next »

[rogerlevy]

Say you want to release a free game and use a commercial song as the background music.  What are the pitfalls and considerations involved with this?  I imagine it should be like videos on YouTube that use commercial music.  Just distribute the music along with the game in a way that it can't be easily re-distributed; encrypted, embedded in the exe, etc.  Is that kosher enough?  Would you contact the artist and ask for permission regardless?

[Helmeted]

Nope.
Totally illegal, unless you've got clearance from the copyright holders. Same with Youtube, actually.

[AndroidScholar1]

Still copyrighted work. Generally the only reason YouTube videos get away with it is because companies don't give a damn, but you can find a lot that are banned from going on there. You should ask for permission, though it's doubtful you would get permission unless they're just generally nice people.

[SundownKid]

You can find Creative Commons music instead, for example, here, here or here. If your game is non-commercial you can use the music legally.

[iffi]

It's technically illegal, though I guess nothing will happen if the copyright holder never notices or cares. If you ever plan on distributing it you should definitely contact the artist or use other music (such as Creative Commons music, as SundownKid suggested).

[Oddball]

There's also an ethical issue here too. Try some reverse empathy. How would you feel if a musician included your commercial game with his latest free song?

[rogerlevy]

I guess it depends. If I saw my commercial game in someone's free game, as like a non-interactive display on a tv sprite, I'd be like, "oh word? free advertising!"  On the other hand, yeah, I would be pissed if someone used my commercial music in a free game that got popular and had the gall not to ask. 

So... I'm either going to ask them, or create my own music that sounds like what's inspiring me.

Thanks for all the advice guys!

[iffi]

IIRC, the creator of Robot Unicorn Attack was originally going to use a chiptune version of Erasure's Always, but they decided to ask if they could use the actual song, and ended up getting permission. Thanks to that Erasure got quite a bit more attention than usual as the game exploded in popularity.
So anyway, best of luck in obtaining permission to use the music, and if you do end up using the song, don't forget to include the name and artist of the song somewhere in the credits!

[mcc]

Illegal but you will probably get away with it (indie games people regularly do). The copyright owner will NOT go "oh, cool, someone's using our song, free promotion!". However they are likely to just ignore it because they're not aware of it. For this reason, it is not in your interest to make them aware of it.

If they become aware, you will get a single DCMA takedown notice but most likely nothing worse will happen so long as you were not profiting.

If you are making money, it is actually possible to just license the song. I can't really tell you how to go about this; Bug music never returned my e-mails. Oh well!

[dangerousday]

IIRC, the creator of Robot Unicorn Attack was originally going to use a chiptune version of Erasure's Always, but they decided to ask if they could use the actual song, and ended up getting permission. Thanks to that Erasure got quite a bit more attention than usual as the game exploded in popularity.

Among other things, the song ended up on the muzak for the store where I work. And I got to listen to it every single day until christmastime. It was magical.

I've got a related question: What about original compositions inspired by existing songs? For example, if I really like the chord progression and rhythm of such-and-such song and I'd like to use it as the basis for a level or boss theme, would it be in my best interest to acknowledge it in the credits?

[Theophilus]

I tried this a while back. I emailed like 15 bands and asked to use their music (Fairly small ones, too). Not one of them responded.

The game never was made, because it revolved around the music too much. Don't make that mistake.

[Tiderion]

So much easier to hire any number of the starving musicians on this site.

[Helmeted]

I tried this a while back. I emailed like 15 bands and asked to use their music (Fairly small ones, too). Not one of them responded.

The game never was made, because it revolved around the music too much. Don't make that mistake.

Well, I get emails about sketchy business propositions pretty regularly, not saying that you are sketchy, but I'm sure any band with a website gets crap all the time, and if you are cold calling out of the blue it can be hard not to look like crap. Networking, that is meeting and getting to know some musicians can be really invaluable here.

So much easier to hire any number of the starving musicians on this site.

Worth saying again.

[Mipe]

I'm not starving!

Well, I'm not a musician, either... Hmm, maybe that's why I'm not starving. *munch*munch* Delicious.

Anyway, rule of thumb: in your non-commercial games, don't use any assets that you aren't absolutely sure about.

I've gotten better at drawing stick figures and replicating sound effects with my mouth. \o/

[AndyKorth]

And if you are really on a budget... like us, there are lots of places you can buy royalty-free composed music for use in your games. We use shockwave sound for a lot of our projects.