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Late to the party: Kingdom Hearts


Nekofrog
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Good. Being composed for the game means it qualifies as valid material for remixing under OCR rules.

Someone get one it!

No, it doesn't, actually. "Hikari," which includes "Simple and Clean" by extention, was released from EMI Music Japan as a single before the game came out (granted, only 7 days earlier). The song later appeared on Utada Hikaru's album "Deep River" that year, also released by EMI Music Japan.

EMI Music is not directly affliated with Disney Music Group or Square-Enix Music, as the music was licensed, meaning that the music copyrights clearly belong to Utada Hikaru and EMI Music Group, which falls outside of the gray area that OCR uses to distribute its videogame arrangements.

You might argue that the songs both appear on the Original Soundtracks along with the rest of the game's music, but you'll also have to remember that the soundtrack was released by EMI Music Group.

Unfortunately, this means that the songs "Hikari," "Simple and Clean" and the subsequent orchestrations are outside of OCR's rules about eligible submissions pieces. (The orchestrations being arrangements that belong to Square-Enix.) It's pretty much the same for most of the music from that soundtrack as most of it comprises of arrangements of other popular Disney music. Honestly, the KH soundtracks are a nightmare to deal with legally.

The same goes for "Passion," "Sanctuary" and its orchestrations which are also copyrights of Utada Hikaru and EMI Music Japan, with "Passion" being released prior to Kingdom Hearts II and appearing on Utada Hikaru's album "Ultra Blue."

There are still other tracks from the KH soundtracks that were composed originally for the game and eligible for OCR submissions, such as the previously mentioned Traverse Town theme.

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ifirit, the whole issue of copyright is meaningless when we're considering if the song is valid for arrangement. The ONLY criteria is whether that song was written FIRST with the express purpose of use in the game. If the game ends up getting released after, that is not relevant. It is not uncommon to see game soundtracks get released before the game anyway. Here's another way to look at this: would the song have been written if NOT for the game? eg. Was the primary motivating factor for its writing the inclusion in the game's soundtrack?

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ifirit, the whole issue of copyright is meaningless when we're considering if the song is valid for arrangement. The ONLY criteria is whether that song was written FIRST with the express purpose of use in the game. If the game ends up getting released after, that is not relevant. It is not uncommon to see game soundtracks get released before the game anyway. Here's another way to look at this: would the song have been written if NOT for the game? eg. Was the primary motivating factor for its writing the inclusion in the game's soundtrack?

That might be true in the case of the pieces written by Yoko Shimomura, but with "Hikari" and "Simple and Clean," Utada Hikaru would have probably still written the songs had KH not been there, as it appears on her album of original works. So trying to determine the intention behind the song in this case makes it unclear.

Granted the single release coinciding with the game release does make it seem that the song was intended to be composed solely for the game, I would think that the appearance of it on an album of original works would indicate otherwise. (She even created a music video for the song that has nothing at all to do with KH or videogames in general for promotion of her album "River Deep.")

I can't explicitly say that the song was either written for or not written for the game, as the intention is quite unclear, thus, I fall back on the issue of who owns the copyright. As such, there is no indication that the primary motivating factor was writing for its inclusion in the game. (Really, you'd have to ask Utada Hikaru herself.)

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