a home run.

[09:32] And a statement to PC gamer the ESA wrote that so far as it's concerned private servers and fringe on the intellectual property rights of game publishers. Publishers reserved the right to exercise their rights against them. That's cool, man. You know what else you have the right to do, ESA?

[09:47] Suck my whole cock. I give you permission to come suck my entire wiener. This is just a it's a nothing murder statement that you've made here. Minecraft gives you the dot jar to run your own private server. It wants you to run your own private server. It's the backbone of the fucking game itself. So as far as

[10:04] you're concerned, it doesn't matter at all. You're just wrong. It's just incorrect. It is nonsense. It's not piracy. Like yes, you can point to some specific servers that you could probably

[10:18] accurately label as like piracy, shady, scummy, or doing like really, you know bad stuff. No doubt. But to just blanket say it's all illegal, it's piracy as far as we're concerned. You're just wrong.

[10:30] They then went on to say that the provision in CAB 1921 that proposed these servers as a legitimate alternative to keep games running raises concerns about a publisher's ability to enforce their IP rights. In addition, private servers operate with no oversight from the publisher and do not uphold

[10:45] the same trust and safety standards. This could create an unsafe environment for players and be counter to the industry's commitment to fostering safe and fun game play for all players. A stopkilling games campaign volunteer has already commented on the hearings proceedings in a

[10:58] Reddit post where they wrote that the claims both regarding the supposed supposedly legality of private servers and others were designed to scare a busy legislator who does not have time to fact check a well-dressed lobbyist in real time. It worked just well enough this round. It will

[11:12] not when we are standing in the same room with developers and players beside us ready to answer every single claim as it happens. Next session we come back with an in-person lobbying presence. The funding to do this properly and a long list of organizations and developers signed on in support. We are not

[11:26] limiting this to California. We intend to introduce versions of this in other state legislatures and we are seriously looking at the federal level. The ESA is about to learn what it's like to fight

[11:38] on many fronts at once. Again, it's not over anything by any means but this is a bump in the road that is disappointing to see. It's not a good argument from the ESA and it's a very misleading one that

[11:53] is geared towards trying to pray on the ignorance of the people that they're presenting it in front of because they clearly have no fucking idea what any of it's even about anyway so they'll use

[12:05] scary buzzwords like piracy, black market, illegal, that kind of thing in order to put the fear of God and be like okay well yeah then I guess these private servers aren't really a viable alternative. It's

[12:17] just the it's a lawless wasteland of of savages out there. Yeah no we can't have that. Hopefully in the next steps of this process here things can look up for the stop killing games movement here.

[12:30] I just wanted to talk about this a little bit because that was a crazy stance that the ESA took there outrageous statements that anyone that's even adjacent to video games would hear and raise an eyebrow at because it's so fucking ridiculous. Anyway that's really about it. See ya.