square enix do not allow streaming???? wait...what???

mrgreaper

ok i brought sleeping dogs early and streamed it for a mate of mine, completly unaware of the rules, some one tried to tell me that it was against them but well i didnt believe him, after all you pay £40 for a game it should be up to you if you let your mates watch, and im not a known entity enough to have loads of viewers

A mod logged in (horror i believe) and told me indeed it was against the rules and i needed permission, as some others had as well...there was a few streams) it was all very polite and despite me not agreeing with the principle i imediatly abided by the rules cut the stream and requested permission.(i hasten to add i have no issue with the mod in anyway, rules are rules even if i dont agree with them) 

In the mean time, time passed and the release date rolled up, i sent an email to horror to double check and got the thumbs up, sadly i was too far in the story for my mate to really enjoy my stream :( 

well today i got a wierd response from square enix

[quote]Thank you for contacting SQUARE ENIX support,

All content of our games is copyright SQUARE ENIX Co., Ltd.  We regret to inform you that we do not grant permission to individuals to use any copyrighted content.  Because we receive numerous requests, our policy is to decline any use of our copyrights. We currently are not granting permission to any one except our own business partners.

The Private Policy of SQUARE ENIX Co., Ltd./SQUARE ENIX Inc. stating the use of materials, is as follows:

All game materials, including, but not limited to, their design, text, graphics, screen shots, files are copyrighted by SQUARE ENIX Co., Ltd.  All rights reserved. Any other use of materials of our games -- including any commercial use, reproduction for purposes other than that noted above, modification, distribution, or republication -- without the prior written permission of SQUARE ENIX is strictly prohibited. No materials of our games may be used on any other product, published, or otherwise performed in public.
Thank you for contacting the SQUARE ENIX Support Center.
___________
For additional assistance with this issue, you can reply to this email directly. For assistance with a new issue, please visit the SQUARE ENIX Support Center at http://support.na.square-enix.com.[/quote]

If im reading that right,
no streaming it
no one ever gets permission except partners
hell no sharing even screenshots!

so how come there was streams stating they had permission, people just like me, gamers
and does this mean we cant stream them full stop or does twitch have specialy circumstances in place to allow us to

on a side note, im shocked at the reply, im a gamer i make no money from streaming nor is that why i stream, i just like to share my gameplay and natter to fellow gamers while playing to get a reply like that is almost like square are saying they own my game not me lol

made the questions bold to highlight them

moocat

You can't stream games early unless you get permission from the game company / publisher. When it's released you don't need permission, and the email you got was probably from some confused support staff that sent you the standard copyright copypaste.

For those streaming early I'd guess they went through a different channel than support to obtain their permission.

bgeorge

moocat is probably right about that. Your best bet when trying to get permission is usually to contact one of the community managers rather than "support". 

For Sleeping Dogs in particular, we receive permission for users to stream it early as long as they didn't review the game or show any cut scenes (If you were asked to stop, it was probably before we got permission). Normally we don't allow streaming until the US release is out.