help with big pile o copyrighted music for my game
Community Forums/General Help/help with big pile o copyrighted music for my game
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| Hi all, thought I'd polish up one of my games and try sell it commercially. Run into a possible problem with the music. I spent many hours dredging 100s of tunes from the old modarchives ( I enjoy doing it ) and got out with about 30 long forgotten gems from 10-15years ago. So I just want to slam them into my game and get on with selling it. But of course I should contact the authors and ask for permission. Many of the tune info links don't give a contact. If they do provide a contact, not many reply to the email that I send. Some of the authors have become big professionals over the last 15 years. Will they ask for Łthousands per tune? Soooo.... what do? what to expect? Anyone done this b4? Just seemed a natural way to go about it. Would be great if I could get cheap permission for all 30 tunes! |
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| Ask the authors... ... if they do not respond within time: replace the tune with another one. ... if they decline your request: replace the tune with another one. ... if they give find it on a website with a stated licence: the country you are living in decides if you still need a signed contract to proof your rights to use it ... if they sell you a one-time-right: same as with the website-licences above All in all: using music from others can still make you get sued. There is no evidence in "CC By"-Statements on music-archive-websites. One uploads a music of another (or a shameless ripoff/cover he produced). In many countries they can sue YOU and then it is upon YOU to proof that you have done everything possible to validate the licence given by the author of the music you used. This will mostly happen, if YOUR address can be found out easily (and is in the lawyers country) while the author of the tune/music is anonymous or living in a foreign country. Other exceptions are things like "dying" copyrights (XX years after recording), think this is not an option for your "10-15 years ago" gems. bye Ron |
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| There is no easy procedure if you want to be safe. If you ask an author to be able to use a media and you don't have a valid contract (signed) to prove that you have the rights to do so, depending on your country you can be sued and lose. I don't know what to think about licences written in .txt files, do they have any validity ? Even if they answers with a yes in an email, it is not enough. In many cases the authors may be "cool" and not care about what you do with the media, but in some cases, be ready for trouble. I would only use music with a detailed enough and appropriate license or hire a musician to make similar tracks. |
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| Other exceptions are things like "dying" copyrights (XX years after recording), think this is not an option for your "10-15 years ago" gems. Even if the original creator died, copyright is currently in effect for 70 years after death. copyrights transfer to his/her estate. So even if the creator died in 1950 doesn't mean it's safe to use without explicit permission. |
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| Depending on what songs you've used, the copyright may not necessarily be for the music creator to decide. It's probably owned by some long-disappeared company that's been swallowed up by the likes of Atari, in which case, you've next to no chance. There is no easy procedure if you want to be safe. There's a very easy procedure - use royalty-free music instead. |
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| As mentioned by Gfk be aware that copyright may be owned by a publisher rather than an original author, particularly where music is concerned. |
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| glad I've had many informative responses, thx, but you're painting quite a bleak picture! :/ All that great music effectively put in jail. Surely this is a bad deal for everyone. No music for gamers, no music for game developers, the people with the copyright get no royalties. If I was a big games company who owned a jail with 100,000 tunes in, I'd want to do something with them. But I can see the paper work + negotiation time just isn't worth it over a $25 tune. Maybe in 20 years time all tunes will be uploaded to an automatic market. I'll plough on with derron's method for now. |
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| I get pretty much everything from Shockwave-Sound.com now. They probably aren't the cheapest but I've never had trouble finding exactly what I want - just watch the licencing though as the common $29.95 price only covers you for (I think) 5,000 downloads (note, downloads, not sales). I think the unlimited licence is something like $75 per track. |
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| >There's a very easy procedure - use royalty-free music instead. Have you been able to find good royalty free music? edit: in response to Gfks last post Nice link thanks, i will seriously look into it. The prices seem reasonable. |
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| There's a very easy procedure - use royalty-free music instead. If the license is detailed enough and appropriate, yes. But the OP asked about the use of tracks he already had with no way to contact the author. |
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| The following musician has a lot of MODs and "most are available for licensing for a small fee." He also takes on commissions; Depending on your budget, you can have original music tailored for your game. http://coda.s3m.us/portfolio/ (Bottom of the page) |
