Seed64

[LMan]

headphonica: Ein paar Worte auf Deutsch, ich fürchte Du scheiterst an der Sprachbarriere; z.B. C64GLeN's Aussage deutete lediglich an, dass die Kommunikation erschwert ist, Du wertetest das als Angriff. Du wirfst den Leuten hier vor, Dich nicht zu verstehen oder die Compilation nicht gehoert zu haben, wobei alleine mir etliche Stuecke bereits von remix.kwed.org bekannt sind.

Es ist Zeit einzusehen, dass Du selbst in vielen Punkten irrst. Der Punkt ist, wir versuchen Dir nur klar zu machen, dass Du keine Lizenzen vergeben kannst fuer Werke, an denen Du keine Rechte besitzt. Nehmen wir als Fallbeispiel den ersten Track:

Romeo Knight - Bionic Commando (Tune 5)
Mechanisches Copyright: Tim Follin
Phonographisches Copyright: Romeo Knight

Wenn Du wie Du sagst, Romeo Knight um Erlaubnis gebeten hast, den Song auf die Compilation zu packen, reden wir vielleicht von Fair Use, das gibt Dir aber noch lange lange nicht das Recht, dem Song eine Lizenz aufzudruecken,die Du fuer richig haelst. Ganz zu schweigen davon, dass Tim Follin hier noch eine Menge mitzureden haette, da er der Komponist ist. Um Dein Spassbeispiel hervorzukramen: kannst ja mal einen Axel F Remix auf eine Creative Commons Compilation packen. Glaub aber nicht dass dann die Rechteinhaber, so wie hier, Dir einfach vorschlagen die Lizenz zu entfernen und die Compilation weiter zu vertreiben. Ehrlich ich verstehe null warum das so ein Problem fuer Dich ist, der Vorschlag ist total tolerant und entgegenkommend.

Und jetzt, der Hoeflichkeit geschuldet, das ganze noch mal in Englisch.
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Translation:

headphonica: a few words in German, I'm afraid you're failing at the language barrier; for example C64GLeN remark just implied that communication is difficult, you rated this as an attack. You assume that people don't understand you or don't know your compilation, while I alone know plenty of those tunes from remix.kwed.org already.

It's time for you to accept that it's you who is wrong in many ways. The point is, we're trying to tell you you're not entitled to give away licenses for works of which you don't own any rights. Let's take the first track for an example:

Romeo Knight - Bionic Commando (Tune 5)
Mechanisches Copyright: Tim Follin
Phonographic Copyright: Romeo Knight

If you've asked Romeo Knight for permission to use his remix on the compilation, this might be considered fair use. But that doesn't give you any rights to declare any license for the song just as you see fit. Not to mention that Tim Follin would have a word in this, being the composer. To pick up your fun example: try to put an Axel F remix on a Creative Commons compilation. Don't believe that the rights holders would simply ask you to remove the license bit and keep the compilation online, just as happened here. Honestly I don't see where your problem is, this suggestion is very tolerant and cooperative.

[LMan]

Since German law is the most important for this particular case, this may be of interest: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/200811 ... 2920.shtml

Also, just so we don't paint in broad strokes about how fair use doesn't apply to music (I'm not suggesting anyone is, at this point, but I still think this is informative):...

The kind of fair use mentioned here is about sampling, while the issue at hand with Seed 64 is about melodies and compositions: this is where sheet music comes in. Even if there are no physical sheets available for those remixes, you could easily create them. And they would look largely the same for the original c64 tune and the remixes on the compilation.

[Chris Abbott]

2.) another lack of understanding on my side: assuming the release should fall under "fair use" (what you doubt, but we think so), how does this _not_ apply to distribution? "fair use" does exactly rule that, doesn't it?

"Fair use" seems to have two components: "Can I do it for my own personal use?" and "Can I redistribute it?". For instance, it's illegal to copy a sheet of music at the library with a photocopier, even for personal use (though you can write down the music on a notebook for your own educational use, but you couldn't re-publish that as another sheet music). Fair use in this case mainly applies to the use of copyrighted material for study, educational or review purposes.

The rules of reproduction of copyright material (i.e. republishing) under fair use are much stricter: in a practical sense, the exceptions seem to be reviews where the point is not to reproduce but criticise, analyse or enlighten (for instance, using screenshots in a review of a game), or reproduction exposure in the public interest (where illegal or unethical activities are being unfairly hidden behind copyright law, such as a document proving fraud). And "public interest" doesn't mean "whatever the public might find entertaining". And the other exception is where a copyrighted thing is included accidentally in another copyrighted thing but as something in the background: and that doesn't mean "Oops, I seem to have accidentally cut and pasted Bionic Commando into my otherwise original piece!". The example I saw was of a news report where some track was playing on a radio in the background.

"Fair use" is a very dangerous playground unless you're very sure what you're doing.

In the event of that court case mentioned earlier, they didn't take the words with the melody so they got away with it. If they had sung those words to that tune, they probably would have lost. That's not so much fair use in action, so much as simple non-infringement: or rather, acknowledging that those words were in currency before the song "Pretty Woman". Otherwise anyone with "I love you" in a song would be in a heap of poo.

The original intentions of the remixers come into play too: it would be simple to show that since the intention of the remixers was not to create original work, that it means it's not original work. that was a point I was trying to make earlier: the intention of the remixer is more important to the legal situation than your own interpretations.

Chris

[douglasawh]

I don't disagree with the last post, but Chris said earlier "the concept of fair use excludes musical works," which is not true. It's clear you know the differences, I just don't want someone stumbling across the post, reading "the concept of fair use excludes musical works," and believing it.

