Legality of simfiles?

[Charlo]

Out of curiosity, I've been pondering lately the legality of stepping songs for Stepmania. Obviously, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not concrete on all the details. Also obviously, I'm not going to stop stepping until some unfortunate stepartist gets smashed by the hammer of the RIAA. I guess the main question is: do simfiles fall under the fair use doctrine when it comes to using copyrighted music files?

I think the main thing to consider is whether providing simfiles for download reduces the market for the legitimate songs provided by the label/artist. Does anybody download simfiles just for the music files themselves? Do simfiles actually reduce the amount of people who are going to pay for a song or album? I would say that they don't, but that won't stop labels from throwing a "scare" lawsuit at you, so that you settle out of court to avoid the legal fees even though your behavior was not illegal.

Clearly, nobody makes simfiles in malice, trying to steal the money of the copyright holder. If we wanted to do that we would just create an mp3 download site (and probably get taken down in days).

Also, does a simfile count as separate "work", and if so, what percentage of it is the original content (the song itself)? It is, for example, allowable to have an excerpt of a book included in a published (for-profit) book review. Would the actual song file be considered just an "excerpt" of the larger work of the simfile, with the main content being the .sm file and the steps therein?

Does it make a difference if the site they're hosted on is making money (or attempting to make money) off ads or somesuch? Bemanistyle fits this mold, but they seemingly don't care about hosting so many potentially-illegal files. Or maybe they do care, and their recent crash was just a devious ploy to sail back into legal waters. FFR itself had a simfile database for a while, and then apparently feared the legal ramifications of it and wiped it out. But they still let us post links to dubiously-legal content on this forum, and in fact, encourage it.

I'm not aware of any large-scale simfile DBs that are ad-free, and thus kinda operating as a non-profit. I would think that they would be safer than a site which has ads or, even worse, charges for simfiles of copyrighted music. Most of us just upload to mediafire since they only police uploaded files when notified by the copyright holder.

(Fun fact: I had a file for a song called "The Dying Ember" on Mediafire, but it got deleted for copyright infringement. The "copyright holder"? It wasn't Requiem, the Finnish power metal band who recorded the song. It wasn't Sound Riot records, the label who released the album it was on. No. It was a porn site called "Ember's Desires" or something like that. Nobody even checked the content of the file. The porn site just did a search on an aggregator site for "Ember" and tried to get every file in the search results taken down.)

If we happened to have any lawyers, law students, or amateur copyright law enthusiasts, I would love to hear your input! Everybody else is welcome to chime in too.

[dragonmegaXX]

We got rid of the simfile database for a reason

[xferrarix]

Well here's my take on this

The authors themselves (a majority of them that people step for, ie OSTER Project, sometimes even Dream Theater) probably like the entire idea that their music is spread throughout the internet in a way that's... Well almost illegal. Most musicians make music for other people to listen to it.

The simfile database, like dragonmega already said, was removed because of the copyright infringement. However, I can understand that that was a legal issue because of the big artists being stepped. For example, I remember Linkin Park files were popular back then.

Long story short I think that if you're stepping a file for Stepmania you're only helping the music industry grow whether it's a popular artist or not. It's not like you're giving way an entire album when you step one song. Plus, you can't blame Stepmania for things that other things do better.

There's a lot of sites out there that provide these kind of things, but Stepmania isn't a direct form of giving free mp3s. It's in hopes that whoever is downloading the file/pack that they want to play the file, not extract the mp3 and delete the contents. In my opinion it's the same way things like Limewire get away with these things; it's a file-sharing service of things you made. However, we all know that's not what gets uploaded a majority of the time.

Stepmania is, in fact, the same type of deal imo. When you download something for it it's expected you're doing it for the file, not the song.

[Charlo]

Originally Posted by xferrarix

Well here's my take on this

The authors themselves (a majority of them that people step for, ie OSTER Project, sometimes even Dream Theater) probably like the entire idea that their music is spread throughout the internet in a way that's... Well almost illegal. Most musicians make music for other people to listen to it.

That's the feeling I get too. I think artists don't generally mind their music being included in rhythm games since it is more likely to introduce new fans to their music rather than cut into music sales.

I once found a video on Youtube of somebody playing one of my files, and in the comments was the guitarist of the band saying something along the lines of "OMG this is awesome!"

[ddrxero64]

I believe the stance on the legality of this is the same as r21freak's. I believe when someone downloads a file they accept the fact that they have a 24 hour trial period of having the mp3 file on their computer, afterwards they must delete it. Of course no one ever does, but I believe it's legal to upload it and download it, and illegal to keep it in some weird way. You could find out more from them. And I agree with the music promotion thing, simfiles only help expose the music to more listeners.