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| All that great music effectively put in jail. Surely this is a bad deal for everyone. Yup. Originally, copyright was valid for 14 years. During that 14 years the creator would get a government-enforced sole distribution rights on his/her works, after which it woudl transfer to public domain so all of society could benefit and the original creator had an incentive to KEEP creating new things -- benefiting society a second time. Over time this has gotten corrupted to the "life of author + 70 years", which pretty much completely neutered the public domain side of the deal, making copyright extremely one-sided. Yet any time that Mickey mouse is about to have a birthday and risk becoming public domain, they keep extending copyright terms to protect US interests. How else would they convince Disney that it's worth their while to keep making movies, eh? At the same time, international treaties keep 'harmonizing' international copyright laws, extending it further and further in other countries as well. (some of Elvis Presley's work was about to enter public domain in Europe, until they 'harmonized' the laws again) But no matter how unfair it is, that's the way the law is written at this time... |
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| Copyright is a good thing, if you've actually done anything you want to keep. If you can't do your own stuff and want to pilfer everybody else's work then yes, it's a pain in the ass. |
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| Copyright is a good thing, if you've actually done anything you want to keep. Sure, copyright is great for so-called 'rights holders' -- I'm not saying copyright is bad. I'm saying that unbridled perpetual copyrights are bad, especially since they were started as a two-sided deal where both parties got to reap benefits: first the creator, later everyone else. Interesting enough, Antigua and Barbuda got a WTO exemption with regards to US copyrights: US copyrights are currently null and void there, to make up for trade treaty violations by the US. The WTO ruled in Antigua's favor that US laws on making it illegal for US citizens to gamble online there while at the same time allowing certain online gambling in the US itself is in violation of WTO trade treaties Since the US has pretty much been ignoring the WTO rulings, they ruled that Antigua & Barbados can suspend enforcing US copyrights, and may make up for their gambling losses by selling US intellectual property instead: http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=51e28e53-4edf-423f-b8f7-01abbd86bfc6 |
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| Yet any time that Mickey mouse is about to have a birthday and risk becoming public domain, they keep extending copyright terms to protect US interests. How else would they convince Disney that it's worth their while to keep making movies, eh? The Mickey Mouse is trademarked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse#Legal_issues |
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| The Mickey Mouse is trademarked. Yes - in addition to being protected by copyright. From the wikipedia page you linked to: the Copyright Term Extension Act (sometimes called the 'Mickey Mouse Protection Act' because of extensive lobbying by the Disney corporation) and similar legislation has ensured that works such as the early Mickey Mouse cartoons will remain under copyright until at least 2023. |
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| ... Antigua & Barbados can suspend enforcing US copyright I was holding out for the punchline... So when your game is complete, book a holiday in Barbados then release it on the net there with any music u like. I don't mind copyright in principle. But in my situation it seems like an abuse to me to imprison game music that is worth nothing to anybody in prison. At least Mickey mouse and the Beatles are making currency circulate. Part of me wants to just release the game with this music, pay off all the reasonable copyright holders when they come, then take the crabby one to the highest European court and argue the misuse of copyright to the effect of violation of justice. Fool proof strategy, but i haven't read it yet in any of the indie dev guides. |
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| btw, does anyone know the mindset of a musician that doesn't reply to me requesting a licence? I'm guessing they hate the paper work as much as me so they have lumped it over to a 3rd party and hope to never get involved. So its these 3rd party lawyers that would react if copyright is infringed. Part of my research into this has been looking at copyright infringement court cases. They pay outs aren't that bad. If I sold a million copies I could afford the courts np. |
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| what format are you wanting the music in? wav, mod? |
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| Part of me wants to just release the game with this music, pay off all the reasonable copyright holders when they come, then take the crabby one to the highest European court and argue the misuse of copyright to the effect of violation of justice. Fool proof strategy, but i haven't read it yet in any of the indie dev guides. ahahah :) |
