pouët.net

most of "demoscene music" is just copying style everyone else is doing and 1in10 is one of the few people who are doing original work.

ryg: yep, appologies, i tend to stubbornly switch off when i hear about legalities/the RIAA and such because i detest most of their ridiculous laws and do not see why non-profits (such as the demoscene) should have to abide by their stifling money grubbing schemes.

yet we do and it's certainly a very serious issue for orgs. producers today definitely need to take a more responsible attitude. gone are the days when we had our own distribution network which was pretty much untouchable by big brother's piercing eyes (ie: snail mail :). it's definitely not fair to put parties and servers in jeopardy. (not that i think flt/cncd/varia intended any harm)

sad when humans cannot just enjoy the act of non-profit creation without being threatened by parasites such as the RIAA. very sad.

ps: fair enough.

nosfe: just because you're influenced by something else doesn't mean you're original (massive attack / portishead in this case)

gargaj, in case you didn't know there's plenty of other tracks made by him during the last 15 years...

are you denying that he's taking influence from anywhere? because that would be pretty gutsy.

abyss: i completly agree with the need to have those restrictions on the party rules. but i must add these 2 cents: consider asm's melon dezign demo for example. it was shown, it won, it was disqualified so you guys wouldnt get in legal trouble. in reality everyone who paid the ticket still got to see it, so you still "profited" from it being shown in the compo even if you did disqualify it. im not claiming any conspiracy or anything, just saying: you're trying to obey the rules but there are always still loop holes around it, and if someone did want to sue, well, you could claim you did everything you could by disqualifying as soon as you noticed the infringment, but they can also still fuck you over if they wanted to. just some food for thought.

to all party organizers: i feel your pain. and in that regard im quite happy that inércia is so small and "unnofficial" in the eyes of the mafiaa's that i can afford not to give a flying fuck and just let people demo whatever they want. i really wish no one would have to deal with these issues when organizing a major demoscene event.

gargaj: everyone is influenced by everything. some just are more blunt about it then others ;)

Agreed on the cataloguing part, but the hunt for the origin of samples/loops/vocals in general is a pleasing hobby of mine. I think it is one shared by many.

put it on a wiki or something :)

:P

What's worse: using synth-presets to make your own song, or take someone elses song and cut it up? At least people who use presets tends to want to create something new.

Copying a style - is that so bad? Isn't it natural that the people in the demsocene reflect he people they are outside of it, including the different musical styles and genres going on in the world? Copying someones style is one, copying the content is another. I fail to see how taking a ready-made song and re-editing it (badly) makes it more original than say a house-song made from scratch, despite it still being house.

Ps, yes, I was thinking of Melon Dezign when writing this (in fact they didn't win, but were third if memory serves me right). The immediate reason for disqualifying wasn't about protecting our back, but them breaking the compo rules. It was actually a very similar case, the coders and rest of the team had no idea what happened with the music (like Smash here).

Although you need to have a certain amount of flexibility when running a compo, if the rules are broken outright, you have no choice but to disqualify. Even after being disqualified, we invited them to the stage at the prize ceremony to let them have a bit of celebration, however bitter sweet it was.

I'm pretty sure if BP orgas would have found about the music prior to prize giving, they would have had no choice but to disqualify Agenda Circling Forth (it would be darn hard to organize a re-vote etc).

Anyway, enough about party/compo rules. I'm sure we all get the picture.

gloom: lol at your defensive mode. please get a clue.

There is alot of talented demoscene musicians, should be far enough to have soundtracks for every demo being released, instead of relying on stolen goods.

Imitation means spending time and effort doing things a little worse than has already been done. That's great practice, but doesn't bring much new on the table.

