Protecting music you make for games?

Mouth for war · Sat 05/02/2011 16:50:32

I just had a thought (hooray first time ever)

Do you protect the music you make for games so that no dishonest person would steal your songs, or do you mostly think "Ah it's just some game music I don't really care"? I'm doing all the music for Jimmy the troublemaker 2 as well and started thinking about it. There's probably no way a radio station or whatever would play that kind of music so protecting those songs might not be necessary. Or is it only necessary if you were to release the songs as a soundtrack? What are your thoughts about that?

Igor Hardy · Sat 05/02/2011 17:30:45

Protecting the music from someone else pretending it's their work you mean?

I thought about it a bit, because we released our soundtrack as an easily available pack just like that. And I still feel strange about it. But on the other hand, what can you do?

Dualnames · Sat 05/02/2011 17:33:03

It's impossible to trace really, I mean look at WMG still not being able to erase all videos with copyrighted music from Youtube. It's pointless for many reasons really.

Mouth for war · Sat 05/02/2011 17:46:45

Quote from: Ascovel on Sat 05/02/2011 17:30:45
Protecting the music from someone else pretending it's their work you mean?

Yes exactly, I don't really care that much about the music I'm making for the game but It would be very annoying if someone else stole it and copyrighted it as their own work...the only proof I'd have would be the dates on the recorded files, when they were made etc. on the other hand the person stealing it could insist that he/she made the songs years ago but didn't record them until recently...Oh well I don't know how the law works for these things.

zabnat · Sat 05/02/2011 18:01:21

Well, how do you protect your music when you release a song in the internet? Same way everybody else. I can claim that a song by Lady Gaga is actually mine, but I need to prove it in the court. So if you are really concerned, get a record deal and release music only through a large record company. They will protect your copyright for you.

Ali · Sat 05/02/2011 18:53:37

I don't think we really need to be afraid of copyright theft. If you are not exploiting your work commercially, someone copying it is unlikely to be a big problem for you. Plus it's difficult to prove intellectual property theft (I don't think posting-it-to-yourself really works), and it's very expensive to take someone to court.

I find it hard enough to earn money through creative work. If someone else came up with a way of selling my work, I'd just want to know what the secret was!

Gabriel_Down · Sat 05/02/2011 19:21:17

It's a rather complicated issue. But I can tell you this, if you release your music (either by a label, self label, freeware, or WHATEVER as long as you can prove you have released it) it IS in fact "copyrighted" (the correct term is in french droit d'auter- the rights of the creator, not so much "money-focused" )to you the author.

The thing is to demand compensation from someone making profit from your work however it's much more complicated. You have to have the proper paperwork, prove you were losing money because of him, he had intention to steal your work etc etc and each country has it's own set of rules. If you live in the US i believe it's relatively cheap to get your music protected. But seriously I don't think it is necessary for a freeware game.

And anyways it was more fun back in the day when a musician made his living from shows and there were like 2 records released each year. Nowdays they made music a commodity instead of a service.

Mouth for war · Sat 05/02/2011 20:32:07

Yeah I'm not worried about it really. Just thought it could be an interesting thing to discuss. I remember hearing about someone here in Sweden (I think, not sure ) trying to register the name Iron maiden so that the band would need his permission to release their records...it failed miserably