Unauthorized use of my music.

[ZhayTee]

Hi,

It has been brought to my attention that there is a Nexiuz map called "dastower40", by a certain "MikeeUSA", which makes use of one of my songs (at-menu.ogg). I did not give permission to MikeeUSA for the use of my song in his or her map.

Nexiuz seems like a cool game and all, but I do not want my music to be used in this way unless I grant permission first. So please e-mail me if you want to use my music. I may even be willing to create some original tunes for your map, who knows!

I am hoping that MikeeUSA and anyone else who has or is planning to gank music without first securing permission from the composer will see this.

Thanks,

--JT
http://zhaymusic.com/

[divVerent]

Removed the map from my server for that reason. MikeeUSA may be an idiot, but the way how he stresses it is "GPLd" all the time made me think the music actually is free to use.

Out of interest, can you prove the ownership in any way? at-menu.ogg may imply it is the menu for something you made - what is it?

Sorry for that.

divVerent, admin of the RBI server


Update: I looked on your website, it seems to be the game "adonthell", which seems to be GPL licensed. By that, MikeeUSA is free to use the music in any way he wants as long as his complete package is under the GPL again. So his use of your music seems to be legal.

Still, you are the author (your website seems to be proof of ownership enough), so IMHO you shall have the final word. Map will stay deleted on my server.

Actually I was looking for a reason to get rid of the map as I do not like it, so you were quite welcome to come Now how to get rid of blueamuse?

[ZhayTee]

The original song can be downloaded from my site via the following URL:

http://zhaymusic.com/music/at-menu-full.mp3

It was made in 2001 for an opensource game called Adonthell. The .ogg version is included in the distribution of that game, which you can find on their official site:

http://adonthell.linuxgames.com/

While Adonthell is a GPL'd project, and while my music is used in that game (via my explicit granting of permission), I still retain copyright and licensing rights to the music.

I love helping out opensource projects by providing original music, but I do request that I be contacted before my music is used. Perhaps I should make this more clear on my site!

Thanks for your reply,

--JT
http://zhaymusic.com/

[divVerent]

While Adonthell is a GPL'd project, and while my music is used in that game (via my explicit granting of permission), I still retain copyright and licensing rights to the music.

In that case, you should REALLY notify everyone who is distributing adonthell. They all seem to believe the WHOLE game is under the GPL, including your music. With Nexuiz, this is the case BTW.

If that is the case, the package adonthell-data in Debian must be removed from main and get moved to non-free, or the music should be removed from the package and put in an extra package adonthell-music, as the license of your music seems to be different from the one of the game. The same would go for the adonthell data in any other Linux distribution.

Do the licensing terms of the game package indicate that? I do not have the game here and my line is quite slow, so I did not check. Just trying to find out whose fault these unclear terms are.

I just extracted adonthell and wasteedge and don't find your music in there... where is it?

[Blµb]

So.... no flying over the tower on the RBI server anymore?
You remove my toys lol

[torus]

Your music is really good!

Too bad that MikeeUSA got his grubby hands on it though.

[divVerent]

Okay, the file is actually not at-menu.ogg, but at-demo-2.ogg.

That file IS being released by the adonthell people under the terms of the GPL - the archive wastesedge-src-0.3.4.tar.gz on the adonthell website contains no note about the music tracks being licensed under another license.

If you did not grant the adonthell people the rights on the music under the GPL, they are not allowed to release it that way. They have to clearly indicate which parts are covered by the GPL and which aren't. Currently there is no such indication - the source archive just contains the GPL in the COPYING file and states in the README that the game (which means the whole game, of course, as there is nothing saying only part of it is covered) is released under the terms of the GPL.

So legally, the only ones violating your copyright seem to be the adonthell people who released the files that way - one can't blame MikeeUSA for believing what he read in the adonthell licensing terms.

HOWEVER: just taking the music without asking is rude, no matter if it is allowed or not. And IF you allowed the adonthell people to release your music under the GPL, this probably is the last time that you licensed music under that license. See what such rude people are causing.

Now... I do not know if that music has a so-called "source"... but if it has, the GPL requires anyone who distribute it to provide the source on request. For music, "source" seems to refer to either the score or the tracker input file. If it's improvisation, there is no such thing, of course - the recorded file then "is" the source and there is no problem. I am not sure if you or the adonthell people are aware of the consequence of putting music under the GPL... it basically means:

• Anyone can use the music for his own GPL project!
• Anyone has the right to receive the source (score, tracker files) of the music!
• Anyone even has the right to EDIT that source and rebuild ("re-record") it, as long as the result is still put under the GPL!

For music, you may be better off with one of the creative commons licenses - but then the music is licensed differently from the rest of the game and thus can't be provided in the same package.

[tChr]

At the risk of repeating myself:

Music and general content cannot use the GPL directly, and these are exactly the issues that comes up. But if the music is to be distributed in a GPL.like fashion, there cannot be a "source" for it, as the entire phrasing of the GPL is ment to be applied to machine code and its uncomiled source. One can arguably say that an uncompressed file is the source for a compressed audio file, but that is pushing it. In the sense of content being published GPLish, one must simply assume that the data itself is the content in question.

However. I hope you, ZhayTee, manages to solve any issues about this and I'm quite sure the Nexuiz community will be helpful and accommodate any such requests.

Please note that noone considers MikeUSA a part of this community. He is the only person ever that has managed to be blocked from the Alientrap forums, and he has managed to be banned several times, due to his rude behavior. (if I'm confusing him with someone else, please let me know asap )

Someone should write a content license in GPL fashion.

[divVerent]

GPL music: Technically it is possible, but it becomes a "too free" license that artists are unlikely to accept.

But for music and GPL code to be in one package (like in Nexuiz's case), one HAS to use such a licensing model, because otherwise distributing the full package would violate the GPL (see below). Basically this means a GPL project can't have music, unless by a VERY generous author who does grant this type of license. Now assume the OP did that - I still can understand him very well when he gets upset by someone actually USING these rights without asking first (which is what you - morally - just HAVE to do before using someone else's art) and never use such a license again.

For a recording, the audio track CAN be the source, unless there is a "better" thing to be called source (like the score or a tracker file). The GPL then applies quite nicely... but it just provides TOO MANY rights.

Now... why can't a GPL game have non-GPL music? Simply: it loads and plays the music, and the music is part of the game experience. Thus, it "links against" the music (dynamically) and it may only do that if the music is ALSO under the GPL. A possible way out would be separating music and game into two packages, the music package being under a different license, but the game would have to run without it too - and then without music, but everything else would work. And quite some game projects actually do such a separation between music and rest or between data and code.

A content license for music BTW would not help with this - it would not be GPL compatible and therefore STILL need separate distribution of the two parts. In that case, one should better use the already existing licenses that work well for music, like the Creative Commons ones.

And yes, that rude "death to women's rights" guy IS mikeeusa and he did get banned from our forum quite often (with different ban evading nicknames)... and this request is actually a good reason to remove his map from my server even though people complained when I did so (personally I can't stand that map, I do not know why so many players want it). Also note that dastower40 is NOT part of Nexuiz, it is a map made by someone else and only automatically downloaded if a server hosts the map. It is NOT contained in the Nexuiz package!

[ZhayTee]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the input. I'll see if I can get this straightened out!

--JT
http://zhaymusic.com/