No Cover Songs Allowed to be Shared in Guitar Hero: World Tour

[modeps]

1Up brings word (http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pager.offset=0&cId=3170171&p=), via an interview that Guitar Hero World Tour song sharing will be policed to stop anyone from uploading covers of copyrighted songs:

1UP: Let me lay out a scenario for you. I get the game, and there's this awesome music creator, and I'm going to do the guitar track for "Stairway to Heaven." I'm going to make this. You know people are going to do that. And I make it, and I think it's awesome, and I play it, and I love it, and I'm like, "Other people are going to want to play this, so I'm going to upload it!" What happens when a guy like me wants to share his "Stairway to Heaven" guitar track with everyone else? Are you guys going to wait for someone to ask you take these things down? Or are you going to actively police that kind of thing?

BB: We'll be actively monitoring the site. And, obviously, if the copyright holder complains, Activision will pull it down immediately. We can't condone people putting up covers of music. It's really there for original content.

1UP: So you'll have to play copyright Whac-a-Mole? That's something you're expecting?

BB: Essentially, yeah.

1UP: What if there are things no one complains about? Would you look the other way?

AG: If there's a licensed song and someone holds the copyright to it, we'll take it down regardless of whether or not someone complains.

It's really no surprise that they're going to do this... but if they want it to be used for original content only, I think the main user base for this aspect of GH:WT just got sliced.

[Blade]

Good lord.

[Ink Asylum]

I knew this would happen. Is anyone really surprised?

[Kamalot]

This sounds like a legal nightmare.

[Blade]

I'm not too disappointed, as long as they don't police your own HDD.

[lockwoodx]

I'm not too disappointed, as long as they don't police your own HDD.

Does the game have to be connected to the internet in order to play?

[TheFlyingOrc]

This sounds like a legal nightmare.

Agreeing with this - how do you possibly police for this? If I record my version of an acoustic song by a major artist, is that OK? Are they constantly going to reject stuff that seems too professional - it's not like they have experts on staff who can tell every song ever by sound.

Video game music should also be technically out of the loop, so should movie themes - how can they possibly keep track? I think this feature was a bad idea from the start.

Also, painstakingly adding notes to the fretboard while trying to match it up to the song's beat should be painful - but even moreso trying to get the fretboard perfectly synced up with the song's tempo.

[TheFlyingOrc]

I'm not too disappointed, as long as they don't police your own HDD.

Each song you do will take HOURS of work. How much time do you plan to spend making these things?

[Deadend]

I think, right here... is the reason why Rock Band does not have a music studio built into the game.

[ScottTFrazer]

If I record my version of an acoustic song by a major artist, is that OK?

That's technically not legal anyway. People who do that on YouTube are skirting publisher's rights, but they are generally left alone because prosecuting them would seem too harsh (and rightly so)

[Zander]

Licensing rules can be very different over seas than inside the US. I'd be interested to see how they intend to police this differently for each country.

Oh, and the idea of someone at Activision sitting there all day listening to people's compositions after release is amusing to me.

[Bingley Joe]

This was always a dumb feature anyway, and much more about the marketing tally than anything else (although I'm sure some people will manage to make good use of it), IMO.

But now that I know exactly how dumb they're going to make it, I'm going to upload a version of my hit song Hairway to Seven once a week just to drive them crazy ;)

[Vermy81]

This is a really bad idea for them. They have a lot broader liability if they do anything that amounts to active policing. The reason stuff like youtube is structured as it is and Google doesn't act till someone complains is by doing so they limit their liability considerably.

[mkelehan]

They'll only get taken down after they're downloaded a bunch of times. Then, they'll simply be reshared by someone else. This is a nightmare for them.

[Paltry]

I will download hairway to seven once a week if you do.

[TheFlyingOrc]

This was always a dumb feature anyway, and much more about the marketing tally than anything else (although I'm sure some people will manage to make good use of it), IMO.

