FAO Squad: Someone's claiming your in-game music as their own!

[mod1982]

As I'm not entirely sure where to post this, I thought General Discussion would be best...

I have a YouTube channel. I am partnered with Creator X and have a decent fanbase. I release weekly KSP videos.

Today's KSP video went live and has a content dispute on it, specifically on its sound - the music where you enter space at 70k above the surface of Kerbin!

Last time I checked, Incompetect created the music and Squad own it, but as I wasn't sure where would be best to let everyone know about this(because I know I'm not the only Youtuber out there that records KSP!) I figured the forums were the best bet.

Oh yeah, the space music isn't space music apparently. It's "Emily Taylor-Bamboo Wind Chimes", sound recording administered by CD Baby.

Who the hell are CD Baby in relation to Kerbal? Fraudulent bots...

[Javster]

The music is royalty free, by Kevin MacLeod, so anyone can use it.

[LaydeeDem]

The music isn't Squad's either. It's free music by Kevin MacLeod.

[BubbaWilkins]

It appears that Emily Taylor used the same source as background music and then overlayed it with a track of Bamboo Wind Chimes. Tell CD Baby to get bent.

[mod1982]

Pretty much what I've told them. I'm aware of the royalty-free nature of Kevin MacLeod's Incompetech stuff, I just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention

[larsmaehlum]

I think YouTube changed something in their ContentID system recently. Lots of people are getting these now..

[bigdad84]

Should be nothing to worry about.

[SkyRender]

This isn't even anything new. Every few months, someone "claims" the rights to royalty-free music on YouTube. Lots of angry posturing goes on, and the claims get dropped when someone in the claims department actually does their research and finds out that the claim was bogus.

[canuckster]

God it sounds awful combining the two.

[Epthelyn]

I'm pretty sure you could invalidate most copyright claims just by looking here:

http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/

And yes, the majority of music in KSP is royalty-free (theme isn't, afaik) and composed by Kevin MacLeod, who seems to control the internet in terms of free music. Trying to claim copyright on anything without doing research first is stupidity. Trying to claim copyright on a very poor combination of two royalty-free tracks is just weird.

[FlamedSteak]

Yup I hear KSP music every damn where.

[Sirrobert]

Long live the youtube automatic copyright system, screwing over small time people since it's invention

[brdavis]

Trying to claim copyright on a very poor combination of two royalty-free tracks is just weird.

One of my YT videos uses a track I created myself in Apple's GarageBand, using the stock loops. I eventually found my video blocked due to copyright dispute from some guy in Europe. I listened to his stuff… sure enough, he'd slapped a few of Apple's loops together, and indeed when he did an automated search mine used some of the same sounds. Imagine that.

It was a very enjoyable email exchange. I enjoyed pointing out that if the music he was so proud of could be duplicated by some physics teacher fooling around in GarageBand… then maybe his creative skills might be slightly lacking. He went away

[UNSC]

challenge it.

[Fr3Runn3r]

Youtube recently changed something in it's content matching software and hundreds of channels are getting anomalous claims like this (sometimes from places that don't even exist anymore (read: THQ)) The best thing to do is to dispute the claim and you should have things cleared up relatively soon

[Tank Buddy]

Same thing happened to me today. Same people too. I sent an e-mail to Google complaining and providing evidence that it is in game music by Kevin Macleod. For now I just challenged it with the "royalty free" and I hope it'll be fine.

Edited December 12, 2013 by Tank Buddy

[Tex]

There was a game I played before I've heard or KSP called Creeper World, by Knucklecracker. It's an amazing game, honestly, and I still sometimes play it. The main menu music for CW is the same I've heard in space in KSP. The first time I heard the music, I'm like "Hey... that sounds familiar..."

[Liowen]

challenge it.

I would suggest this also. In fact in one of my non-KSP video I had claim brought against me for a squealing noise, but not by an artist rather by a company that does Youtube partnerships. It took a few days but the claim was finally dropped. Another avenue you could do too is if the claiming party has an email you could email them asking for clarification, and show them that KSP music is royalty free so their claim is bunk. While I do not know if that will make them drop it or not, the first way it will be dropped but it could take upwards of a month if they do no respond to the challenge.

