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(il)legalsounds Selling OCR Albums


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Simple. They do it without telling OCR. They figure that what these artists don't know won't hurt them, so they go ahead and do it anyway. Then they plaster the WE NOTIFY THE ARTISTS thing in a feeble attempt to cover their asses that will crumble when the artists say WE WEREN'T NOTIFIED!!
Now im catching on, its like/is a online black market. Thats pretty low especially if you could just pirate to get songs :whatevaa: Never heard of this website before though, and there prob tones like this.
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12. Intellectual Property.

a. Acknowledgement of Ownership. You agree that the Service, including but not limited to graphics, audio clips, and editorial content, contains proprietary information and material that is owned by LegalSounds and/or its licensors, and is protected by applicable intellectual property and other laws, including but not limited to copyright, and that you will not use such proprietary information or materials in any way whatsoever except for use of the Service in compliance with the terms of this Agreement. No portion of the Service may be reproduced in any form or by any means. You agree not to modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute, or create derivative works based on the Service, in any manner, and you shall not exploit the Service in any unauthorized way whatsoever, including but not limited to, by trespass or burdening network capacity.

b. Removal of LegalSounds Content or Other Materials. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Agreement, LegalSounds and its licensors reserve the right to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any Products, content, or other materials comprising a part of the Service at any time without notice. In no event will LegalSounds be liable for the removal of or disabling of access to any such Products, content or materials under this Agreement. LegalSounds may also impose limits on the use of or access to certain features or portions of the Service, in any case and without notice or liability.

Disgusting. They pretty much say they can do whatever they want according to what they and their "licensors" decide, and they hold themselves free of blame. :x

Take them down. What's the extent of OCR in Russia? How many members do we have that could send them an email in Russian (they say that's the law that applies to them, so give it to them in that language)? Would someone mind working up a nasty email to copy and send to these highly corrupt, immoral floaters that run such a thing? The internet has dropped an unsavory thing upon us all. Let's see if we can flush them down and out. This is a horrible thing to do to such a community as this and the artists that work so hard on the music we love. :x

Maybe I ranted a bit too much....

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I take it this means Dave & Larry are already on the case, right?

Is anyone here a copyright lawyer who'd be willing to pro bono a cease & desist?

Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I've done legal work in the past of that nature. I could in this case, but that probably won't be necessary. The nation whose laws they are governed by joined the Rome Convention in 2003, meaning that their actions are unambiguously illegal within their legal system. They almost certainly realize that they're engaging in illegal activity. They're also probably betting on people not doing much about it, but will probably act if threatened. I believe someone mentioned that that has worked in the past:

I recall these same guys were selling the NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming album months back. After we all sent them angry emails, they took down the album.

If this approach proves ineffective this time around, and OCR staff desires it, I'd be more than happy to write the most ominous cease and desist letter I am capable of producing and inform them that it will be forwarded to their local authorities.

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Disgusting. They pretty much say they can do whatever they want according to what they and their "licensors" decide, and they hold themselves free of blame. :x

Take them down. What's the extent of OCR in Russia? How many members do we have that could send them an email in Russian (they say that's the law that applies to them, so give it to them in that language)? Would someone mind working up a nasty email to copy and send to these highly corrupt, immoral floaters that run such a thing? The internet has dropped an unsavory thing upon us all. Let's see if we can flush them down and out. This is a horrible thing to do to such a community as this and the artists that work so hard on the music we love. :x

Maybe I ranted a bit too much....

I think mak's Russian... but I wouldn't put him on the spot like that.

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If this approach proves ineffective this time around, and OCR staff desires it, I'd be more than happy to write the most ominous cease and desist letter I am capable of producing and inform them that it will be forwarded to their local authorities.

Please proceed; clearly they didn't get the message the first time. This pisses me off just as much, if not more, but what really aggravates me is that any time I spend dealing with it is time better served working on the site & releasing more music... which they'll then turn around and try to profit from.

I think perhaps we should propose a three strikes rule to them - this is the second time our free content has surfaced on their site, for sale. If it happens again, or if they fail to remove it this time, some sort of petition may be in order. I don't want to inadvertently publicize their "service," though...

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Please proceed; clearly they didn't get the message the first time. This pisses me off just as much, if not more, but what really aggravates me is that any time I spend dealing with it is time better served working on the site & releasing more music... which they'll then turn around and try to profit from.

I think perhaps we should propose a three strikes rule to them - this is the second time our free content has surfaced on their site, for sale. If it happens again, or if they fail to remove it this time, some sort of petition may be in order. I don't want to inadvertently publicize their "service," though...

