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[John Hutchinson]

I'm making a game that would pair perfectly with some particular fast-paced, classical compositions, played back with more "video game like" instruments/sounds, so I'm hoping to get some clarification about when it's okay and not okay to use public domain classical music in games.

Do you foresee any potential copyright issues with the following process?

1) Select excerpts of classical music pieces by composers who have been deceased for 70+ years.   From what I understand, the songs are public domain, but you can't use any actual recordings because those are copyrighted (performances).

2) Locate royalty free MIDI files of said music. The royalty free part is probably the most important part here I think.

3) Use software like Cubase, Ableton Live, or Pro Tools to load the MIDI files and add MIDI playback instruments (via VST plugin).  Will also make it loop here and add whatever effects are needed (EQ, reverb, etc) before finally exporting to MP3.

4) Embed final MP3s for use in a flash game. No MP3s or other music files with ship with the game.  The final music will be embedded into the SWF file

[MattG]

you can use royalty free midi files allday. use GM(general Midi) sound voices and it is wicked efficient. Much lower overhead than mp3s

[Falmil]

I think Little King's Story did this.

[John Hutchinson]

Oh sweet! I was hoping that was the case. :D  The backup plan was to input the MIDI data myself from sheet music but that would take A LOT of time.

I'm planning on doing quite a bit of leg work on this myself but if anyone happens to know of any good resources for royalty free MIDI files then that would be super helpful.