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| Part of me wants to just release the game with this music, pay off all the reasonable copyright holders when they come, then take the crabby one to the highest European court and argue the misuse of copyright to the effect of violation of justice. Fool proof strategy, but i haven't read it yet in any of the indie dev guides. Yeah... sounds like a really, REALLY bad idea. "willful infringement" (which is what this definitely would be) could cost you $150,000 per song, and courts have shown over and over that they're more than willing to award those kind of damages. Given that you have multiple songs, you could have millions in legal liabilities there. |
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| "willful infringement" Think this does just count for the US - with their extra penalty if you have done something willingly (that is what Europeans shocks so much - that hundreds of millions single persons "should" pay sometimes). What is fact for nearly all countries: If the licence holder sues you for XXX money, the price for your lawyer is based on certain rules - these rules are connected to the value of the sued amount. First rule for you is: if you get a letter stating: pay XXX to Y and XX to the lawyer, you will have to pay that XX in advance to your lawyer first. So for each fight in front of a court you have to pay your lawyer. The winner of the fight has to pay the other sides costs (aka the lawyer). Sometimes both arguing groups end up with a settlement out of court. Then many times each group just pays what it spent. Another thing to take into consideration: if you are living in country A and your "opponent" is living in country B, the opponent has to authorize a lawyer licenced in country A. As this is surely a bit more expensive for your opponent it will surely be much harder to satisfy your opponents whishes without paying that lawyer. You wont get just the letter kindly asking for stopping the action attacking his copyright. On the other hand this decreases chances of: your opponent recognizing the infringement at all, having the knowledge of what to do ... bye Ron |
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| The winner of the fight has to pay the other sides costs (aka the lawyer). Although not automatic in the USA, the loser can be made to pay the winner's legal bills. |
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| >what format are you wanting the music in? mod and mp3 are the best, but any will do. if you are living in country A and your "opponent" is living in country B, the opponent has to authorize a lawyer licenced in country A So thats another vote for Barbados is it? We're all in this together now. It's already gone too far. We meet at Bridgetown, midnight new years day with our games and unlicensed music. |
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| The winner of the fight has to pay the other sides costs (aka the lawyer). aehhh I meant the looser :D Would make no sense if the winner is getting a penalty. bye Ron |
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| OK, What style (classic, space - you get the idea) and what bpm (beats per minute) dance music is around 120-130bpm. Also what length in time. I'll see if I can come up with something for you :) Here's my soundcloud page, so you can check out some tracks. They are mostly deep house, but I'm sure I can come up with something for you... https://soundcloud.com/mavryck-james p.s. All the music was created directly in blitzmax too - no effects or synths |
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| Except a US copyright holder doesn't have to take it to your local court, they can sue you in a US court as well -- and most likely win a default judgment if you don't show up. Good luck trying to enter the country for a vacation or something down the road in that case. |
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| I'm under the impression that you can download mod music from The MOD Archive, and use it in your projects, but I'm not sure. The MOD Archive { *.mod, *.xm, *.s3m, *.it } http://modarchive.org/index.php |
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| Thanks Adam, but please don't commit any time exclusively for me just yet. I've only just sent out intro emails to guys on my original list. Since I started this thread, one has got back to me and agreed to cooperate. The music style I want is a mix of chip tune \ retro \ dance \ trance \ ambience. I will look at your tracks. But atm I haven't crossed any of my original tracks off my list. |
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| @VirtLands I've operated with that idea for my non-commercial products for 12 years and never had any problem. |
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| I'm under the impression that you can download mod music from The MOD Archive, and use it in your projects, but I'm not sure. Yeah... You can't. From the modarchive website Licensing/copyright page: Can I use a module of modarchive.org in my game/application/etc...? If the module in question has license deeds attributed to it, please refer to those. Otherwise, the only way to be genuinely fair to the artist who's music you want to use is to contact them and get their permission. We can't grant permissions on their behalf. Period. and: The contact information isn't in the module, what can I do to contact the artist? You can try using the modarchive.org forums, specifically the Wanted: forum. Search the Internet, do some homework. If you fail to find the necessary information then you are pretty much out of luck. |
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| sup guys, Wow, just emailed Jeroen Tel if I could use his music, he replied back immediately, said yes! |
