I know that using copyright music in video games for commercial purposes without obtaining a license is illegal...

I know that using copyright music in video games for commercial purposes without obtaining a license is illegal. But what if there was a game, let's say an RPG, where you have a bard character who has an instrument that you can play different tones on by pressing different buttons. If you recreate a copyright piece of music well enough, the game recognizes that and gives the party a morale bonus or some sorts. This piece of music is not in the game, but a combination of buttons responsible for tones and the timing is programmed to bear that effect. Would that be legal?

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yes you can legally play your own version of a song; its how cover bands work. however you should try to be sure that it isn't a perfect replica so that it can be clear that it is not just the original.

Why are you asking Yas Forums? Go ask a lawyer.

What if the melody uses the same tones that sound different? I hope you know what you mean, I don't know shit about music terminology. What I mean is that you can have the exact same melody played on an electric guitar for example, but it will sound different, like you can have it sound like an acoustic guitar, some 70's funk or heavy metal

>But what if there was a game, let's say an RPG, where you have a bard character who has an instrument that you can play different tones on by pressing different buttons
That's literally how Instruments work in Lord of the Rings Online.

Depends on the situation.

You're allowed to perform you own version of any copyrighted song for leisure, there is nothing wrong with that. So if you're just at home, playing your game, and you figure this out and just noodle around with it, that's fine.

You are not allowed to play a copyrighted song for profit, exposure, or in addition to a set of original songs within a performance. You are also not allowed to perform a copyrighted song within an establishment that does not have the license to play that song (which is why some places with internet jukeboxes don't have all the songs another place with the same internet jukebox has).

So if you were to go into a major area, perform for people, or in anyway accept tips or profit that could be translated to real-world currency (like if they had it in WoW and you were able to get gold as tips and buy WoW tokens), then it is responsibility of whomsoever owns the game (not you, you only purchase a license to play it) to make you stop, as if someone from the Copyright Office is present, it is literally their duty to report the infringement to the government and impose fines upon the people who allow it.

:(
I thought it was an original idea

That is irrelevant to copyright law. If you play Sweet Child of Mine on a Citar, it's still Sweet Child of Mine.

What about street performers? They play copyright music for tips all the time. Their performances are completely free and the tip is a donation nobody is obliged to make for that performance, so it should be legal, right?

sauce

Depends on the street performer. For example, in Nashville, it's a serious job. You have to get a license, and you're not allowed to play some songs. I don't know the specifics, but it's not an easy thing to just get into. Other places, I imagine it may be more lax unless they set up shop in front of a bar or other establishment that has to worry about these things. That's why you'll see them in subways or something like that. A cop doesn't have the authority to stop it from happening, it has to be an agent of the Copyright Office. So while it may not quite be legal, if they don't get tagged it doesn't matter.

That's still illegal, but the amount of money lawyers can squeeze out of buskers is so miniscule that it yields a net negative if you take into account all the administrative tasks required to get it to court.

Yo holmes where da caq @

End user interactions aren't contemplated in copyright laws, for really fucking obvious reasons. The best they can do is prevent people from uploading copyrighted content if there is some content sharing platform in the game, that's it.
I have the feeling you already knew the answer to this and just wanted to post that trailer trash whore.

She's hard to find, because she works under two very generic names, "kimmy" and "hunter". She's not a good pornstar, but she's cute. She has 3 nice videos. Search for "fun with uncle max" on spankbang, "kimmy aka hunter" and "fuck daddy office" on xvideos or pornhub. From what I've read, she mostly does snuff. Shit's fucked up but they don't really kill her so if you're a sick perv, you can search for that. On xvideos there are two of her snuffs, search for "lexi sexton" (another amateur pornstar, she performed alongside her, but she's ugly).

No that wouldn't be legal because there is a copyright for the notes which make up the music, which you would be violating by programming it into your game.
You can't, weird al licenses the music he parodys.

Money isn't always a factor when pursuing copyright law. It's about the protection of the authorship of the original work. Also, if the plaintiff or defendant cannot afford the court fees they were required to pay in the process of pursuing or defending against claim, the court holds the judgement to award the those fees back as long as they were not done so friviously or in bad faith. It is very important that the government promote a healthy balance for pursuing or defending against a claim, else it's entire structure of copyright law wouldn't work.

Coffee is fine for you, anyone arguing otherwise just can't handle it.

So if I make a mod or a fan mission for Thief and upload it to my website for free download, but there's a donation button somewhere on the site, that's still a copyright infringement?

Copyright is an abortion of justice and should be abolished. The idea that you can own something which doesn't physically exist is absolutely silly, and has resulted in huge amounts of abuse.

