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[cleerline]

Hi,

I have used some tracks from this site in a video game that I shortly intend to market commercially.

In my previous search of these forums (a year or so ago) on licences it seemed to be clear that all these works are in the public domain.

However, when i came back to the site I found that this seems to have changed to "Free for private use. All other use contact the copyright holder"

OK, firstly, are these files in the public domain or not?

If not, how do I contact the authors to ask thier permission to use thier tracks? When I search for a track by filename I get to a page that does not seem to list who made the track (or even who uploaded it)!!!!

Please help. I'm willing to pay (a small amount) for these tracks but want to resolve this issue soon.

Thanks for any help.

Cleerline

[Saga Musix]

You are definitely not allowed to just use the modules here in commercial projects, except if stated otherwise in the module's sample text / comments page. If you give use some clues who made the module and which file it is, we can try to find valid e-mail addresses or other contact information so you can get in touch with the original composers.
Welcome to the forums, btw.

[Novus]

You'd better not be using any of MY songs... not without permission. It says quite clearly in the built-in texts in my songs that I own the copyright and that I reserve all rights. Please check through the songs you grabbed and make sure none of them were by Novus. If any of them are, remove them from your game. Now.

You're making a big mistake by assuming that you DO have permission to use the songs from this site. Your default assumption should always be that you DON'T have permission, until you can find otherwise. If the song text says it's okay to use the song, then go ahead. If it says don't use it, don't use it. And if it doesn't say either way, assume that means "don't use it" until you can contact the author of the song.

If you just go willy-nilly grabbing songs from off of this site (or ANY site, for that matter) without permission for a commercial use, you are BEGGING for a lawsuit.

[m0d]

In my previous search of these forums (a year or so ago) on licences it seemed to be clear that all these works are in the public domain.

Utterly false statement.

Some are PD. Indeed. But this does not allow you to use PD in commercial products. It's NOT allowed. Just because it's in the public domain does not mean the copyright has gone. You are allowed to redistribute PD as long as you do not make money in the process, only cover costs of materials to do so. i.e in the yersteryears, the costs of floppy disks in public domain mail order libraries.

Uploads by registered artists on this site are under license agreement, licensing distribution rights to this site alone.


Have a look at http://www.indiegamemusic.com/

[Relabs]

But this does not allow you to use PD in commercial products. It's NOT allowed. Just because it's in the public domain does not mean the copyright has gone.

I could quote you with "Utterly false statement". In all contexts I can remember except your definition, "public domain" means that the copyright has been given up. Some quotes:

"The public domain is a range of abstract materials – commonly referred to as intellectual property – which are not owned or controlled by anyone."
Source: Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain)

"Dedicator recognizes that, once placed in the public domain, the Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived."
Source: Creative commons(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/)

[m0d]

Oh well. At least you went and did some research. I stand corrected.

[cleerline]

Thanks for all the messages guys.

I have now stripped out all the music I got from this site. So no need to worry Novus!

This does seem like a nice site but I really do think the search system should be sorted out.

Go try searching for a music file, say Iamback.mod (which was one of my favourites). you will find that although the you can get to the file, there is NO WAY to find out who wrote it (let alone contact them)!!! This needs sorting out, as I presume you guys actually want your music to be used and heard.

I would have been willing to pay a license fee for the music, but it was just too difficult to track down who wrote what.

Anyway, thanks for the help and thanks to the guy who gave me the link to the indiegamer music site.

Keep up the good work, the music on this site really is good.

Cleerline

[Saga Musix]

Go try searching for a music file, say Iamback.mod (which was one of my favourites). you will find that although the you can get to the file, there is NO WAY to find out who wrote it (let alone contact them)!!! This needs sorting out, as I presume you guys actually want your music to be used and heard.

there is no way to do this. musicians who have signed up for a TMA profile can be associated to modules (and also those who have modules at ModLand, but that's another story), but for the big rest, there is simply no other way then reading the internal module comments or asking around... sorry, but modules ain't CDs or mp3 files.