pouët.net

In that case, why not *ask* them for permission, rather than assuming you're doing them a favour? Most of the independent musicians I know, if you were to ask them if you could use their music in a demo, the response would be "oh my god yes. Can I have your babies?" And that way, as well as legally doing the right thing and getting karma points, you get to expand your social circle and possibly get a bit of exposure for yourself, if that floats your boat.

gasman: ever tried getting samples cleared or permission from a commercial label?

there are plenty of reasons why you wouldnt want to go there.
a) you need to contact them several times, through different channels until someone finally gets back to you. and most of the times they'll simply say no or throw you around in circles until you give up. most people dont have time or patience for this.
b) you risk not only not getting permission but being offered a letter claiming if your work ever leaks to public you're automatically sued and found guilty for prior admitance to the "crime".
c) some of the people you want to reach are unreachable.
d) some of the labels that own the rights to some of the people you want to reach are not interested "at this time" in promoting the people you want to reach.

which was the very reason why creative commons licenses have been getting so popular. it offers a way to solve this issue directly. if it has a stamp saying you can do what you want to do, you don't need to hussle and cry your way through the system to get your clearance. but ofcourse music licensed by cc is only a fraction of what actually is available out there. and most of what is out there interesting to be sampled is usually vintage material, predating CC invention. should that stop you from doing your art? hell no. it does however aparently stop most people from being able to release it commercially and make a living out of what they love doing, sadly enough. Danger Mouse is a good example of what you can do to subvert that comercial horseshit limitation on art.

and, yes, in my head, demoscene should defnitly _not_ be in any way morally or ethically or whateverly limited to exploring that creative space. atleast that's my vision. some times compromises must be made (like for being able to host large parties in MAFIAA controlled countries) but i beg to disagree this should be an inner socially accepted limitation on what we can produce as a scene.

fuck limitations, let's demo.

let's sue everyone who used default autodesk models!

I agree with ps

I would like to add to what ps said that things are even worse when you want to release your work internationally. Ever noticed how certain Youtube videos/clips/music is only available in some countries? Well, some work may only be copyrighted in some countries, but that also means that something which is legal in one country may suddenly be illegal in another country because it infringes some other copyright in that country. This happens to several TV shows occasionally, especially things like title musics.

it's a shame that this thread doesn't mention the fact that the demo contains the best particle engine ever seen in a demo (with the exception of blunderbuss and the greets bit in frameranger which have the same one). Everyone's going on about the fucking music. Turn the sound off and just watch the dots if you don't like it. Put your favorite album on while you do it.. oh wait, that's plagiarism. The moving dots are the highlight. The soundtrack is a nice accompaniment, whoever wrote it.

If you're going to have a go at smash, tell him he has to do something different next time. I say we work him until he's dead.

don't forget our brave attempts to derail the thread with comparisons between maali's photoshops and mid 90s pixelart!

i mean, seriously, do we only get noticed if we post carebears pics?!

I think the worst part of this controversy is that its going to put doubts in my mind everytime I hear demoscene music from this point on. Taking samples and influences is one thing, but when the final is so close to the original (such as in this case, or for any remix track), then we really need to see credits where they are due.

All said though, it is a fantastic bit of remixing and smash has sync'd it to the demo superbly. Its just a shame that Varia didnt come clean earlier, and that 1in10 is being such a dick about it even now.

ps: out of cuiousity, what do you think about labels like Cut & Run or Crisp Biscuit, i.e. labels basically built on the concept of unauthorized anonymous remixes?

gargaj: dont know them. but i can say this about the concept: our economy driven society will never legally accept them. but they do bring cultural value to the music scene. and they are only doing what it's in our nature as artists: to take from our surroundings and make something new, cool or interesting. its the very basis of real djing actually: digging for records to find cool tracks and loops that you can reuse on a set. these labels are just publishing these tracks that would never legally make it out. it still takes work to run a label and promote the releases, so i can understand why they aren't doing it for free, which is where the problem resides: we are always shackled by economic motives. its the system thats so caught up on having to monetizing everything to have people feed their children that it screws with everyones creative freedom if it helps them get some bucks. in return people screw with the system to get their time invested on their passion back. in reality the end listeners and other fellow artists can very easily tell apart whos doing completly original material and who isnt, we dont need any "associations" to cash in while claiming to be doing it for us. if a track samples and gets famous enough, someone eventually will notice the inspiration and/or sampling and shout it out. some with more cred to properly identifying it then others. but honestly, in the end, why the hell do we (the listeners) care? dont we just want to listen to some cool / interesting sounds? knowing and cataloguing who did what should be ethnomusicologists work, not for common users or any label interest representatives to control. plus i think it should all be transparent so anyone could see what has been recognized in whos work. and some folks will find the discovery of such information as proof of lameness and lack of talent, others will disregard it as uninteresting curiosity, and some will find it awesome.