The product is distributed under a free license, donations aren't transaction and don't violate licenses in the slightest.

If you paywall the mod behind a "donation", then you're getting into grey territory.

I don't know user. We have copyright law to thank for protection of LotR franchise until now.
Amazon's gonna rape it brutally, but were it not for copyright law, there already would be Hollywood movies with tranny nigger Aragorns ruining the franchise for everyone.

The law doesn't matter in business. The only thing that matters is if someone cares enough to sue you and if you can afford to be sued

Copyright and community-content driven platforms are just always going to be in an awkward place together, outside of that, copyright law protects the little guy as much as it does the big companies.

Most of the time it protects the little guy more, see Epic/Fortnite was getting sued left right and center for stealing dance moves.

I don't know anything about virtual copyright, just music. I can tell you that if you were to "give away" a cover of a song on your website, and ask for donations elsewhere, you'd get shut down fairly quickly.

>and ask for donations elsewhere, you'd get shut down fairly quickly.
There's plenty of Youtube cover artists who do Patreon just fine, though.

What if there's a musician or the band and someone infringes copyright on their song and music producer sues but the musician says "fuck noeave that guy alone"?
I suspect the producer would have authority over it.
But is copyright infringement prosecuted ex officio, or only at the request of the victim?

I don't think copyright is bad in some cases (like say, IPs or whatever), but it's extremely retarded to have record companies own shit they didn't even make. Any musician that signs with a record label nowadays is fucking retarded, have fun not even owning your own goddamned voice anymore.

This is what corporations want you to believe. Copyright law is literally the only thing standing between independant artists and people with way too much money that want to steal ideas. It protects you and the authors of original work. It is very cheap to publish songs under a copyright, and as soon as you get the copyright, it is active from the moment you publish til the moment you die (and then for some time after)

Don't listen to this user, he is either an idiot, or a chinese monkey that wants to take intellectual properties.

And they have licenses to perform those works. They have to, otherwise they'd be shut down.

That, or they are currently going through legal action that is being taken against them. The Music Industry doesnt fuck around.

In no way would that ruin the franchise, because nobody would go to see it. Also the cancer of Hollywood wouldn't exist because they're parasites living off old copyrights that they spawn sequels for and they don't need to worry about competition because copyright.
Seems pretty obvious that it really doesn't protect the little guy at all. Look at the lion king. It is a complete rip off to the point it directly steals from the original but it doesn't matter because the company is not big enough to sue for it. The court fees involved mean that it doesn't benefit the little guy at all. If you don't have millions of dollars you can't defend your copyright, so getting rid of copyright wouldn't make it any harder for you to protect your work. At least if copyright didn't exist, then a company couldn't steal your work then prevent you from using it in the future because they have the money to enforce it on you.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

No, companies entirely benefit from copyright. Good luck trying to enforce your copyright against a multi-billion dollar company when you don't have millions to spend in court fees. Fucking moron.

It is whoever owns the copyright to the song who would pursue against them, and is generally up to the author of the original work to pursue.

Tom Petty did not pursue Sam Stone(?) even "Stay With Me" infringed on "Don't Back Down" because Tom Petty is a cool guy who was also very smart with how he published his music, and basically went to Stone's house, knocked on the door, and said "Hey.. you prolly don't know how this works, so let's just work out a license deal and I won't have to sue you" and that was it. No infringement case was ever brought forward, which would have been much more expensive.

>Any musician that signs with a record label nowadays is fucking retarded, have fun not even owning your own goddamned voice anymore
Retarded you call them as they sit on millions and you shitpost on a Korean ramen making message board.

>In 2017, far-right Slovak politician Marian Kotleba was criminally charged for donating 1,488 euros to a charity. The number is a reference to a white supremacist slogan and the Nazi salute.[16]
What the fuck? How do you even prosecute that? There's no law prohibiting to donate any amount of money. What if that was all he had and really wanted to donate? How do they even prove malicious intent?

>What if that was all he had and really wanted to donate?
Come on, son.

You don't normally have to because multi-billion dollar companies have an extensive enough legal team that they will not infringe on copyrighted material. If they do, they will generally settle out of court for reasonable terms. If, by some chance, you can catch a multi-billion dollar corporation in infringement, then you're going to get a shitton of money.

Now, if you weren't smart with your work and did not file for copyrights upon authorship, then you're fucked. Just be smart, it's not difficult.

t. Musician who has gone through copyright infringement against someone who was very famous and we got more than enough money to make up for it

>It is a complete rip off to the point it directly steals from the original but it doesn't matter because the company is not big enough to sue for it.
That was from 1994 involving a work from 1960. Copyright law was barely a thing until the mid 80s in America alone, sparked famously by Atari, and cross-international cases like the infamous Kimba the White Lion infringement wouldn't have been feasible until the mid-00s.

