Terms of Use for Playing Musical Instruments

Amusingly I only know how to perform one song, and Square already owns it. I'm trash musically, but I've played FF VII enough times that the piano tune is permanently stuck in my brain.

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Originally Posted by Bearded

There is nothing wrong with a musician playing copyrighted music - what is wrong is when they perform that music in public. That is why bards are not permitted to perform such music as a performance in FFXIV is technically a "public" performance. Sheet music is available for copyrighted works and they can be performed in all manner of instances but when they drift into public performance and especially where reward is involved then the copyright holder for public performance will want their cut.

Reminds me of an instance when a local school production of the Wizard of Oz was prevented from going ahead because a West End production was happening and the copyright holder pulled the plug on all other performances.

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Thats horrible. I don't think copyright stuff like that should apply when it involves a school. Imagine, a bunch of kids gonna perform Wizard of Oz and having to shut down due to copyright. Were they selling copies of it or something? Our copyright laws are a joke.

Also protects people streaming XIV and somehow has the volume on and passes-by a live performance, that's just a front row ticket for a DMCA. If the music is not "precleared", it's completely at-risk.

Sure you can report it, and that might be okay if that person just sits there playing copyrighted music all-day kind of thing where the GM can just be invisible and see it themselves.

I was surprised by the number of responses I received and realized how difficult this question is.
You mention a case where an artist performs another person's song. At least in Japan, I think it's common for the office the artist belongs to or the artist themselves to sign a strict contract with a copyright company and in some cases pay a fee to use the music.
In FF14, on the other hand, the players do not have the right to make such decisions, but the SEs do.
However, in FF14, the player has much more free will than the SE, so the SE cannot make all the margin payments and contracts.
Therefore, the game's law, the "Terms of Service" applies.
If you break that law, you can be arrested or fined in real life, but in the game, your character will be frozen. At the same time, SEs can be sued by real laws without their knowledge, and in the worst case, this world of "FF14" can disappear. (I know this is very unlikely, but it's a what if).
I love FF14 and don't want it to disappear, but I also think it's a serious issue that affects many areas outside of gaming.

I feel like copyright has veered from protecting the owner from an item of their making in case someone else says it's theirs instead, to not allowing a certain order of notes in music because that sounds just like another song.

It's sad. No fun allowed. None at all.

I guess we had better start a witch hunt and go door to door to everyone who can play real instruments and tell them they're breaking copy right laws as well when they play other people's music for the fun if it...

I just mute all those performers. Problem solved!

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Originally Posted by Shigure_A

I was surprised by the number of responses I received and realized how difficult this question is.
You mention a case where an artist performs another person's song. At least in Japan, I think it's common for the office the artist belongs to or the artist themselves to sign a strict contract with a copyright company and in some cases pay a fee to use the music.
In FF14, on the other hand, the players do not have the right to make such decisions, but the SEs do.
However, in FF14, the player has much more free will than the SE, so the SE cannot make all the margin payments and contracts.
Therefore, the game's law, the "Terms of Service" applies.
If you break that law, you can be arrested or fined in real life, but in the game, your character will be frozen. At the same time, SEs can be sued by real laws without their knowledge, and in the worst case, this world of "FF14" can disappear. (I know this is very unlikely, but it's a what if).
I love FF14 and don't want it to disappear, but I also think it's a serious issue that affects many areas outside of gaming.

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I'm coming back to this because, honestly, copyright laws fascinate me.
This is pretty wrong. I mean, it's right in the THEORY, hence why it's in the ToS that you can't (rather, shouldn't) Perform 3rd party music for copyright issues. However, SE has no way to actually police this, they can't have a dedicated mod team following players whenever they use the Perform tool and checking with Shazam in case it recognizes a song.
SE putting in the ToS that you can't do this is to legally protect themselves: if a copyright holder tries to go after SE legally over a player reproducing their songs, SE can point to their ToS and argue that it's the player that's in the wrong, asking them politely to remove the offending content and worst case scenario suspend or ban them.

However, there are laws (US laws, going after copyrights on international cases demands that the case be brought to the country where the offense took place and dealing with THEIR copyright laws) that protect someone if money isn't involved. So your street Performer can play any copyrighted song for the love of it, but when that performance starts getting monetized it can be argued that they're damaging the original product and that's when lawyers come in.

An actual studio is not going to risk that blow to PR by going against a small-time streamer who isn't even monetizing their performance in a video game with 50 random people. Twitch might raise an eyebrow and take down the stream, but they're also covering themselves against liability. And if the studio tried to go after SE, as I mentioned before, they can just point to the ToS and shift the blame away from them.

Basically, that part of the ToS is saying "don't monetize your Performance using our tools". SE and FFXIV will be fine, no Recording Studio is seriously going after them because some rando started playing Ke$ha in Limsa.

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Originally Posted by Shigure_A

Hello, I'm a Japanese playing on a Japanese DC.
Recently, I have seen a lot of English-speaking people playing musical instruments on Japanese DCs in violation of the Terms of Service.
So my question is, when I un-play the instrument, the terms of service are displayed.
Have you read the terms of service properly?

It says that you are not allowed to play any music other than the music specified in FF14.
This is because it is an infringement of copyright and will not only prevent you from playing your instrument, but will also cause serious damage to the game FF14 itself.

I know that most of you who are discussing on this forum are playing on DC in NA, but I warn you from an isolated island in Asia.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

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大げさな反応だと思います。このフィーチャーを使ってるプレイヤーたちが金を稼いでるわけでもないですし。あまりにも厳しすぎたらやる気がなくなります。わざわざ文句を言いに英語のフォーラムに来たのはなぜですか。そんなに気になりました？

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Originally Posted by Shironeko_Narunyan

大げさな反応だと思います。このフィーチャーを使ってるプレイヤーたちが金を稼いでるわけでもないですし。あまりにも厳しすぎたらやる気がなくなります。わざわざ文句を言いに英語のフォーラムに来たのはなぜですか。そんなに気になりました？

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純粋な興味が強いです。
・なぜ英語話者の著作権違反者が多いのか（私が知ってる範囲になってしまうのでElementalDCの場合になりますが）
・著作権違反をすることによってプレイヤーが云々ではなく、もっとスケールの大きい問題としてFF14というゲームそのものの消失がありえる事を考慮しないのはなぜか
・楽器演奏解放時の利用規約には「楽器演奏を使って第三者の権利を侵害する楽曲を演奏することは固く禁止されています。」という一文が日本にはあるが、外国版ではその記載がないのか

海外では利用規約で禁止されてるRMTを非常に嫌っている向きがあるのに、やはり利用規約で同じように禁止されてる楽器演奏では平気で違反する人がいる。
もちろんそういう事をするのはごく少数の人ではありますが、この辺りの認識の矛盾が非常に気になるから確認してみたいと思ったのもあります。
また、お金がどうこうではなく、限りなくありえない事とはいえ好きなゲームが消えてしまう可能性を無くしたいという気持ちもあり、海外では同じような反応や考えの人はいるだろうかという疑問も解消したい、
とにかく海外プレイヤーの考え方や意見というものを知りたい！と思ったので、海外も絡んでいそうな問題を取り上げて敢えて英語で聞いてみました。

Sorry, this is a foreign thread, but there was a question in Japanese, so I replied in Japanese.
I'll try to use English as much as possible.