I'm not entirely sure Martin and company should care about US and UK law, but assuming the techdirt article is to be believed, it's pretty clear when it says "it still requires the samples to not use the melody and be in a completely new piece of music". Personally, I think it's a load of shit that you can't do what the release on the headphonica netlabel does, but until overturned in court, that does appear to be the case.

Again, IANAL.

[C64GLeN]

I'm not entirely sure Martin and company should care about US and UK law, but assuming the techdirt article is to be believed, it's pretty clear when it says "it still requires the samples to not use the melody and be in a completely new piece of music". Personally, I think it's a load of shit that you can't do what the release on the headphonica netlabel does, but until overturned in court, that does appear to be the case.

As it has been pointed about before, the techdirt article refers to the use of a 2-second sample, not a full 3 minute song with the exact same melody as another.

[Chris Abbott]

I don't disagree with the last post, but Chris said earlier "the concept of fair use excludes musical works," which is not true. It's clear you know the differences, I just don't want someone stumbling across the post, reading "the concept of fair use excludes musical works," and believing it.

I'm not entirely sure Martin and company should care about US and UK law, but assuming the techdirt article is to be believed, it's pretty clear when it says "it still requires the samples to not use the melody and be in a completely new piece of music". Personally, I think it's a load of shit that you can't do what the release on the headphonica netlabel does, but until overturned in court, that does appear to be the case.

Again, IANAL.

I think I'd have to modify that slightly as I was referring to mechanical copyrights when I wrote that, and I knew that sheet music is not permitted to be photocopied.

I would note that the court case referred to is not necessarily fair use: it's just that the case was bought by the publisher, when the actual infringement was against whoever owned the original track that was sampled: and that still would have been actionable, though the actual court case would get very muddy.

In terms of what headphonica can and can't do: the problem is that if fair use was less restrictive you simply know that people would take the piss. So the law has to be restrictive, and the system relies on legal action only being taken in the most serious cases where money is involved. The fact that legal action is mostly prohibitively expensive pretty much guarantees this.

The core problem that started this discussion is that you can't give away rights you don't own, so a creative commons licence is inappropriate. There should be no licence at all.

Misuse of the creative commons licence is also dangerous for the person issuing it, since it may renders them liable to legal claims down the line if someone relies on that licence and gets into trouble. It's not sensible to gamble on the ownership of the intellectual property.

That's pretty much what I was saying in my first post in this thread: "you can't do that". You can spend days arguing about fair use, free will, the eternal soul, etc, but the only person you'll get into trouble is yourself if you're wrong. Kids, just say "no"

Chris

[headphonica]

sorry & entschuldigung LMan for not responding properly today - will do so tommorrow.
in the meantime i recommend this [don't concern this as an response, just inspiration]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWjMd5JRclQ

[LMan]

Thanks for the interesting link! In fact it seems Follin incorporated melody lines from the arcade version into Bionic Commando and other works. But that doesn't remove the licensing problem but rather complicates it, since there are other copyright holders further down the line...

[Vosla]

@headphonica:

Hallo erstmal.
Bitte gehe mal davon aus, dass dieses Forum keine Ansammlung von bitterbösen alten Sä�en ist, die Dir ans Leder wollen. Aber man ist hier schon Einiges gewohnt und reagiert mal gern etwas forscher.

Ich dampfe mal ein :
Wir haben hier kommerzielle Titel, die mit Duldung der Originalrechteinhaber in Derivaten verwurstet wurden. Diese dür�n frei konsumiert werden. Aber den Derivaten kleben immer noch die unterschwelligen Kommerzlizenzen am Hacken. Einer Sammlung der Derivate dann die Absolution mit Creative Commons zu erteilen ist deshalb unmögl�h. Das ist der einzige Kritikpunkt.
Der Rest ist dann (Fehl-)Interpretation von schriftlicher Kommunikation, was auch schon meist innerhalb einer Sprache bös s�ief geht.

Also entspannen wir alle mal eine Runde und sehen weiter. Das Forum kann auch nett sein. Wenn man's nicht zu doll ärger�

Sorry, people. I can't properly translate this into English this time. I am not even sure I hit the nail in german language.

[headphonica]

ok,ok. we've calmed down now.

@Vosla & LMan: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6p ... eberrechts
also wir denken wirklich, dass die von uns veröffentlichten stuecke diese kriterien erfuellen:

Code: Select all

Es muss eine persoenliche Schoepfung des Urhebers vorliegen.
Sie muss einen geistigen Gehalt haben.
Sie muss eine wahrnehmbare Formgestaltung aufweisen.
Es muss in ihr die Individualitaet des Urhebers zum Ausdruck kommen. 

somit sind es formal erstmal eigenstaendige Werke.
die aehnlichkkeiten mit werken auf die sie sich beziehen, muesste durcch gutachten als verletzung des UrhG nachgewiesen werden - wobei wir ernsthaft bezweifeln dass es moeglich ist dies nachzuweisen.

so to be precise: we consider the music we released on seed64 original works.
you may say: "hey, these tracks incorporate parts of compositions that are copyrighted"
yes, that may be. but concerning the threshold of originality we are convinced these are original works, even if they borrowed the titles of works they recall. the musicians here are doing just the same as the "original composers" did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5q3DaDgIN0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXSpMM5PGXA

FYI: we added

"the creative commons license does not affect any original compositions which inspired these works"

to the release-page.