Sharing Copyrighted songs via simfiles?

Yeah, I wouldn't contact the music rights owners because that's basically telling them, "Hey! Look at this site that uploads cuts of your music illegally!" I doubt they would really care enough to do anything, but it could still maybe possibly put this site at risk. Though even if they did somehow find your simfiles and illegally uploaded music, I doubt they would do anything to stop you. It'd be too expensive, time and money-wise, to hunt down every single little uploader of their music and instead go right to the host, in this case ZIv. But even then, ZIv is so relatively small that it doesn't really matter.

If you really want to make it fully legal, you could make people buy the song and provide some sort of system that could automatically cut the song for the simfile with another "cut data" file. Well, maybe that's over-thinking it.

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Well then someone better start making z I v 5th style version III.

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Here is the problem with what you posted above. You are giving the downloader the audio file that has not been altered in a significant way. That can be taken out of the package and used freely outside of its original intended purpose. Now I am not saying that doesn't make it fair use, I am saying it makes it hard to justify if it is indeed fair use or not.

The fair use you linked is targeted more towards online videos as a form of entertainment. In fact it is exactly what I am going through on my own YouTube channel. It is so confusing when it comes to music games especially which is why when I got my copyright strike on my account my partners didn't want to help dispute the copyright claim. When I asked them to help remove the strike they pretty much stated that it is difficult to justify any form of music game to be transformative therefor they didn't want to deal with the hassle of contacting Google to get rid of the strike. Instead they made me fill out a counter notification against the company that filed the claim so any repercussions of removing the strike goes directly to me (technically they could sue me if I am wrong).

The point of this entire post was to more or less show that "fair use" is a ton of bullshit. It is just a generic "modify the work in some way" that doesn't really get into very great detail. With all that said I am sticking to what I posted above. That is how I feel simfiles fall under fair use after researching since I got my copyright claim.

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Well, mp3 download sites like mp3skull have much more of a problem. And Kon, I am sorry about not being able to live stream. Just use twitch, oh wait, that's even worse. I know you'll find a way.

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Your dad is being paranoid as fuck

If they find you uploading songs the most they would do is tell you to remove them or force the removal themselves. You won't get sued unless you want to fight the takedown. That's usually how it works unless they know they can make a profit out of a court case (they won't ask you for a million dollars if they can't guarantee that you even have the money). They'd lose more money fighting it.

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Yeah I know
I was waiting for someone to say that.
Too bad I can't tell him that. I don't think he understands exactly what I'm doing though. It is kind of ironic how he pirates all of his music and movies.

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Common misconception. It's not illegal to download anything pirated (assuming it's something protected by freedoms, obviously child porn and whatnot are not okay). It's illegal to upload it, though.

At least, that's what I learned in my social media class first semester.

My suggestions are basically these:

1. Stick to making stepfiles for songs that are licensed under some version of Creative Commons so you'll be allowed to distribute them freely, or...

2. In the case of mainstream / fully copyrighted music, make the file with a specific and easily obtainable version of the song, such as from a CD, then distribute just the .sm file with a note that the user needs that specific version of that song formatted whichever specific way and leave it to them to get it by whatever means.

If you have an issue with distributing artwork, same thing applies, just use Creative Commons licensed works that allow modification, or make your own artwork from scratch.

Yeah I will make a link to buy the songs or donate to the artists.

Thanks for all the input.

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"So, you'll need the NOW version of the song (album version has several milliseconds of space), and make cuts from seconds 12.4652 to 56.7453, 67.1437 to 101.3785, and 156.4834 to 240.0463. Don't mess it up!"

...yeah, I don't think anyone would be able to work with that, since the majority of people write charts for cuts and not the full songs (and most people wouldn't want to switch, myself included, since it's extremely hard to remain creative for 4 charts of a 3-6 minute song).

As long as people aren't knuckleheads and draw attention to particular simfiles or sites for rights owners, then I'm pretty sure simfiling is harmless.

No, I will just provide the cut music as well as providing the links to buy the full song if they want

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Yep, that's a good way to go about it. You're on the right track, making the honest effort to say "Support the artist if you like their music".

OK well I guess this thread is over.

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Technically going on the Internet is illegal in some states/countries, so making simfiles using copyrighted licenses shouldn't be that big of a deal.

I don't think I have ever heard someone get arrested or sued for distributing simfiles on either ZIv, DDRFreak, BMS, DDRUK, etc.

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Didn't they temporarily get shut down because of their simfiles a while back? Correct me if I'm wrong, my memory is extremely fuzzy but I do remember something like that happening.

Also, your dad is a massive hypocrite if he's worrying about you getting busted for uploading a simfile while probably seeding all of those things he pirates to infinity and beyond. You're infinitely more likely to get busted for doing that than uploading a simfile to a website that appeals to a very small niche.

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Honestly I can't remember :/ maybe al2k4 or Ian might shed some light on that (or any of the longer-standing DDRUK members)

ALL of this.

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OK we are getting super off-topic here

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Here's a thing I just thought of, kind of an idea for the site admin:

If the Simfiles section were to be hidden from the general public and only accessible to registered users of the site, would that make the site even less likely to get flagged for copyright claims, or would it matter at all?

and @ darkanine: if your dad IS pirating and seeding tons of movies and whatnot, he's very likely to get a notice from his ISP for it eventually, so you should take extra precautions so he can't come down and pin it on you. If you've got access to a local library with internet access, take your simfiles on a flash drive and upload them there.

?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!

Take the blame for your own actions. ;)

It shut down in 2010 as a forum through I BELIEVE inactivity, I heard nothing on the copyright front but 2009-10 was just dead in there, it made no real sense to keep it going.

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