MarvLoco did a great job of giving context to this situation by using what Gary said on the Super Awesome Pinball Show:
The licensors some of them are saying "what's going on here?" and others are saying "you've got a bunch of thieves for customers, so we don't really wanna be in your business anymore." so we'll lose some licensors over it. We are required to tell the licensor if we know of anyone infringing the copyright like using their logo in an accessory and their going to start chasing after, so you guys making accessors might get a nice warning from us please stop that and Disney or somebody they take this seriously, they're going to make an example of some people. If you make something that isn't the licensor's great, but if you're using the licensor's stuff? That's that. It's somebody else's property. You played somebody else's music without a license ah nah nah nah no, now that's not good.
I think we can take away from this:
- Stern has had problems with licensors that poses a business risk
- Stern is motivated to protect the IP of the licensors to protect their relationships with these entities
- Licensors have taken notice of accessories that infringe on their intellectual property
- Licensors have taken notice of code modifications that infringe on their intellectual property
From this I think it's clear that those who create IP infringing physical or software modifications for games can expect to receive a cease and desist. What's unclear is what Stern and/or licensors intend to do about streamers:
In view of the rights held by third-party owners of Authorized Content (e.g. music and video clips) You will not stream your gameplay of your Stern Pinball Machine without Stern Pinball’s prior consent.
The ongoing DMCA enforcement efforts on Twitch inregaurds to the use of copyrighted music may be enough to make the licensors happy, in which case nothing new happens. However, the licensors may want more rigerous enforcement since music isn't the only thing being infringed on.
without Stern Pinball’s prior consent
This is the part that stands out the most to me as it implies there are or will be circumstances underwhich Stern would both be able and willing to consent to streaming "Authorized Content". What thoese circumstances would be is something we can only theorize. I wouldn't be surprised if new licensing agreements Stern enters into included Stern having a set number of hours that they can allow the game with all of it's "Authorized Content" to be streamed for promotional purposes. For example, there might be enough authorized hours to allow for a reveal stream.
To circle back however, what us streamers really don't know is what if any enforcement mechanisms will be used beyond what's already happening because of the DMCA. It could very well be that the point of this clause in the EULA isn't so much about stopping unauthorized streaming as much is it is about allowing Stern to have a reveal stream without running into DMCA problems themselves.
