No, not steaming!  Now how am I gonna eat my Broccoli!?

But in all seriousness, I don't know how this would affect us, if at all.  Honestly, the marathon (as well as others such as the Mario Marathon) have always been in a legal gray area.  However, since it's not straight streaming of the songs all by themselves, there is a question as to if it's really illegal.  Of course, if we ever received a threat of legal action, we would desist.

So where would one find the actual law, not just info about it?

Personally I don't see a legal problem with these video game marathon that raises money for charities. It wouldn't look good for a company to say no you can't do that.

This seems to go after those that stream copyrighted content like original movies and television shows without permission.

The Rock Band-a-thon is more akin to an original performance piece or a review and could probably be defined as a "fair use".

It does say any copyrighted material, if a company wanted to be a pain they would have legal backing to do so. When any company drop the hammer on a charity marathon? Well, we are talking about EA after all...

You do realize that this was only a panel, right?

See, both houses of Congress have panels and committees, made up of small groups of leaders from both parties. In this case, the Senate Judiciary Committee has deemed S.978, or the Commercial Felony Streaming Act, worthy of being decided before the full Senate. But it probably won't pass the Senate because the Democrats are in control.

This has not yet been before the House of Representatives, nor been signed by President Obama. Who probably wouldn't sign it, unless coerced and threatened by Republicans like he so often is.

Until such a time this bill passes (which it probably won't), CotGW has nothing to worry about when it comes to "steaming."

Same thing was said about prohibitionm, "Oh, that won't pass."

Anyway, This thing has the MPAA backing it and the goverment normally gives them what they want.

awww man MPAA is backing this, great

check this video it helped alot for me in understanding the bill that is being proposed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x11s8trkFzM

Same thing was said about prohibitionm, "Oh, that won't pass."

Actually, prohibition was in the bag. It had the votes needed to pass even before committee.

Thanks Dark_Light_Pala...IV for the link since the person linked to the bill.

A lot of people are misinformed about this that just try to find official info on it is hard to find since Google search brings up pages of forum sites up.

Finaly someone remebered the IV but thanks to the text limits the rest of my name was cut off  and your welcome i was kinda confused too so i googles it and found and article that linked to the vid 

You keep mentioning IV so am now going to add it, but as for the text limit I just copy and paste user names.

The one thing about this Bill that people are complaining about are Let's Play videos are going to be affected by this, but those types of videos I think fall under Fair Use.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include — 

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

The bold/italics/underline parts are the areas I think Let's Play videos fall under.

Honestly there isn't much to be concerned about when it comes to these laws. First and foremost the internet is too damn big to police it effectively, and second the fair use of copyrighted materials is pretty open to interpretation. And like Roo mentioned the closest to legal action you're likely to see from it is a cease and desist order so you wouldn't be in direct threat of legal action.

That having been said, no one in their right mind would try to take down a review on the internet, it's free, word of mouth publicity that does far more good than harm. And in the case someone is crazy enough to want a video pulled, like with The Room (I did say no one in their right mind), the eventually realized "hey, they turned my shitty movie into a cult classic" and changed their mind.

And to be blunt, the government has way more problems on their hands now then they can deal with, they don't need trivial stuff like "is it ok to be talking about SNES games on the interwebs" on their plate. Plus if they really want to crack down they'd start on actual piracy that's actually costing game companies money.

Not to mention, the federal government would need the permission of the copyright holder. Chances are, most of them wouldn't be willing to sue. Most people who do let's plays and other playthroughs of the type don't get paid to do them.

Well, I do. Which is why I don't do many and I don't put AdSense on those videos, so I make no revenue from them.