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| just an update for anyone interested in the browse mod archives then try get licence method. I started off wanting 30 songs from about 18 artists. I sent out emails and 6 of them replied wanting to collaborate. 5 failed to reply, 6 so far are completely untraceable (!). Only 1 has replied back saying he doesn't want to licence out his tunes, seemingly for the reason that he doesn't want corporate suits raking in millions on something that should belong to the wild & free hippies. Then I went back to the mod archives and found that several of my selected tunes authors had voluntarily relinquished copyrights for some of them. I've got most of the tunes I wanted, and the collaborating artists are all eager to supply tunes to make up the ones I didn't get. Overall, Success! I let it drag on at a 'part time' pace. Taken about 19 days to reach 95% complete. Slow, but that's ok. I might half do it again, if all goes well I should firm up work relations with the artists on this project, so it'd be easier to go to them 1st. Would I recommend it? Well its worked for me so far, but it felt less than ideal. It felt a bit rocky and dicey. All in all if I had to start again, I'd do it again, because I like listening to the mod archives! :p Step 2 coming up : Let's hope the artists now accept reasonable percentages in the contracts. Any veterans here got advice for copyright licensing agreements between project managers (me!) and artists? What's a fair percentage per tune? |
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| There was some speculation earlier in the thread about whether we can use modarchive tunes in our projects. I spent time to carefully study the legal pages there. And my conclusion is Yes, nearly all the music on the modarchives is free to use in your commercial projects because nearly all the tunes in the archives are tagged with the Mod Archive Distribution license which states... 1.2, License to redistribute. By providing a song/file to modarchive.org/com you furthermore agree to give anyone who wishes to redistribute your song/file a license to download the song/file from modarchive.org/com and do so, provided it has stayed in its original, unmodified, unbundled form. there is a page in the mod archives all about being very careful and getting full signed permission from the copyright holder, but that only applies in the absence of any tagged license, particularly the modarchive licence. Sooooo, I spent a lot of time chasing permissions when I didn't need to. :/ Hoooowever, what I found was that some of the composers are slapdash when they submit a tune to the modachives, they just check accept the mod archive licence when in fact they don't hold the copyright in the 1st place. e.g http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=53449 phenomenon choir copyright was not owned by the composer of the modachive tune ( it was a cover ) but he's erroneously put the modarchive licence tag on it, the copyright was never fully his in the 1st place. So I can't legally use that song without getting permission also from Micheal v.d.k. There's quite a few covers in the archives, in fact I'd say this is one of the main stumbling blocks to look out for if you intend to use tunes 100% legally. Also you can't be sure that whoever uploaded the tune and agreed the modarchive licence was the copyright holder. So yeah, even if the modarchive licence is tagged to the tune, you should still try pretty hard to contact the author. But.... if you really can't get hold of him, then it is probably a modest defence in court to say you tried hard to contact him but couldn't, so took the mod archive license as valid. As far as I can tell copyright violation is a rampant now as ever since the internet exploded the problem. Chances are if you've made a good effort to contact the copyright holders, failed, but got the mod archive licence, then they won't call you for violation. If they do, I guess it should be ok to explain to them what happened and remove the copyrighted material from your game. But that's just my take on it. |
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| I see 2 others ways to find music that will fit in your game : 1>Go on youtube and search and listen to the tunes similar to what you want, then contact the author and try to make a deal to have the right to use the tune in your game. 2>Go on google/bing/elance/freelancer/fiver and search for freelancers capable and ready to make similar tunes at an accessible price and make a deal to have the right to use the tune in your game. Good luck. |
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| agree to give anyone who wishes to redistribute your song/file a license to download the song/file from modarchive.org/com and do so, provided it has stayed in its original, unmodified, unbundled form. that just means that you can offer the tune on your own website or archive for download. If you include it in a game it won't be "unbundled" anymore, meaning you'd be in violation of the agreed on terms. But.... if you really can't get hold of him, then it is probably a modest defence in court to say you tried hard to contact him but couldn't, so took the mod archive license as valid. Again, the mod license doesn't protect you there because your intent is clearly different than what they're allowing you to do... And when it comes to copyright: the default status of any created work is that it's copyrighted by the creator, and you do NOT have a right to use/distribute unless explicitly granted. Would you get away with using something without permission Probably. But on the off chance that someone does take you to court over misappropriating their music, it can cost you a lot more than you'd ever make on the game in the first place. do you really want to leave yourself open to that risk? |