[kommisar]

it only matters according to your country's laws and it's a free to play game so as long as money isn't being made, nobody should really be upset about it hehu

[FFR4EVA_00]

you're basically asking if everyone who has ever worked with simfiles on this board outside of ffr files should be banned
i disagree

[icontrolyourworld]

remember that time on smo where they wanted simfile authors to make money for their files o:

[who_cares973]

I want to make money from my files

[leonid]

I think a simfile can be sold if it only contains stepcharts, graphics (either made by yourself or cropped from pictures with licenses that allow you to sell them) and a README file indicating how to get the mp3 file and how to cut it.

Example: $0.99 to download the simfile for "This Dying Soul": After downloading this simfile, get the second track of Train of Thought by Dream Theater (you can purchase it via iTunes Store.) Rename the mp3 file to "this_dying_soul.mp3" and cut it from 1:23.45 to 3:45.67 by either running the included script file or using your favorite sound editing tool.

I'm not sure whether this is actually legal. I hardly know anything about law stuff

[Izzy]

I have a feeling you wouldn't be able to sell a text file and a few jpg's for money on itunes.

[xferrarix]

Well to be honest I think profitting off a single simfile is somewhat retarded

I think the best option if you wanted to "profit" off Stepmania files/packs is to charge maybe 2 dollars for a pack. Then that money is split evenly by every download to every simfile artist who has a file in the pack (the split they get depends on how many files they stepped for it)

I mean the profit wouldn't be too huge, but how much do you expect to make from something like Stepmania? I love the game, but it's not like the game holds a community like WoW or LoL

[danny53x]

Charging packs $2 a pop for a non-profit cause solely for maintaining server upkeep, songs only stepped if they have CC. Enthusiasts would spread the idea and it would grow, there'd be YouTube and SoundCloud coverage on emerging artists that they had their songs in one of these packs. People would PAY to have their song promoted on this rhythm game. Ideal dreams...

[leonid]

@Izzy,Ferrari Well I was talking about one possibility to monetize stepcharts without getting sued, rather than how well it's actually going to work

[UserNameGoesHere]

I am not a lawyer, but my thoughts are as follows.

As long as you provide only materials for which you have appropriate legal permissions to distribute, I'd think it's perfectly legal. If not, probably not.

So, if you made the song, the graphics, and the stepchart? You could distribute them all.
If you made the stepchart and graphics and had written permission from the song artist? You could distribute them all.
If you made the stepchart and graphics, didn't have permission for the song, but didn't include the song nor provide links to questionable downloads? (Linking to the artist's home page is okay/etc...) I think that'd be fine.

Basically just don't include anything for which you don't have legal permission to include. Also don't provide links (even in READMEs) to any but legal means for attaining any other files needed.

I think that should cover your bases.

[jimerax]

Yeah we removed simfile database due to both capacity occupation and risks from illegality (and it's impossible for us to check all files too).

Currently only limited people see this forum and download the simfiles, and luckily we haven't got actual claims for linked simfiles/packs on the forum from music authors (and maybe graphic artists), as far as I know. Letting users post illegal contents on the forum might be illegal too, but currently we're not checking/deleting the links/threads very strictly in the simulator files forum.

It's one of our underlying issues.

[bmah]

Originally Posted by jimerax

Currently only limited people see this forum and download the simfiles

Wow, so it really still exists then, huh? I've wanted this sort of confirmation for a long time. That being said, Choofers really wanted a file from the simfile database, but no one really had an answer to whether it existed until now. Could he get his file retrieved? See here.

[who_cares973]

turn the simulator forum into a member only forum and bam

[ddrxero64]

Originally Posted by icontrolyourworld

remember that time on smo where they wanted simfile authors to make money for their files o:

Originally Posted by leonid

I think a simfile can be sold if it only contains stepcharts, graphics (either made by yourself or cropped from pictures with licenses that allow you to sell them) and a README file indicating how to get the mp3 file and how to cut it.

Exactly. Or more precisely, we have the person send us a link to the mp3 they want to use (whether they uploaded it or not). If even that's questionable (which I kinda doubt), they could just send us the name of the song, and we'd have to find a download link that matches the exact original copy, aka the 320 kbps version of the mp3. Then send the person back everything but the mp3, with an instruction telling them to put the mp3 in the song folder (assuming it's a stepping service, and not just simfiles for sale).

leave it to one man to take down the entire system though. it never worked out, no one wanted to put themselves out there, i guess they thought it'd make them look like a sell out. then someone disagreed with the idea, decided to do their own thing, but didnt actually commit to it. so it ruined both sides (kinda sounds like stuff SMO.com went through)

it was disappointing really, one guy wanted to donate the money he made to disaster relief

[UserNameGoesHere]

Originally Posted by who_cares973

turn the simulator forum into a member only forum and bam

That's not really a good idea because if it can be shown that potentially questionable activity is intentionally hidden specifically because it may be questionable? That would look very very bad. Plus it's easy enough to become a member so members-only is not deterring anybody.

Probably better to just deal with issues as they arise, have posters be responsible for their own stuff, and fully cooperate with authorities if it ever comes to that.