sorry, im ranting for a promised non capitalist society again. technology can already make it happen,its just the lust for power and influence in our species that refuses to let it happen. wish i could change that. anyway, i'll shutup now.

ps: word to that.

also: this is still the demoscene, right? anything goes, all strictly non-commercial, non-profit . do not forget about your roots.

i agree with a lot of the things said here..(tried to ignore all the offtopic stuff from truck and maali etc..).. stealing ain't so bad, it can be a really good thing within the arts and crafts scene. but give credit when credit is due - which in this case is a no brainer.

and to the person who thought it was a shame this thread forgot about the actual demo and only focused on the soundtrack.. read the topic again.

ps wins



echos from the past should be heard!!!!

"Hyperventilation" is the best demo ever made. (imo) Now go argue about THAT soundtrack.

hotdog: but that was a decent remix, and not just copy/paste of the whole song + some beats. and they had abba references too :)

@teo_exd funny how it's mostly guys making stuff with preset sounds dissing the music..

It actually was exactly that, but rather well done :)

I'm just going to comment from a party organizers perspective to clarify why certain rules exist. For a compo the organizers will "publicly perform" the works submitted to the compos (digital TV, webcast, party place, etc) and they will "distribute" those works. These are exactly rights reserved by national and international copyrights acts to the holders of the copyright.

Setting aside all exceptions like fair use (parodies etc), unwilling infringement etc, Creative Commons or lapsed copyright (e.g. Mozart's scores), as a compo organizer we need to 100% sure that what ever we "publicly perform" and "distribute" is legit. Otherwise we will be the ones potentially sued as we did those infringing acts and as we charge you guys for tickets we commercially benefited from doing so. The higher profile of the party, the bigger chance is that somebody will take notice.

In short: if we show your demo with infringing music on the national TV, then we pay the price, if somebody decides to get nasty.

So, please do take care when doing your demo and submitting it to a compo. If you want to remix or use materials without permission to advance the art, go right ahead but please release it outside of a party.

P.S. Agenda Circling Forth is an amazing milestone in demomaking with or without the soundtrack.

This idea behind this discussion wasn't about all this "sampling is art" yadda-yadda (which it truely can be) and it went so far offtopic from the very point of the demo-competiton aspect...

If this demo wasn't competiting in a competiton merely about showing off every artists *own* skills there wasn't much to say about it.

Two different things.

pants down

rpfr: that's probably the most crucial point now. i know many do not agree but, for me, the value added by the visuals and the music in Agenda was equally split. without the track, it would not have had half the impact for me - it was the combination that creates the magic in this prod.

it won the compo and i'm glad it did because even with a less, erm "powerful" 100% original scene song accompanying it, I still think it would've done enough to win over Rove (which i also liked a lot, btw).

but for future parties it is an important consideration (particularly if Agenda is going to set a new trend - which wouldn't surprise me) because music does have the potential to turn even the most mediocre prod into something special. so is it fair that musicians composing original scores must compete against those who (however skillfully) remix commercial stuffs? hmmm...difficult...and where do you draw the sampling line...

I haven't really followed the discussion but I don't really care about the copyright thing (because I think it could only help the musician), but what I really mind is that the demoscene musicians which are working hard to get any kind of recognition will get it even tougher if this continues...

I really don't follow the music competitions as much as one should but in a demo I can really appreciate good demoscene music...

homeworld: all of this is completely beside the point, because - as i've tried to explain multiple times now, and as abyss did a few posts ago - the problem with such prods at parties is that it puts the party organizers in a very awkward legal position: one where it's quite possible that they'll get sued for infinity times three dollars for showing a production containing copyrighted content they didn't even know about.

fairness is a whole other debate, but that's not even the main issue here. the biggest issue for a party organizer is that one such prod is enough to shut a party down for good (and get you into serious debt if you're organizing it privately instead of running it through a company with limited liability!) if you're unlucky. if you're somewhat luckier, it's still enough to get you on a watchlist, causing serious trouble with lawyers, police and the city, as happened a few years ago with breakpoint.

if you want to make such a demo and release it privately, hosting it on your own servers, by all means go ahead. but shoving all legal liability onto a third party (like BP organizing) that doesn't even know there's a problem, that's completely unacceptable for me. especially considering how 1in10 handled the whole situation.