If that's all you do - yeah, that's pretty bad. From artistic point of view it can be argued to be worse than bit-for-bit copying. (nevermind legal and moral issues here)

The Finnish/Portuguese hipster brigade is getting funnier by the hour :D

Ah well, back then it was "only IDM is true music", now it's "only remixes are art". Go ahead, it's amusing :)

Hell I don't even listen to music. I was making a point about code and demos in general ;)

everything gloom said and absolutely nothing of what nosfe and ps are saying :)

Vangelis is the new Mafia

i think it all went wrong when demoscene started to release demos only on parties, and when people got used to expect them only from there. i don't know if anyone else remember it, but there was time when demoscene was not only about party compos and their regulations (which always existed, but were there only to make sure everyone have the same chance). i am of course not against parties, but i am completelly against 'legalising' them in the way they tend to go, especially today when all shouts and thought on copyright should be loudly said and contributed to the general discussion on the subject, and potential opposion to the bullies who still want to keep their exclusive hand on whats good or bad, wrong or right, creative or boring, important or not... and in that way AGENDA is very important and strong statement, which sadly nowone seemed to be able to read from 1in10 comments...

by focusing on parties and their compos, demoscene has created larger demoparties, and by wanting to marry demoscene and 'legal' work, more and more 'legalistic' and 'entertainment' rules (as opposed to 'meaningful') are applied to demoparties, making them more and more restricted in the wrong way... however, i do not think demoscene is obliged to accept other world's rules, but the opposite is true - it should continue to develop its own ethics (like it always did) and offer new ideas and solutions to other scenes (including 'commercial', but also 'art')...

so, everyone seem to be right in his own perspective - organisers worry about MAFIIA and puppet governments, but artists worry (and definitelly should be) about creative freedom and what it means in todays and future world.

for the demoscene, some of those imported rules are simply bad for its function and evolution. it's like demoscene has agreed to become a proving ground for future commercial work in games, music or IT, which is real sad if anyone thinks that is ok... in todays world of viral marketing and other forms of 2nd party engagement propaganda, it is wrong to ignore the fact that IT or GAMES or MUSIC industry likes to have a 'clean' and cheap place to get new talents, without actually investing anything other than pushing their laws and get everyone forced with guns and military and prison to get in line...

so... just for the reminders, demoscene is a place that started out from a computer enthusiasts who LOVE their freedom to do on their computers whatever they like and discover new possibilities (as opposed to 'whatever is allowed to be possible by legal software'). it started as the scene which was dubbed 'illegal' at the time, so why is it so weird to understand that making 'illegal' things and proving that it is better than most of 'legal' stuff was always the way of the scene? we are living in increasingly totalitarian society, and every voice counts, if we care about our children future at all...

i may be on the small parcel of the todays scene, but changing the whole scene to be 100% 'legal' is bad, since it will come to the point where it will also have to accept the creative boundaries from the industry as well - which is a real death of the demoscene and it's independence.

and if you ask me, this has already begun, like about 8 years ago, with the start of censorship in the form of preselection (do you remember chimera case at asm2002?) - explained for the sake of entertainment, and the rules of running time which forces us all to fit into youtube limits, making anything longer than 10mins 'illegal' ...

i was wondering what will be next, seeing this much trouble over a sampling in 2010 just proves what i'm saying...

so... here are some reminders, borrowed from prodigy in 1994...

1. 'i've decided to take my work back underground, to stop it falling into the wrong hands'

and

2. 'fuck'em, and their law!'

the way some people try to use demoscene to push their pseudo-progressive political agendas is sickening. go organise a local pirate party chapter or whatever, and leave us in peace please...

kb: count dominator in too :D we're really heading into some unexpected direction. this thread is getting funnier by every comment.

dominator, you are completely missing the point here. discussions on what is good, bad, creative/non-creative, if it is art or not, legal or should it be legal etc etc.. those talks will go on forever.

what pissed off those opposed to this soundtrack is the lack of credit. this was not sampling, it was theft. not because it got out on the open marked - but because varja failed to mention that this is not their song as it clearly states in the demo.

obviously there are legal matters here as well, but i am not so concerned about that and don't really spend much time thinking about it. if someone would love to remix some song, and can not get the legal rights to do it.. i say fuck it, go ahead and do it - and then credit the work :)