Remixes and copyright law

[Schilcote]

I'm frankly rather suprised that this hasn't been brought up before. Seems more likely that my searching simply failed miserably, but ah well.

It seems to me that what OCR, and indeed myself, are doing is in violation of copyright law. I'm sure that the idea of "fair use" has been brought up more than once, but I'm not sure it really applies unless you're making a Weird Al-style tune (that would be parody, which is explicitly mentioned under Fair Use law.). Are my suspicions correct? i've done a slight amount of research on the subject, and it seems to point towards "yes".

The reason I'm asking is because I'm making the OST for a role-playing game called Netland, which is a crossover-type deal.The songs are mostly remixes of songs from their source material, much like OCR songs except not nearly as good.I'm looking for a place to upload them, but I don't want to get myself or the hosting site in trouble for breaking copyright.

Also, on the subject, what are the legal and ethical implications of using MIDIs downloaded from sites such as VGMusic for remixing? I obviously don't directly copy MIDIs (well, actually I do, but only for personal listening; I don't plan to publish any of it), but oftentimes I'll break down the MIDI tune into its component chord progressions and mix them differently. I think that there's enough change there (30 minutes of work, usually) to justify releasing it (for free, of course) under my own name.

[DusK]

This has been brought up before. I think the general idea is that, yeah, a composer or game publisher could technically contact OCR and tell them to pull mixes for copyright infringement. But they don't, because it's a mutual understanding that we're out to honor composers and video game music with our remixes.

[PixelPanic]

Finally, someone who brings the Fair Use act into debate I like your style!

I always have people at school ask me that about what I do, and I like to think of it as citing a source in a paper. I sure as hell didn't write the fact/testimony I collected, but I paraphrased the shit out of it, and nobody gets on my ass about it, because I (or in this real life case, OCRemix does this for us) acknowledged:

1) The source

2) The composer (or author, per example)

3) Original date of publishing

4) All that other citation stuff I forget at the moment

As long as we are aware that WE DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE ORIGINAL MUSIC, NOR DO WE CLAIM TO BE CREATING PURELY ORIGINAL MUSIC WHILST "REMIXING", we're pretty much in the clear, as far as I know.

[psychowolf]

I'm frankly rather suprised that this hasn't been brought up before.

It has, many, many, many times.

what are the legal and ethical implications of using MIDIs downloaded from sites such as VGMusic for remixing?

For remixing, I'm pretty sure that would fall under fair usage

but really 30 minutes to mess about a midi and release it?

Is that all the effort your going to put into it?

I might not be a remixer but still that sounds like the kinda half arsed thing that i'd do.

Take more time into your midi fiddling and perhaps you'l be surprised at the results you get, you might end up with something entirely new.

Try starting out in the workshop, there's a lot of talented people that are willing to help (i'd suggest using soundcloud for audio uploads btw)

Either way, I'm sure there's plenty of people willing to help make your mixes become even better, (perhaps popping into the irc chat and asking around)

[Rozovian]

There's also the fact that we're not competing with what the game publishers themselves primarily sell, namely games. We just do music. Perhaps we're not on their radar. Perhaps they feel we're doing them a favor promoting their games through the music.

Fangames sometimes get shut down, but it seems like fanart and fanmusic isn't seen as a threat. A bad fan game getting big could hurt the image of a game publisher/developer, while art and music are more peripheral to that issue. There's also the legal issue. Shutting down unlicensed games is a way of protecting their brand. You can get a license for covers/arrangements and sell them. Licensing services of the kind that exist for music doesn't exist for games.

Then there's fanfiction, which is usually left alone, and fanfilms, which sometimes get shut down. It's probably legal maneuvering to make sure they can shut down competing work that uses their characters and world. For films and games. If ppl were publishing fanfiction in book forms in book stores (online and irl), you bet book publishers would take issue with it.

tl;dr: We're not competing with the games, so they leave us alone. afaik, they like fanworks.

(I'm using the term fanmusic just became it looks right next to fanart and fangames etc...)

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When it comes to what you're doing, Schil, I'd be careful about how I put my name on those tracks. It's one thing to pay homage to them in an otherwise original track or to arrange them to the extent ocr requires, it's another to move some things around in a midi. Changing chords and spending 30 minutes on a midi (that somebody else transcribed, btw) is far from what I'd dare put my name on. Still, I have no idea how these tracks end up sounding. Maybe they're substantially arranged. Maybe they sound more "inspired by" than "remixed". Idunno.

[Benjamin Briggs]

APPARENTLY, nintendo doesn't even sell licenses for their music. it's not something they offer. so even something as high-profile as ZELDASTEP has made it 2 full years without so much as a cease-and-desist letter.

that dude made a LOT. of money on zelda step.

[Schilcote]

When it comes to what you're doing, Schil, I'd be careful about how I put my name on those tracks. It's one thing to pay homage to them in an otherwise original track or to arrange them to the extent ocr requires, it's another to move some things around in a midi. Changing chords and spending 30 minutes on a midi (that somebody else transcribed, btw) is far from what I'd dare put my name on. Still, I have no idea how these tracks end up sounding. Maybe they're substantially arranged. Maybe they sound more "inspired by" than "remixed". Idunno.

Thanks for the advice! I typically put 30-45 minutes average into my remixes because that's how long it takes to make something I'm happy with. Maybe I just have low standards. Here's an example of what my tunes sound like, a short melody from Portal 2:

http://soundcloud.com/schilcote/netland-portal-riff