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| oh yeah, i missed the 'unbundled' word. dam legal stuff. thx for pointing it out. I'd make a crap solicitor. |
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| it's annoying, because many authors who agree the mod archive licence seem to think they are making it public domain. When I contact them they are " wow! u want to give me credit for that?! I'd completely forgot that old tune ". Chances are that's the case with most of the tunes I can't get explicit permission for. In a big way, the mod archives people have failed, because they've created a chasm of uncertainty with the 'unbundled' word. The mod archive license allows anyone to acquire and profit from selling the modarchive tunes as long as the tunes are sold as singles. I expect that for most authors, this is near enough making it public domain for them not to care. Did it catch Mark Sibly out? I'm pretty sure in the original blitz documentation he pointed to the modarchives as free music for your games. The result is the same as always. Huge piles of tunes intended for games are unintentionally locked for ever in a prison. |
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| Even more messy are the "free fonts" websites and CD's -- there's zillions of sites out there that offer supposedly free / public domain fonts, but once you really start to look closely you'll find that a TON of the 'free' fonts are really ripped off commercial fonts with the copyright info stripped out from them, often even explicitly stating the ripping program in question. But of course, just because someone else stole it first doesn't give you any rights to use it in your own programs for free -- and when the actual creator decides to sue you, it's still you who will be in trouble. (Sure, you can turn around and try to reclaim damages from the site that misrepresented it in the first place, but that doesn't help you initially) |
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| I hate to further complicate the issue (really!) but even if you get permission, it doesn't mean you're safe. A lot of mods used copyrighted samples. A certain well-known mod composer who is now a freelance composer of much renown had a fondness for Vangelis songs and used a lot of samples in his tracks. Despite his success and current pay scale, he's more than happy for people to use his old tracks without charge, but he does offer warnings about the Vangelis samples. I doubt all mod authors are that considerate, and many probably don't even *know* the origin of every sample they used all those years ago. |
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| Copyright laws and cases are going awol now it seems. Maybe I can recoup any infringement costs by in turn suing all those who pirate my game. Whats the going rate of game piracy? 1 pirate for every 2 sold? @xlsior This US statutory damage seem like the most serious problem. Do US statutory rights apply to foreigners with copyrighted material outside the US? I've contacted all the US copyright holders of my selected tunes so I'm ok with them. Valve is a US company. Can they be sued for copyright infringement statutory damages by foreigners whose own countries don't have copyright statutory damage laws? |
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| if a company can't sue the origin of a infringement, they sue one in the middle (one who benefits from using the bad product). Happened to me - because the dutch author of a freeware game was ... a dutch, but the copyright owner was "the settlers" author living in Germany -. same location as his lawyer lived in. bye Ron |
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| @derron I don't understand your example, you'll have to elaborate more on it. Also, what was the result of the case? Damages? Unpaid royalties + court costs? |
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| The term bundled in the context it was used in would stand to mean you would not be able to bundle additional music together and sell it as music, adding music to a game and selling the game is not the same as making a CD of music and selling the music itself. The game does play the music but it is not a music player, it is a game and that is the difference. |
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| I'd like to believe that. But are you saying that as a guess or due to 10 years experience in the copyright law business? |
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| I do produce some of my own music and I do know that for a fact. |
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| "Bundling" is meant as this: take advantage of the 3rd party ressource, making something "new" out of it when grouped together with other things. You are surely allowed to: provide the music together with a music player (so people do not have to download another one just to play the music). But you are not allowed to put it into a "installer.exe" which adds toolbars to the browsers - and you force the user to use the installer.exe to extract the music. I know this because this is what is forbid some websites. Also check discussions about this (see sourceforge installer). Legality of such procedere is surely depending on the country where the authors live. @unpaid royalties + court costs: I am not allowed to talk about it (benefit of this agreement was to pay less). During that time it was more than I could afford easily. Result of