pouët.net

A few years back, ripping was the original sin for all sceners, and anyone guilty of this stood to be ridiculed and pretty much chased out of the scene.

Now it seems like some of the most popular (PC) demos are built around a ripped commercial soundtrack (and even graphics and video footage, as seen in State of Mind). This seems to be growing more common and, in some people's eyes, is perfectly acceptable.

If all that matters is the end result, then realtime coding and pixel art could also be cast aside, leaving the future of demos in the hands of 3d artists, digital cameras and scanners, and commercial bands.

Where should we draw the line?

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wtf? dont whine.. I mean, after all everyone can do what he thinks is good. And if someone wants to build a Demo around a "ripped" tune, then its ok. Demos with ripped music are only .. say 5% in the Demo scene. Maybe even less... I dont think Demoscene dies now, only because some ppl decide to take commerical music... ~_°?

YES. MAKE ALL-RIPPED DEMOS! STEAL, STEAL, STEAL!

*yawns*

<thesis>
More than 30% of all demos contain copyrighted material or contain material based on copyrighted material.
</thesis>

Finally wade says something that i can totally agree with:)

Fuck everyone who thinks ripping music is "ok" or "acceptable"...

wade: have you ever tried to ask a musician for a demotune and got anything as decent as a well-picked commercial tune?

chances are odd that you do, since it's all a matter of time. and that aside, nothing is more irritating than waiting for a tune to be finished.

haven't you ever heard a tune that made you think "a song so catchy.." (source: american psycho)?
and are coders/artists not allowed to actually do something creative with the tune?

and as for video footage.. there's lots of footage available and it's the way you interpret and visualize it that creates a certain perception of the work among people. and besides, cameras are expensive, video-editing takes a long time, and not everybody can do halfway decent taping.

oh well..
just to show that all these 'anti-ripping' arguments are both worthless and irrelevant in today's situation

Either side in this argument is getting really, really stale.

Plek, you're perfectly right about the Patrick Bateman thingy: at best it can be called a homage to the original. But the exceptionally weak argument of a well-picked commercial tune is getting older than glenz vectors. Let's not forget that some people consider Las Ketchup a sophisticated commerical catchy tune. (I shiver at the thought).

And besides, there's very little demoscene coders can put up to a well thought-out game/vj/sfx engine in the eyes of some... Does that entitle me to use a professional visual engine instead of pitching in with fellowminded people? I sure hope not :)

Both sides: shut the fuck up. Let's just all do what we like and make up the rules as we go along.

tpb-05: las ketchup

dont tempt me shifter :)

we'd draw the line when certain things become too obvious.

i mean, nothing is really original these days, but when it comes to real rips (like ripped graphics and/or a ripped soundtrack) i certainly have a problem with that. leaving credits where they're due is ok for me, but there's also people that just take what they find without even leaving a notice about where they took the borrowed part of their production from.

</beeing pissed because some of my tunage got used in some productions without getting any credits in return>

I'm just waiting for the day when some big record company suddenly notices a future demoscene with full of ripped soundtrack demos and sues everybody for everything.

Anyways here's just one question for you who think ripping is ok: How about if someone ripped your work not asking for a permissing and not telling about it to yourself. Perhaps even winning some money with it. And even if you think it'd be ok don't assume everyone else feels the same.

hey, come on guys, it's a pointless discussion. it's a war that can't be won. i think demos do not necessarily have to be completeley original, for the artwork it is okay to use some bits and bobs you like, just like a quote. i agree that ripping an entire sound track is not quite original, but anyway, everybody will act in the demo scene as he likes. some years ago, i thought that demo-soundtracks *must* be made with a tracker program, and it would be impossible to use midi file playback in a demo. but cubic team and kb^farbrausch have shown me that even that is possible in a quite nice and sensible way in a demo. who can tell what comes next ? the scene changes. it is not anymore about pixeling versions of boris vallejo and luis royo fantasy artwork or do some heav-metal "chrome and fire"-style logos only. the scene is growing bigger and evolving, we should not cry so much about it, but rather be adequate examples in what we think what is the right way to do productions. (okay, says me, who hasn't released something for about two years...) i have no idea were to draw the line, it is simply impossible to do decide that.

btw, there are some things on pouet.net that piss me off even more, like posting demo-versions of commercial games, flash animations and linking directly to html-based diskmags. oh yes, and people fighting their own personal conflics on the page, and stupid arguments just if someone is a fucking faggot or not, or does rule rather than suck, and porn pics in the discussion threads etc. pp.

look guys, you start bashing those poor music rippaz.
why?
Look. people create demos using ripped soundtrack, scanned pictures, and lousy www tutorial sources.
well, rippin' sucks. that's true. it's better to create something original.
but hey, if the result is decent, and not only because of the ripped parts, but because the feeling the whole mix creates, that should be okay.
Not the way of the future, but an okayish way.

