Musician Archive
Thread: A way to support composition without copyright problems?
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Aleyo
Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:20 pm
#1
Basic idea:
1) A tool is made available to the community to fill in each of the flourishes, the basic sound, the start, and the stop sounds, for each instrument.
2) A song submission functionality is either built into the tool or otherwise made available.
3) Someone (or someones) is appointed by SOE to be the gatekeeper for what songs are put into the game.
I imagine that SOE's music creators have such a tool that they use, or at least the basic functionality of such a tool. If they do, all they'd have to do is pretty it up a bit to make it available to the players.
The song submission process would have to involve a step saying something along the lines of "I hereby surrender all rights and ownership of this song to SOE, including copyright." Someone more familiar with legalese can fill that in more carefully (or tell me if it wouldn't work). There could even be a clause saying that while SOE allows you to attach your name to the song somehow (if they could do this), they reserve the right to remove your name at any time.
The gatekeeper wouldn't have to be a person superinvolved in SOE or anything like that. It could be someone like a correspondent (NewJedi, would you want to do this?
). He'd be given some guidelines stating what kinds of songs are good or bad for the game, and he could pass along the approved song files to the devs. The devs could make a quick final check to make sure it would fit in the game, and then put it in without too much trouble.
One issue that I don't know a resolution for would be if someone submits a copyrighted song that the gatekeeper doesn't realize is copyrighted. I don't know how this works in the real world. Do record labels have some database that they can somehow compare music sounds with to see if a new song is actually a plagiarization? Otherwise, how do they prevent these issues?
Anyways, I hope this doesn't sound too jumbled. The basic idea is that songs don't go directly from you to the game, there's a filter process. Any comments?
1) A tool is made available to the community to fill in each of the flourishes, the basic sound, the start, and the stop sounds, for each instrument.
2) A song submission functionality is either built into the tool or otherwise made available.
3) Someone (or someones) is appointed by SOE to be the gatekeeper for what songs are put into the game.
I imagine that SOE's music creators have such a tool that they use, or at least the basic functionality of such a tool. If they do, all they'd have to do is pretty it up a bit to make it available to the players.
The song submission process would have to involve a step saying something along the lines of "I hereby surrender all rights and ownership of this song to SOE, including copyright." Someone more familiar with legalese can fill that in more carefully (or tell me if it wouldn't work). There could even be a clause saying that while SOE allows you to attach your name to the song somehow (if they could do this), they reserve the right to remove your name at any time.
The gatekeeper wouldn't have to be a person superinvolved in SOE or anything like that. It could be someone like a correspondent (NewJedi, would you want to do this?
). He'd be given some guidelines stating what kinds of songs are good or bad for the game, and he could pass along the approved song files to the devs. The devs could make a quick final check to make sure it would fit in the game, and then put it in without too much trouble.One issue that I don't know a resolution for would be if someone submits a copyrighted song that the gatekeeper doesn't realize is copyrighted. I don't know how this works in the real world. Do record labels have some database that they can somehow compare music sounds with to see if a new song is actually a plagiarization? Otherwise, how do they prevent these issues?
Anyways, I hope this doesn't sound too jumbled. The basic idea is that songs don't go directly from you to the game, there's a filter process. Any comments?
NewJedi
Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:48 pm
#2
I've actually suggested such an idea to the devs in the past, but they never said much about it one way or the other. I think the worry is the sheer volume of material an ombudsman would have to approve. I play music in RL and so would personally enjoy that kind of role, but my guess is that it would be overwhelming.
Nonetheless, I think it's worth another ping to the devs. Other players have comments?
Aleyo
Fri Aug 06, 2004 9:35 pm
#3
Yeah, I was imagining there could be a huge amount of content. However, this could be limited in one of two ways (or both).
1) There could be a set number of songs that could be introduced into the song per time period. An example would be 2 new songs per month maximum. The ombudsman would have lots of songs to go through, but plenty of time to listen to them, and not much pressure to get them in quickly.
2) There could be a 'no expectations' clause in the ombudsman's job description. "Sure, submit all the songs you want, but remember the gatekeeper has a real job, and can only devote so much time to sifting through them. There is no guarantee he'll get to your song within any specified time frame."
Option 2 seems kind of weak in terms of keeping submitters happy. Option 1 seems more likely to do the trick, as it's made very clear that it's a very slow process to get songs in the game, and so very few will make it.
Another limiting factor, I think, is that each song does need 10 sound clips per instrument, meaning 50 sound clips, and every clip has to flow nicely with the others. The different instrument sounds in each slot need to compliment each other.
It's not the easiest thing to do well, and the ombudsman's job would probably not be too hard, eliminating many of the submitted songs very quickly.
1) There could be a set number of songs that could be introduced into the song per time period. An example would be 2 new songs per month maximum. The ombudsman would have lots of songs to go through, but plenty of time to listen to them, and not much pressure to get them in quickly.
2) There could be a 'no expectations' clause in the ombudsman's job description. "Sure, submit all the songs you want, but remember the gatekeeper has a real job, and can only devote so much time to sifting through them. There is no guarantee he'll get to your song within any specified time frame."
Option 2 seems kind of weak in terms of keeping submitters happy. Option 1 seems more likely to do the trick, as it's made very clear that it's a very slow process to get songs in the game, and so very few will make it.
Another limiting factor, I think, is that each song does need 10 sound clips per instrument, meaning 50 sound clips, and every clip has to flow nicely with the others. The different instrument sounds in each slot need to compliment each other.
It's not the easiest thing to do well, and the ombudsman's job would probably not be too hard, eliminating many of the submitted songs very quickly.
Tarnak_Archvold
Sat Aug 07, 2004 2:07 pm
#4
I posted kind of the reversed idea a while ago, (Find it Here) that we should be given a tool to make music with the current songs instead of having to get new sounds.
I would never trust the broader player population to "upload" well sounding songs to the "gate keeper". Moreover, there would be uploaded thousands, upon thousands of songs, most of them junk. Then people would get disappointed when thair song was turned down and they would post links on the boards. Then other would post that this or that song was much better that the other one that was added and flame wars would erupt.
Players making new songs with out of game sound files will never turn out well. If we on the other hand are giving tool to combine what there already is in game then we can use all our creativity and the bad stuff would just not get around.
I would never trust the broader player population to "upload" well sounding songs to the "gate keeper". Moreover, there would be uploaded thousands, upon thousands of songs, most of them junk. Then people would get disappointed when thair song was turned down and they would post links on the boards. Then other would post that this or that song was much better that the other one that was added and flame wars would erupt.
Players making new songs with out of game sound files will never turn out well. If we on the other hand are giving tool to combine what there already is in game then we can use all our creativity and the bad stuff would just not get around.
Message Edited by Tarnak_Archvold on 08-07-2004 11:08 PM
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