such things is everytime the same (if you are "loosing") : if you do provide the "critized" thing again (in this case: a rising (or sinking) sun on red background) I have to pay X euros for each download. That game I offered can be found whole around the world - without trouble now - but I was the one they picked to set a statement. Problematic situation is: if you "sign" such a treatment, you are bound to it for 25 years (in Germany) or - if you have enough money - you can pay a lawyer wich fights against that contract and maybe it gets cancelled. Each breach of the agreement leads to a high fee (as "punishment"). That is why in most of this cases you sign them a modified declaration of discontinuance with a penalty clause - which states "a fee a court has to setup" instead of "a fee of XYZ Euros per breach". But ... for further details you may ask me again in about 15 years :D. bye Ron |
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| > if you do provide the "critized" thing again (in this case: a rising (or sinking) sun on red background) I have to pay X euros Sounds a bit too generic to copyright. If a sunrise\set is copyrightabel, then why not a blue sky background as well. Did you do a straight graphics rip? >I do produce some of my own music and I do know that for a fact. Good. Have to say, I've been looking around the net on the subject. I haven't yet found a single court case of a free to download & distribute tune being used in a commercial game causing a copyright infringement court case . But I haven't really found a proper law archive on the subject yet. |
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| There was some speculation earlier in the thread about whether we can use modarchive tunes in our projects. I spent time to carefully study the legal pages there. And my conclusion is Yes, nearly all the music on the modarchives is free to use in your commercial projects because nearly all the tunes in the archives are tagged with the Mod Archive Distribution license What evidence do you have that the person who uploaded the MOD and chose that license is also the author of said MOD, and not just some random user? |
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| There was some speculation earlier in the thread about whether we can use modarchive tunes in our projects. I spent time to carefully study the legal pages there. And my conclusion is Yes, nearly all the music on the modarchives is free to use in your commercial projects because nearly all the tunes in the archives are tagged with the Mod Archive Distribution license Funny, because the modarchive.org people don't seem to share that opinion. This is from their legal page: Can I use a module of modarchive.org in my game/application/etc...? If the module in question has license deeds attributed to it, please refer to those. Otherwise, the only way to be genuinely fair to the artist who's music you want to use is to contact them and get their permission. We can't grant permissions on their behalf. Period. |
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| @generic to copyright. In Germany nearly everything is automatically "copyrighted" (the author of somethin holds all rights automatically). Also you cannot sell a copyright. You can just grant exlusive licences. The the buyer can do whatever he wants (but still is not the one having the copyright). Only exception is if you "build/invent/..." something during your work time. In this case that "licence" can be automatically in the hands of your company. Because of our "§7 UrhG" only real persons can be "author/originator" of copyrightable-material. Ok ... there is ONE possibilitie to give your "copyright" to someone else: if you die your ancestors could take over :D. Conclusion: you are able to sell "exploitation rights" / "exlusive licences" but not the "copyright" itself. That is why no German products need a (c)-mark as everything is automatically "(c)"ed if it reaches a certain level of "skill". (That is why a "Hello" isn't having a "(c)" while my whole post is "(c)"ed automatically in Germany). Ok, enough of extra information. So back to the red sun: no it isn't registered for "everything". It is registered as "picture mark" (compareable to a logo) for certain classes (google for "nizza classes" to get a clue about classes). In that case they must have done that for board or digital games. So that isn't to generic anymore and they can register it. If they registered it succesfully, no other game in Germany is allowed (without "allowance") to use a red-backgrounded-sun within their board or digital games. That is also why there is only ONE corn flakes cover with a hen/cock. Another nice story is the usage of "Gigant" (English: Giant) within computer games in Germany. As the creators/publishers of "IndustrieGigant" (and a few other "Gigant" games) registered "Gigant" as a mark for computer games, nobody is allowed to have this "Gigant" in the title of their game. I believe it is the same for "Tycoon". Never checked if one achieved to register "Manager" too. Never thought of such problems before - but if you receive your first letters kindly informing you about a "recently recognized" (it must be recently else they might run into problems in front of the court) problems... you will read about it for hours and days. bye Ron |
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| What evidence do you have that the person who uploaded the MOD and chose that license is also the author of said MOD, and not just some random user? Yeah after I wrote that sentence, I realised that possibility. |
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