Copyrighted material in mods

[Rendalli]

i made a conan music replacement which replaced every music track in the game with modded yes modded music from the movie and they say i cant upload it for everyone elses enjoyment. im not makin money off it which is what the copyright laws are for. anyways my main question was if i make original content for a mod and go get it copyrighted i cant post it on tesnexus anymore?

[Rendalli]

btw sry for the flame i got really mad after spendin a week making that mod only to get it deleted by the staff

[Vagrant0]

Copyright laws usually also cover alterations of a source, in this case, changing only a small portion of the original soundtrack is still against copyright law. Recreating the music from scratch, without enough difference between the two is also a violation in some cases. If it was rejected, it was obviously too close to the real soundtrack, or still contained the authorship information from your source. And you can't just make it slightly slower, or toss in a sour note here and there, it has to be made from scratch, and have less than a 20% similarity between notes (changing scale or key won't work either). Simply put, it has to be 100% original music. It can still sound kinda like something, but cannot be. If you copyrighted your own unique material, you would still probably get it rejected without proving that you are the original, and only author, and that you have those rights. Essentially music mods are the kind which have tighter restrictions on content since if they contain any copyrighted material the site could get sued by the owners of that material.

[Tamujiin]

Vagrant thats right, there are a ton of mods out there with "copyrighted" material. If i was you rendallii I would contact Lhammonds or Bben46 they'll help you out.

Also i do know there is another mod with the conan music out there.

 

And also you need to state in your read me your not making money off of it. Music is a touchy subject. You'll notice in various readme's the author states slight modifications and what not. My advice is come up with some good original, almost like conan but not.

[bben46]

Einhander, Appreciate the plug, but I'm afraid I won't be much help on this one. I don't know much about copyright law at all.

[Lord Slyther]

It is perfectly legal if you re-make everything yourself. But I don't know if re-making music from another game won't cut the cake. You are perfectly fine with making mods and uploading them as long as you don't use any assets from any game. Things that may be protected under copyright. Textures, models, sound, you name it.

 

As for music, it is strictly illegal to re-make it exact. You must as Vagrant said to have 20% difference in your clips. The music could have similarities, but cannot be be exact.

 

The Law goes to protect the content on a game as it was made by the sole company. The reason we haven't seen people get prosecuted is because I doubt it will reach that stage. That's when if any company catches their material in Oblivion, they're likely to take action against it. That's when they inform the admin to take it down as it breaches the EULA(End-User License Agreement), and it can't stay active. All 3rd party websites comply within copyright Law. I would definitely hate to see something bad happen to this site or Dark0ne himself. Where would we get our mods without the Nexus??

 

If you choose to take content from another company or without special permission(Which I doubt you would receive a response), there's a possibility that you're hurting the company. Because if your mods infringe copyright, the cops would be at your door, and you would serve a serious jail sentence. That's why I'm re-making models that look almost the same from Zelda TP, Halo, Half-Life 2, and what else? But I would not collect any copyrighted material as for the TP model pack I have belongs to the game itself. I heard it was been ripped off from the game. Not re-made.

 

How do I know all this? I believe The_Terminator has explained to me on my 1st project a long time ago. I think that was 2 years, I believe. But my two cents added.

[deadnerzhul]

But if you can't make music, then you pretty much have to accept it. I know the Oblivion part of filefront (dunno the URL, just google it) has a BIG Lord of the Rings music mod (which I have, and it RULES), but I guess the laws are different for another website. In any case, you'll find that copyrighting is a big crime and could be punishable by a (correct me if I'm wrong) hefty fine or some time in the slammer. I wonder why those people selling the bootleg DVDs in The City (Manhattan, DUH) and don't get caught... but yeah, don't do it.

[IndorilTheGreat]

The same thing happened to me man. It's harsh.

 

Although, I suppose if you got permission from whoever owns the music now, it would be alright... :unsure:

 

 

I will probably create a tutorial on how to add custom music to your game, soon. At least THAT won't violate any copyrights... At least I hope not. :P

 

Otherwise I will be asking myself, "What has this World come to?"

[madman132]

In Germany, a Homeland of Chocolate (just wanted to see how many "Homer Simpsons Land of Chocolate" Phantasies i can trigger), we have some poor poor Artists. This Artists recently wrote an open Letter to our Chanselor, Angela Merkel. Miss Merkel should do something about those Music Downloads.

 

Well, the List of the "Artists" reads itself like the "who is who" of the most annoying Morons Germany has to offer. Sorry for the Language, but it does apply perfectly.

So there are Artists, and i use that term very loosely, that actually think they are earning to little Money due to the evil Internet Music Piracy.

 

And here it finaly is: My Point.

Dont use any copyright protected Music anywhere. There are still Morons that will sue People for Downloading Music, even if they could'nt find this Music anywhere else. In my Opinion, its just a Matter of time until someone gets sued for using protected Music for their Youtube Videogame Flics.

 

In Germany, the Homeland of Beer (another attempt at triggering a Homer Simpson Phantasy :P) People will sue you out of Business, out of everything. The Music Industry here will go to enormous Lengths to ruin Peoples Lifes. Not to get some Money, in some cases they sued unemployed People and knew they cant pay the ridiculous Sums here.

 

The Music Industry deliberately ruins Lifes to create some Sort of "Fear". There are large Advertisement Campaigns. "5 Years Jailtime for the Thieves!".

 

On the other Hand, the Industry here likes to be payed two or three times over for the same thing. There is this Organization called "Gema". For every Piece of Equipment that can be used to copy Music, i have to pay something extra. I payed for my DVD ROM, my DVD writer, my Burning Program, my Soundcard (it can be used to hear stolen Music), my Motherboard (has onboard sound) my Video Card (i need it to see where im dowloading my stolen Music to) and of course, for Blank CDs/DVDs.

 

Now why i am paying this is beyond me. If i really get caught downloading Music i'm in for Jailtime.

 

So dont use any protected Music anywhere. These People are beyond Madness.

[Vagrant0]

*off the cuff remark about Germany having music that people would want to steal removed*

 

Anyway, sounds a bit like the RIAA thing that was happening in the US. Except for us it was people who have been getting diminished sales because their latest stuff sucked horribly, or they're 20 years too old to be in the business (Like Madonna or Metalica). Some people were sued, Napster was forced into a restructuring which many p2p services (even the ones that deal with legal content) have started to adopt in order to protect themselves. But all it did was seperate these "artists" from the few fans they really have, and make it clear that it's only about the money.

 

What I said before is basically this. Dark0ne has to protect his/her site, so if there is question to the legallity of the files, they will likely be turned away. File planet may not be as quick to respond (since their moderators suck)but their policy is the same. If those music downloads are stolen content, you should report them. The last thing we need is some big legal case about stolen content being made which causes the whole modding community to look like a bunch of thieves.

 

*edit* the above comments about German music were in no way meant to offend. I was being more critical of the sorts of German music which the outside world gets exposed to than anything about Germany or its rich culture. Those statements were based solely on what I have been exposed to, and are in no way indicative of the whole of German music. Blame it on the rise of metal culture in Germany following the brief fame of Rammstien and the half-baked scream bands which it led to. Then there is the obvious polka. I apoligize for any misleading.