Not exactly sure how successful anything besides email spamming and spreading bad word about them online will be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Organization_for_Multimedia_and_Digital_Systems

Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS, Russian: РОМС), also known as Russian Multimedia and Internet Society is a Russian collective rights management organization. ROMS is a body designated by Russian law for collecting and distributing statutory copyright royalty payments from radio stations and Internet download sites in Russia.[1] It is disputed whether they are authorized by law to allow music for download[2] This is currently pending in the Russian legal system.[3]

All the materials in the LegalSounds.com music service are available for distribution via Internet according to license ЛС-3М-05-09 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society. Under the license agreement, Legalsounds.com pays license fees for all the materials subject to the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights."[6]

So basically it is something designated by the Russian government, which is currently of ambiguous legal status in its own country. I'm fairly certain that it won't back down much since its a government-designated entity that gives legalsounds clearance to do what it does.

Prophecy sending a letter of that type might do something, but I think just having as many places as possible see and present the story would be more effective. Showcasing this kind of clear infringment of the Terms of Use that OCR puts forth, and the whole "holy shit they're selling free music that people work their asses off on and can't even sell themselves because its fair use" would cast them in such a bad light that they would back off a whole lot more.

And at the very least, have a whole slew of people email the site requesting the removal of ALL OverClocked ReMix material and to very clearly state that anything from that site being sold anywhere is a breach of the terms of use and likely of legality. Also have people tweet at them requesting the removal. Maybe they'll get the hint if a fuckton of people do it.

In fact, here, I made a template for y'all to email to them:

To Whom It May Concern:

It has come to my attention that your site, Legalsounds.com, is attempting to sell a number of works for profit that are available for free online by the site that originally published them. The following albums, all of which come from the site OverClocked ReMix (http://ocremix.org), are infringing on OverClocked ReMix's Terms of Use:

legalsounds.com/download-mp3/mega-man-9--back-in-blue/album_511164

legalsounds.com/download-mp3/wild-arms_--armed-and-dangerous/album_567378

legalsounds.com/download-mp3/badass--boss-themes/album_553889

The site, which provides free fan arrangements of Video Game music, is available in every country around the world and publishes its music for free under Fair Use laws and because the artists agree that their music be distributed for free on said site. By posting any music from OverClocked ReMix, you are breaching the Terms of Use found here: http://ocremix.org/info/Content_Policy

From the Content Policy page above:

"OverClocked ReMix grants all parties a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, universal license to use, redistribute, incorporate into other works, and publicly perform OverClocked ReMixes as long as the following criteria are met:

A.) No profit is made from the exercise of this license. This includes but is not limited to incorporation of OverClocked ReMixes into commercial works, charging or accepting more than the cost of the delivery means or medium(s) for redistributing OverClocked ReMixes, accepting donations and/or offering "Name Your Own Price" options for OverClocked ReMixes, or redistributing OverClocked ReMixes in the context of commercial advertisements. Live performance or playback of OverClocked ReMixes may occur in commercial, for-profit spaces such as stores, private clubs, or other gatherings, so long as no cost is explicitly associated with listening to them and no endorsement of the commercial entity by OverClocked ReMix can be inferred. "

As far as I am aware, either because I am one of the musicians on these albums or I have spoken to them, none of these artists has given their consent to Legalsounds to post the music on Legalsounds website, or that it could be sold by anyone anywhere for any price. So beyond breaching the OverClocked ReMix Terms of Use, you have also breached International royalty laws and taken advantage of artists who post their music for free of charge.

This is not the first time Legalsounds has posted material from OverClocked ReMix without right or consent, as last year the album NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming was found being sold on your site. If it has not been made clear enough, no material from OverClocked ReMix should ever be found being sold on your website for any price.

Remove all the infringing material as mentioned above, and refrain from hosting or attempting to sell any material from OverClocked ReMix at any point in the future. If any sales have been made off of these albums, refund them and point them to http://ocremix.org to get the material free of charge.

[Your Name Here]

Have at it, folks

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Anyone gotten any royalties paid from this place? A quick look around teh googels suggests no.

Russian law

Downloading music and films for home use is legal due to exception provided by section 1273 of Russian Federation Civil Code. A special 1% compensatory levy intended for copyright holders is collected from the price of certain goods (like computers or clean CD-RW disks).[citation needed] The compensation mechanism is unclear, though, and left entirely in the hands of the collecting agency established at the same time, with Nikita Mikhalkov, a prominent film director and political figure, at its helm.

So breach of terms of use as well as lack of royalties paid to the artists. "Legal"-sounds.

SOPA/PIPA were about this kind of site. Too bad they were otherwise terrible bills.

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So are we organizing? I'm all for this. If EVERYONE sends them an eMail, it'll help get the message across. They'd rather just take them down then mess with it, I'd hope. Honestly, we all know they're not getting rich off our video game soundtrack arrangements, but the megastart music they have up there.

Is it just a free-for-all that we're going to take the form letter and send it or are we organizing? The latest Bad Dudes album is up there and we should look for any other friends with original or arranged music so we can all work together to request the albums removed - make sense? Power in numbers, baby!

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