[magico13]

I had this same thing happen to me today. To those of you who did dispute it, did you say that you "have a license or written permission from the proper rights holder to use this material." or that "The content is in the public domain or is not eligible for copyright protection." Since incompetech's license is the Creative Commons License. I want to say that the first one is the proper one, but am not totally sure. It seems like Emily Taylor, or CD Baby, or whoever, is breaching that license, specifically the "No additional restrictions  You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits." clause.

[GusTurbo]

I had this same thing happen to me today. To those of you who did dispute it, did you say that you "have a license or written permission from the proper rights holder to use this material." or that "The content is in the public domain or is not eligible for copyright protection." Since incompetech's license is the Creative Commons License. I want to say that the first one is the proper one, but am not totally sure. It seems like Emily Taylor, or CD Baby, or whoever, is breaching that license, specifically the "No additional restrictions  You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits." clause.

I would say the first one is correct, because it is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

[Liowen]

I had this same thing happen to me today. To those of you who did dispute it, did you say that you "have a license or written permission from the proper rights holder to use this material." or that "The content is in the public domain or is not eligible for copyright protection." Since incompetech's license is the Creative Commons License. I want to say that the first one is the proper one, but am not totally sure. It seems like Emily Taylor, or CD Baby, or whoever, is breaching that license, specifically the "No additional restrictions  You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits." clause.

Honestly both would be ok to use, since it is public domain and not eligible for copyright protection (royalty free after all), and I believe there is a spot in the EULA that gives permission to use all aspects of KSP to make Youtube videos (might want to double check on that to make sure). One thing I have done with my KSP videos is turn the music down so it is barely audible in the video, but on my headset it is fine. I do remember that awhile back Mojang had to redo their terms of service for Minecraft as it was getting people into trouble over how it was worded, I dunno how KSP's is officially written so I cannot say we even hold the write to honestly monetize videos without their direct consent.

In my case it wasn't an artist claiming suit against me, but rather a partnering agency saying they held a copyright to a certain sound in my video. In less than 2 weeks after disputing the claim it was dropped, but it was still annoying as the claim hit before the video even released as it was a scheduled video. Also with the coming Youtube changes to how gameplay videos are going to be handled I would strongly recommend getting as many as you can loaded up now as it could take longer to clear copyright scrubber. I personally am setting up a dailymotion channel and moving my stuff there starting Friday I think. While it would have been nice to use the money from monetization to put into the Humblebundle charity, I feel that with coming changes to Youtube small people will get hit the hardest.

Sorry for the bit of a rant, but I thought I would share.

[Eric S]

Honestly both would be ok to use, since it is public domain and not eligible for copyright protection

I disagree. Public domain is entirely different from Creative Commons licensing, especially from a legal standpoint. The first one is the proper answer.

[Deathsoul097]

Could you link your channel, Liowen? I'm just interested to see what you have.

[Liowen]

Could you link your channel, Liowen? I'm just interested to see what you have.

My early ones had some technical issues, but have been resolved... I think. I am far from a pro at but you are welcome to watch what I have posted so far, some Ksp and some of The Walking Dead from TellTale (no voice over on that since I was starting to lose what voice I had during the Minmus videos at least notable to me anyhow). Currently I have a rover mission starting to head to Duna, and I should have the next one up by Saturday... I think.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Liowen/videos

I am so forgetful on how to make clickable links this late at night also LOL.

[BarryDennen12]

I basically ignore copyright rules with music. Maybe one day it'll come back to bite me but I don't care - if a claim is valid then I wear the consequences (usually a pop-up ad, at most a blocked video) but if a claim is bogus then you go right ahead and appeal it because in spite of all of the intimidating warnings (ie. 'don't abuse the system') you'll usually be successful. You'll run into this a lot if you do gaming videos, and not just with music. I've had random gaming channels try to claim stuff that I've uploaded - it's all bunkum. Appeal with impunity, chaps.