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Guitar Hero World Tour Won't Allow Copyright Infringement
1Up did an interview with two of the developers for Guitar Hero: World Tour about the process of creating the game. One of the interesting things they mention is that they won't be putting up with people who use the song creation tools to make covers of existing songs. "We'll be actively monitoring the site. And, obviously, if the copyright holder complains, Activision will pull it down immediately. We can't condone people putting up covers of music. It's really there for original content." We discussed the creation tools themselves recently. Since then, Activision has announced that they'll be including a MIDI sequencer to assist with making your own tunes.
I mean, you could probably make a fairly successful song if you sampled an old live Rolling Stones concert and played the main hook backwards over and over.
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I wonder if "covers" of songs made with Mario Paint ever get DMCA take down notices.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Lame. Companies need to understand that fan-made content extends product life and popularity, and keeps their product selling off the shelves.
Guess the kids are going to have to be old-school guitar heroes, playing their real guitars along to illegally downloaded MP3s of their favourite songs. Maybe they'll even develop real talents of their own, instead of making burned-out has-been rock star geezers even richer.
Happy Birthday!
But I wanted to be a Guitar Hero with my own personal versions of Stairway and Enter Sandman.
Performances are allowed under copyright. So how is this copyright infringement?
... you insensitive clod! :(
There's a legal way to do this ... c'mon Activision!
Thank you for proving your self to be just as out of touch with reality as the RIAA.
Seriously, People are going to go "song creation tools, fucking sweet now I can get (insert song here) on my game! Because you know damn well it doesn't matter what songs you include on release theres about a 1000 more your user base wants to see on the game too.
And if you try to stop it you'll end up driving away your customers from your 'official' site and you'll see the VERY quick rise of of a fan site to do the same thing. (or score hero will pick it up, either way)
Now that you've successfully generated negative publicity from what could have been a major boon, (hint people will stop buying your downloaded content, because they can get it for free from (insert fan site here) you will have convinced your customers that your a bunch of pricks. Because and heres the important part;
Guitar hero payers like music, most of us love it. And I can think of about 50 songs off the top of my head that I'd want to import into my game, and I already own these songs. As far as I'm concerned importing my copy of Crimson Thunder into my guitar hero game is nothing more than format shifting.
If I bought a real guitar I'm well within my rights to play along to any song I already own, my fake guitar should be no different.
The music creator doesn't even allow for any sort of vocalizing. That instantly makes it pretty darn lame, and inherently limited/shallow.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
They're just MIDI guitar tracks, widely used with FretsOnFirehttp://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/.
There will almost certainly be a way to work around this on the PC, mainly because NOBODY is going to use the PITA creation tools on the 360 and PS3. It's almost infinitely easier to do it with a MIDI sequencer.
Annoyingly, it looks like the MIDI songs will only be usable on the PS3, not the 360. It is probably due to their tools being MIDI-to-USB. The PS3 is pure USB so that's why it works on that platform.
This is highly annoying for me, because I was going to get the 360 version and I wanted to import my own MIDI tracks. Looks like I'm going to HAVE to go with the PC version now. Does anybody know if the 360 instruments are the same as the PC instruments?
I'm not one of those people who say "go buy a real guitar" but I have to say, when you're at the point where you're midi sequencing stuff to play in guitar hero, you're also at the point where you're ready to start looking into making your own music. Particularly when you're restricted from emulating copyrighted songs.
I record my sleeptalking
My impression about what is so cool about this is that it allows you to simulate a real electric guitar sound. That's not something I've seen very often (I think a premium version of Fruity Loops had it but thats it, and it was kind of limited). If done right they've entered territory that really hasn't been seen much before, if at all. Ultimately, this could at the very least be a tool to help create real music, as it may allow you to flesh out how something should sound before you figure out what tabs to make and how to perform it correctly.
If this just ends up being some MIDI sound studio though I'll be disappointed. My impression is that it takes MIDI in as a tool to set the notes, but the sound itself is not MIDI... hopefully...
"It's really there for original content." Isn't origional content copyrighted by default? So as soon as you create something it is copyrighted and illegal to use with the game.
People say my sig is the best thing about me.
Seems to me that it wouldn't be overly difficult to add a software MIDI processor. Don't many cheaper soundcards skip internal midi processors and do it all in software anyhow?
and maybe if they had talent they would be performing their own material.
If I write a song, how do I know that somebody else hasn't written the same song a decade ago? See Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music.
when you're at the point where you're midi sequencing stuff to play in guitar hero, you're also at the point where you're ready to start looking into making your own music. Particularly when you're restricted from emulating copyrighted songs.
If Guitar Hero was around back when George Harrison was alive and making records, how would he have caught himself emulating "He's So Fine"?
So as soon as you create something it is copyrighted and illegal to use with the game.
I'm pretty sure that by uploading your original work, you grant a license to use it with the game. Read the terms of service once it's released. But one thing that can get in the way of a valid license is if you accidentally create something that someone else created a decade ago, which can happen and notably has happened by accident: search for the "My Sweet Lord" lawsuit on Google.
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I'll not be asking where you mounted the camera.
Because when I was learning to play guitar, I never once covered anything.
Come on, of course the first impulse is to imitate, how else does one learn? And to be fair those hobbies you list all belong to Nerds. When a geek writes, it's in codes that spell naughty words on the calculator. When they play music, it's through the most awe inspiring audio system known to man EQ'd to perfection. Give them a video camera and their first thought will be to recreate an episode of Star Trek:TNG
Ok, you got it sort of right...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Is this even an issue?
The way I read this, they will police their website for what you upload. Likely to cover their asses against the *AAs who would inevitably sue their asses into the ground if a 3rd party started doing covers of songs they didn't have licenses for.
I think this is a big CYA on behalf of the game maker, not some infringement on your rights. I mean, someone could put up Happy Birthday and then the company would get sued by Time Warner.
Obviously, nobody can stop you from making your own cover, it's just that the makers of GH won't let you post it on their site, because they don't want to get sued into oblivion. Sadly, I think this is just stark reality in our current climate of copyright madness.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
i thought it would be fun if someone would bring into guitar hero expired-copyright old original blues songs that were the inspirations for many of the most popular still-copyrighted songs.
frankly, you have to go back to the first recorded blues generations at all to find anything not still under copyright. charlie patton, blind lemon, etc. the great chicago-era bluesmen like howlin wolf and muddy, inspiration to the british invasion, are still too "young" to be. (and frankly, little else makes me feel more strongly that copyright is too long than realizing how all "popular culture" post 30s essentially is not yet "popular culture" so much as "private property"... by the time it can legally BE "popular culture" it's nearly "dead culture".)
i'd already puttered around attempting this with an old big bill broonzy recording i knew to be copyright-expired and 'frets on fire', a keyboard-equivalent, but i have little computer-music talent.
i can has slide guitar hero too plz?
i take that as a 'no'