But now that I know exactly how dumb they're going to make it, I'm going to upload a version of my hit song Hairway to Seven once a week just to drive them crazy ;)

I'll continually upload Total Eclipse of the Fart

[Flatpicker]

I expected this.
It's the same problem as we have with Tablature.

I'm still waiting for the RIAA to tell me that copying a song to my organic drive is in violation of their copyrights.

[Ink Asylum]

This is a really bad idea for them. They have a lot broader liability if they do anything that amounts to active policing. The reason stuff like youtube is structured as it is and Google doesn't act till someone complains is by doing so they limit their liability considerably.

You can bet that the developers don't want to do this, but you can almost guarantee that the music companies have their nuts in a vice.

As for how difficult it will be to police this content, I don't think it'll be that hard. From what I've seen of the music generator, it's not something the everyday consumer is going to be able to use. To use it you probably need to know how to write music, especially for guitar. The amount of custom songs submitted daily will be more than manageable.

Users will get sneaky, with song titles that differ from the song being covered, but I expect the hammer to come down hard. There's no free speech or fair use argument to be made by gamers, either. This is their service, and they can ban a song for any reason.

What is more likely to happen is an underground market for songs. If it's possible to move the files to a PC they'll be traded over web sites.

[TheFlyingOrc]

You can bet that the developers don't want to do this, but you can almost guarantee that the music companies have their nuts in a vice.

As for how difficult it will be to police this content, I don't think it'll be that hard. From what I've seen of the music generator, it's not something the everyday consumer is going to be able to use. To use it you probably need to know how to write music, especially for guitar. The amount of custom songs submitted daily will be more than manageable.


You think people are only going to submit songs they did a good job on?

The song creator, as a feature, is a mistake. The level of disappointment the average consumer will get from it will frustrate them with the whole experience, making them more likely to not buy the next Guitar Hero game because of negative associations, whether or not it actually weakens the core product.

[biosc1]

Oh, and the idea of someone at Activision sitting there all day listening to people's compositions after release is amusing to me.

Can't they just use a program like Shazaam on the iPhone, that listens and figures out what song it is? There is another app that can recognize songs by listening to you hum them.

I wonder if a lot of it will be software based heuristics as opposed to "some person".

[Wolvie]

I guess I won't be uploading any of the two songs I create with this feature then. :D

[BlueBomber]

I can't imagine that there will be too many songs submitted each day, so would it be too overwhelming to go through an approval process - sort of like how Apple does with the app store?

[BalekFekete]

You think people are only going to submit songs they did a good job on?

The song creator, as a feature, is a mistake. The level of disappointment the average consumer will get from it will frustrate them with the whole experience, making them more likely to not buy the next Guitar Hero game because of negative associations, whether or not it actually weakens the core product.

This is why, while I'm increadibly excited for the title and will buy on day 1, Little Big Planet has some vunerability. User created content, generally, sucks. I'm hoping with LBP, the rating system online proves to weed out the crap, and a filter will be able to e.g. sift out anything that doesn't have say 250 'approval' votes. Time will tell.

As for the user created music - from one who can't read music, let alone create it, I'm sure I'm not alone there. But it won't stop the countless Timmies from trying.

[captainspankypants]

The create-a-song feature is a good idea, but sharing them online sounds like a pipe dream thanks to the legal issues, and this story illustrates why. Offline-only would have been a much better way to go, even if some people would complain. I expect a lot of public-domain songs to be uploaded (Row Row Row Your Boat, Hot Cross Buns, Yankee Doodle, etc.).

[Sl1pstream]

As for the user created music - from one who can't read music, let alone create it, I'm sure I'm not alone there. But it won't stop the countless Timmies from trying.

As someone who can't read or create music, this is actually one of the features that sold me on the game. I'm obviously not going to upload the crap I make because it won't be any good, but I've spent countless hours playing with Music Studio and other software when I was younger. The results were almost always crap, but I had fun with it.

I'm hoping this will be the same. The only problem I have with it is that I'll have to use the guitar to do so. While that's fine when you're playing the music, using the d-pad to edit stuff is a bad idea.