Ripping is still the original sin. Demoscene just quitted those old traditions calles flamewars, and demogroups don't kick out anyone anymore. So rippers have an easier life.

ripping music (or anything) is gay, unfair and basically means you're too lazy to find a musician who can get you a cool tune *or* that you don't think the current musicians are good enough. in either case you're ignorant, stupid, or possibly both.

If ripping really becomes a habit for demomakers, demos lose their value for me.

Plek: Personally speaking, I have found musicians to be the most reliable of all sceners. In fact, most times I've asked for a tune, I've received it, plus a couple of alternatives. Also, I know for a fact that there are hundreds of unreleased tracks just sitting on sceners' hard disks doing nothing.

I think the problem here is that too many people underestimate the importance of music in a demo.

When you rip a track you also rip the atmosphere, theme and sometimes even a plot for your demo. Really, sceners should be creating these things for themselves, especially if they're adding their group name, or (as Melwyn pointed out) making money from competitions.

I'm still not convinced about what people actually mean when they say "ripping". (Help a newbie out here :) )

I got interested in the scene for two reasons - cos I love coding, more particularly, this kind of coding. Secondly, I loved the idea of an artistic medium without constraints.

The first point isn't causing me headaches. (Well, OK, coding-headaches, not ethical headaches!) The second point, I'm having trouble with, because it seems like the scene has *all sorts* of rules and structure, where it seems only one would do ("do it realtime").

Start with music. I come from a long history of making technology-based music, and the first keyboard I had was a sampler. It had no tone generation. Everything I did had to be made out of 100% samples. I never lifted hooks, but I needed to get tones *somewhere*. Same with beats: I had no sequencer, but I had to do some very creative chopping up and resampling to get by. Then I got some proper gear, but its not like I stopped using the sampler, lets face it, most of the music I listened to was more obviously sampled than mine was.

I wouldn't *dare* do that in the scene. I see people slating a superb piece of music cos it has lifted a saw pad from X by Mr. Y. Now I'm as shocked and disgusted as the next man when I see people releasing Unreal II on MP3.com, or I hear a track that blatantly rips off another person's work, but this is going waaaay too silly surely?

The other thing is this using commercial tracks in demos. I tried to make the case recently that that isn't ripping as such as long as the artist is credited. KB_ rightly corrected me that it still sucks because there was no permission granted, and I can see that *distributing* someone else's work without permission or crediting them is wrong. (Points to the demomakers for wrapping it in a data file at least!) But people are thumbing down the prod with comments like "I liked this a lot, it was all good, but they ripped the soundtrack, so thumbs down". Excuse me? I can see the "doping" argument, and how it gives an unfair advantage in compos, but fuck it, I'm here downloading 2-3 prods a day, and to my mind, I watch it with the sound off and its STILL A GOOD PROD! With the sound back on, it's a great one. Surely thumbing it down for that reason is just a political statement, not a review?

Should you have permission to artistically respond to another person's work? Why is Wierd Al Yankovic's work more or less acceptable than a scener who makes a demo based on how a piece of music makes them feel? Or a painter who paints their impression of a song? Or an interpretive dance troupe, who do a routine based on a song? In other artforms, this happens *all the time*. Like the post up there I agree: where do you draw the line?

If you're no longer coding your music, but playing it, and syphoning the MP3 through FMOD or whatever, is it still such an important consideration in the prod? If I decide to not use that Delerium track as a basis for this demo, and make a Delerium-esque track to replace it, isn't that a creative miss straight away? Why don't I stick to my own style?

So many questions, so little answers! :) Hey, it's your scene, I'm just trying to find my place in it, and tread on as few people's toes as I can in the meantime. But its hard to be anarchic artist in so many ways...

It's really unfair for the competition.

Party organizers should really put this in the rules of the competitions. It would make those demos disqualified. But anyway, the demo could be released out of a party or as disqualified.

Incidentally, I went out and bought "Proud like a God" today, and it's sitting in my shelf next to "Obsolete". :)

weg met de maatschappij!

Down with sociology? :)

close, 'society'

anyway, as a coder and pseudo demo-designer (dont start), i know how hard it can be to tell your musician what you want. Often it's like 'i want something like that <insert cool music group> track'

and in almost 100% of the cases, your musician doesn't deliver what you want...

so i totally understand ripping.
and so what if you use some mpg in a demo, as long as it doesn't seem like 'all of the demo was anim'

or something

anyway,

eat more oreos

i can agree with the thesis early on that many demos use some degree of copyrighted material (like part of a picture you found on the web and just mutilated beyond recognition.. samples in your songs.. textures or 3d-objects..), and i can understand that some people use stuff like this because it already says what you want to express, but when it comes to using a complete song as the soundtrack to your production, i'll never be okay with that. a song could be produced by the best producers and mixed by the best soundtechnicians and even written by the best of the best, and taking all of this "quality" and just adding it to your own stuff is a fucking sorry way of saying "we're just not good enough.. let's get people to relate to our demo through a great tune instead".. which is just plain sad.

stop ripping. it's fucking lame.

(..unless it's pictures of david has(s)elhoff, then it's perfectly acceptable)