Using again the random jackoffs against Epic lawsuits - all of whom won - if you have a sure case against a major, multi-billion-dollar company, there's always going to be a firm that'll take a case like that for a cut of the settlement.
Money isn't an issue when it's a sure case - then for all of a big man's legal teams, they're just a cash cow to an even bigger legal team hungry for the settlement.

The only people who dislike copyright law to the point of saying it's always bad have never made anything in their life and just want to use something someone else made. If there were none, we'd be flooded with so many shitty star wars, marvel, mickey mouse, etc shit and if anyone ever made something new it'd get run into the ground or scooped up by corporations with infinitely more resources.

I learned about Tom Petty because he starred in Kevin Costner's The Postman. I really like his "Running Down a Dream", but don't feel like listening to entire albums to pick the good songs. What are some of his songs that you'd recommend?

I know that was not the case but you can say that in court and they can do fuck all. On what basis can a charity donation of any value be criminally charged? This is beyond fucked up. The symbolics aside, he donated his own money to a charity ffs.

She looks like complete white trailer trash. Who even finds her attractive?

If you like that, then something like "Mary Jane's Last Dance" (a personal favorite of mine), "I Won't Back Down" (which I mislabeled on accident in that post), "Don't Do Me Like That", "American Girl", and "Refugee" are all pretty dope.

Honestly, he's one of those guys you could just look up the greatest hits album and you'd prolly like at least half of it.

>What the fuck? How do you even prosecute that?
You don't, really, the politician in question wasn't even prevented from running for presidency last year. Came fourth.

no curves, built like a boy
white people are so cringe

Built like a crackhead

Reminds me of a case brought by some female singer whose name I don't remember who had a song titles Constant Craving sometime in the 60s I think, against The Rolling Stones after they released Anybody Seen My Baby. There's a moment where the singing is kinda similar but it's not like identical and it's a pretty generic melody so I believe The Rolling Stones when they said they never heard her song before.
Anyway iirc they settled the case by featuring her in the title or something.

based coomer archivist

You'd fuck her like crazy if she let you anyway

yes.

>End user interactions aren't contemplated in copyright laws, for really fucking obvious reasons.
It's not that, he's asking if the game recognizing a specific input would violate copyright. Really oddly specific question and I'm curious if there's any actual legal precedent for this.

No, that was just an idea I had. I am a huge idea guy and I like to imagine nice little mechanics and themes for games. I imagined an RPG where you go on an adventure with a party and if you manage to reproduce that one lively melody from LotR, the party would get morale bonus, be in a good mood and get along better. Just a nice touch present in a hypothetical game.
If I were to make a game with that, I would not put a single hint towards that in the game, there would just be an instrument that you can play. Someone would eventually do this and discover the entire thing.

thats some good sauce
based

Music is kinda like that. They may have heard it off hand and the melody got stuck in their head and they wrote the song. That's essentially what happened with that Tom Petty case. Stone had fallen asleep to the radio, and woke up with that tune in his head. Some musicians are decent people. It's management you need to look out for.

The case with The Verve and "Bittersweet Symphony" is an example of the worst it can get. The Verve spent alot of money and time getting the rights to 5 notes from the Stones song "The Last Time", which in turn was taken from a much older song. They ended up using more than 5 notes, which breached contract, and they got fucked. The Stone's manager even convinced them to sue for infringement, and they essentially won the rights to "Bittersweet Symphony". The Stones actually recently handed over all rights to the song back to The Verve, and now they're getting all the money for it whenever it's used. Damage was done, tho, their whole career was ruined. But that's what managers do. That's why its important to be smart and aware as a musician and not just hope other people take care of your shit.

If you programmed it to be that exact song, then yes, you would absolutely be under threat of pursuit if you didn't have a license. I would instead consider programming it to recognize notes that go in the same scale to give buffs. Then people could pretty much play anything that sounded good and give a buff.

Anyone aware of music theory could make a general acceptance of notes that sounded good together be attributed to different buffs. Music can absolutely be mathematic.

As long as the character doesn't go "WOW YOU PLAYED THE SONG OF STORMS FROM THE LEGEND OF ZELDA OCARINA OF TIME! GOOD JOB!" I think you're good.

Looked that up, guy's name was Sam Smith.

youtube.com/watch?v=2wAfVaCaTMY

Talk to a copyright attorney music fags are the absolutely most vile and trigger happy of all copyright holders.