Musician Archive
Thread: Anyone happen to know Copyright law?
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Paazin
Sat Jul 31, 2004 10:12 am
#1
I'm curious as to why, exactly, musicians can't just play separate notes. But, we can take other copyrighted material and put it intothe game,with no problem at all.
I'm confused. 
> you
Ravanne_Esi
Sat Jul 31, 2004 10:37 am
#2
If a musician could then you could reproduce a copyrighted song and then Sony's servers and game system would distribute that to all the players listening makeing Sony responsible for the copyright violation. You can often use copyrighted material for your own PERSONAL use but broadcasting it is not a permitted use.
JohnMarble
Sat Jul 31, 2004 10:50 am
#3
Well... it's SONY. Like, they would be the people suing, but they couldn't, because it'd be their own game.
NewJedi
Sat Jul 31, 2004 7:11 pm
#4
I teach Contract law and international law, but I'm no expert on copyright law. I do know enough, however, to understand why the devs failed in their efforts to give us a composing ability. (They argued for this in beta with the higher-ups at LA and SOE, and they lost.) Any public performance of a copyrighted work is an infringement. Sure, on occasion someone might happen to play a tune in which Sony owned the copyright. Sony is a big holder of copyrights! But more likely people would play tunes owned by other copyright holders, thus exposing SOE, LucasArts, and players to liability for infringement.
Yes, in theory one could also violate copyrights by typing all of"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" into /say chat. But that's much much less likely to happen than with a music system whose very purpose is to allow people to make public performances of music. Excerpts from Harry Potter might be acceptable as fair use, whereas excerpts from a tune aren't likely to be.
Soulburner69
Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:33 am
#5
hmm... here's a good one. what if the music a person used was produced by sony's music branch? would that be copyright infringement, or just using sony's own material to brodcast to other players? i know what i said does not have much of a point, but i figured i would just say it anyways... 
Paazin
Sun Aug 01, 2004 2:20 pm
#6
Aha! Well thank you very much, guys. That definately explains alot.
It's unfortunate, but at least I understand their position now.
Itren
Sun Aug 01, 2004 5:32 pm
#7
What about people that use the /sing emote to sing full lyrics tocopyrighted songs? Doesn't that violate law just as much as the music portion?
NewJedi
Sun Aug 01, 2004 6:32 pm
#8
Yes it does -- and /sing no longer seems to work, possibly for that reason. /carol works, though, as does /rap.
In any case, copyright violations will be pretty unusual in chat. But they will be commonplace in any composing system. SOE could try to protect itself with its EULA, which already prohibits us from violating copyrights in chat, but it might be hard to enforce that kind of boilerplate contract against users who never read it. By excluding composition, SOE and LucasArts are minimizing their exposure to liability. By including composition, they're maximizing their risk.
OrionsByte
Sun Aug 01, 2004 9:07 pm
#10
JohnMarble wrote:
Hm, I did a /sing just today....
Yeah... I haven't had any problems with /sing at all...
On the note of composing (no pun intended), I think it would go a long way if we could just have a /tempo command. That would really increase the options we have for performances.
But that's just wishful thinking. 
bknugga
Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:25 am
#11
I wonder if it would be possible if they sort of sold us the songs we wanted for $1, maybe like many download services do and we could have a list of bought songs from Sony that could be played in 
game
game
Mooko
Mon Aug 02, 2004 5:43 am
#12
If they gave musicians just notes they wouldn't be playing copyright material, they would be playing there version of a song just like most musicians who play in bars and clubs.
Atiknin
Mon Aug 02, 2004 11:07 am
#13
I am a Copyright attorney -- in fact I work for a company that does [legal] online downloads. It would take a long time to give a proper answer to the points raised, but NewJedi is right.
The fact that Sony Music and SOE are subsidiaries of the same parent is not particularly helpful. There are (at least) two rights that someone playing a copyrighted song (in this context) might infringe on: performance and publishing. Currently, songwriters receive royalties from online services both for the performance of a song, and from the publishing of a song. (You can think of publishing as the recorded and fixed version of a song -- the performance as a particular performance of the song. A CD gives publishing royalties, a play on the radio or in a concert gives performance, and an online download gives both.) The performance societies (ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC) administer performance royalties for almost all performers. They take a certain amount of money based on the number of times a song in their catalog is performed. Publishing royalties are collected by the Harry Fox Agency, and by a plethora of artists and labels. Ergo, in order to have properly licensed music, you have to deal with ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, along with the Harry Fox Agency. The fact that some of the artists whose work Musicians might perform in game is of little help.
A per song charge is actually quite an interesting proposal. I could certainly see music sold in various games in the future, but right now the industry is simply not set up for such a thing.
Typing the lyrics from a song in game is (probably) an infringement. However, SOE's liability for such an incident is probably quite small. Chat is overwhelmingly used for things besides infringement (i.e. chat has a substantial non-infringing use), and would probably be protected under the landmark Sony Betamax decision. On the other hand, my bet is that if Musicians were given the ability to play actual notes in game, the ability would overwhelmingly be used for infringement. Certainly some people would use the ability for their own compositions, but I imagine that cantinas would be filled with Top 40 tunes.
In other words, my guess is that we won't ever be able to compose our own tracks. The best we can hope for is more tunes, and more flourishes (and the tempo idea is excellent too!).
* CYA Note: I am not giving legal advice here, so don't go start your own music business based on this.
The fact that Sony Music and SOE are subsidiaries of the same parent is not particularly helpful. There are (at least) two rights that someone playing a copyrighted song (in this context) might infringe on: performance and publishing. Currently, songwriters receive royalties from online services both for the performance of a song, and from the publishing of a song. (You can think of publishing as the recorded and fixed version of a song -- the performance as a particular performance of the song. A CD gives publishing royalties, a play on the radio or in a concert gives performance, and an online download gives both.) The performance societies (ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC) administer performance royalties for almost all performers. They take a certain amount of money based on the number of times a song in their catalog is performed. Publishing royalties are collected by the Harry Fox Agency, and by a plethora of artists and labels. Ergo, in order to have properly licensed music, you have to deal with ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, along with the Harry Fox Agency. The fact that some of the artists whose work Musicians might perform in game is of little help.
A per song charge is actually quite an interesting proposal. I could certainly see music sold in various games in the future, but right now the industry is simply not set up for such a thing.
Typing the lyrics from a song in game is (probably) an infringement. However, SOE's liability for such an incident is probably quite small. Chat is overwhelmingly used for things besides infringement (i.e. chat has a substantial non-infringing use), and would probably be protected under the landmark Sony Betamax decision. On the other hand, my bet is that if Musicians were given the ability to play actual notes in game, the ability would overwhelmingly be used for infringement. Certainly some people would use the ability for their own compositions, but I imagine that cantinas would be filled with Top 40 tunes.
In other words, my guess is that we won't ever be able to compose our own tracks. The best we can hope for is more tunes, and more flourishes (and the tempo idea is excellent too!).
* CYA Note: I am not giving legal advice here, so don't go start your own music business based on this.
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