Diablo Music Copyright Question

[clockout1]

I just have a little question about the copyrights involved in Diablo I and II's music. I am 90% sure that the music from Diablo II is free now (I was able to find it online), but what about Diablo I? The expansion for Diablo II? I am planning to release a music mod for Oblivion but I don't want to break any laws.

 

Help please?

[jhardingame]

Just so you're not misconceived, I'd like to point out that just because you can find music on the internet(i.e. through sources like youtube, or just for download), it doesn't necessarily make it legal to use. As someone who's going into that particular line of work, I understand that music is thrown all over the place, and the original creators are hardly ever credited or properly given their own sum of money back in the amount they lost from stuff like people torrenting their music(don't do it by the way, tis disrespectful to the artist :P)

Now as for your question, you need to go directly to Blizzards site and look for a terms of usage or something of that accord on their site, or on a site that specifically sells the soundtrack for Blizzard. Unless there is a statement saying 'Usage of our audio and sounds are allowed by third person party users' or anything similar to that, then you can't do it legally.

An example of legal use would be the Microsoft Games Usage Rules. It states specifically in there that you can use music and redistribute for non-profit use from any of the Halo's for anything you want to do, whether it be for a machinima, a mod, ect.

Unless there's is something similar stating that for the Diablo music, then technically, you can't you any of it. Sorry. :\

[LadyMilla]

I am 90% sure that the music from Diablo II is free now (I was able to find it online), but what about Diablo I?

 

Help please?

 

http://vgmdb.net/album/1764

 

Diablo II music was made available through the iTunes store. Also, as the linked website shows, it was part of the Diablo II disc package. As it is tagged 'commercial, embedded', it is definitely not free. As far as I know Diablo I soundtrack was never released as a stand-alone title. Because it is part of the game it is subject to the prohibition in the Terms of Service of this site: no assets from other games may be uploaded.

 

Rule of thumb:

 

Unless the publisher's/composer's website/terms of use says otherwise, or unless you download it from a certified public domain music repository, uploading any music except your own to this site will quickly attract the banhammer.

[clockout1]

Meh, oh well, no harm done I guess. Thanks for the help and preventing me from doing something really stupid.

 

But really, if you DO have Diablo II, use the music. Its great.

[roquefort]

"Unless the publisher's/composer's website/terms of use says otherwise, or unless you download it from a certified public domain music repository, uploading any music except your own to this site will quickly attract the banhammer."

 

Some general info on UK music copyright can be found at the following URL; http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/protect/p07_music_copyright

 

It's worth noting the rule regarding recorded music; "The copyright in the sound recording will run for 50 years from the year of recording, or 50 years from date of release if released in that time." This applies in the UK, which is relevant here since this is a UK website (in the USA, it appears that sound recordings won't become PD until 2067, thanks to the so-called Sonny Bono Act). Note that the music itself, i.e. the melody & words, have their own copyright, which is much more stringent.

 

So it would appear that you can upload sound recordings here, as long as they're more than 50 years old.

 

None of the above makes any difference to the Diablo II situation though -- it's covered by copyright and you can't distribute it :thumbsup:

[evilneko]

If you want to do it for yourself, you can. If you want to release instructions for others how to do it, you can.

 

You can't distribute the music itself.