Terms of Use for Playing Musical Instruments

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)

They know it, they don't care.

I really don't understand why they make this such a big deal to begin with as a person who generally thought this whole ordeal was really strange ever since this became a issue, these instruments don't even produce real sounds and would be vastly inferior to the actual song. It would be highly strange of musicians outside of the game to even get upset over this and also they're not even making any money off of it either.

This seems like a overreach imo in the interpretation of Copyright, I don't have a horse in this race but the way the Developers are reacting to this seems highly strange.

Now if the Bard Music System was made in a way to allow to use real instruments (like actual recording from your device) then yes we would have a bit of a problem, but MIDI music is not of that high quality nor will it ever will be.

Now if this only happened because something happened on the Japan Data Centers one day, and Japanese Copyright decided to lay down the iron hammer then I would be more forgiving of the circumstances, but their interpretation of MIDI music would be to me overly reactionary.

It's only in the ToS because SE has to cover themselves in case the owners of the music being played decide to complain. It's a contingency that will more than likely never matter, but they have to prepare for it anyway, because some people are very sue-happy these days.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

It's only in the ToS because SE has to cover themselves in case the owners of the music being played decide to complain. It's a contingency that will more than likely never matter, but they have to prepare for it anyway, because some people are very sue-happy these days.

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That is something I didn't consider just now, yes people are definitely more sue happy these days.

i heard 2-3 people do through the fire and flames and it was awesome

And here I am the first thing I did when they finally implemented it was turn off all the bard music. I haven't heard it since.

This is, indeed, only SE covering themselves legally. They really don't care if you decide to play Bohemian Rhapsody with your buddies in your private house or in front of a bunch of randos in Gridania; but if you post it up on YouTube or stream it on Twitch and the copyright holders decide to complain, it gives SE an out by asking you to take it down (in the worst case, ban you, but that likely would only happen if you, say, make an entire youtube channel consisting of Perform covers of Top 40 songs) instead of the copyright holders holding SE liable.

Basically, it's a wink and a nudge of "Yeah, just tell your mom I totally didn't let you have a sip of my beer" than an actual legal threat.

EDIT: OH! Also, it's because technically speaking it's SE's property, much like how every screenshot will automatically have SE's copyright on it. We don't own our characters, or our houses, or anything, SE just rents them out for us. So, legally speaking, footage of someone using Perform would also hold SE liable as it is their platform being used "ilegally"

For the most part its all good to play whatever kind of the songs you want. The big issue is recording and uploading it and by then SE can totally throw you under the bus and take no blame if you do happen to get into CR troubles.

Many people think it is their right to do whatever they like with musical productions of others - they care little for royalties that is if they even consider paying for the content. SE rightly has a procedure in place to protect themselves against action by royalty holders. Unfortunately it is hard to re-educate people who have been brought up with the incorrect belief that they can do what they like with music and copyright is alien to them.

Interesting thread. A bit like if someone decided to translate a post complaining about the parser, asking if parse-users are aware it's against the TOS.

Somehow, I doubt musicians of other languages never ever play copyrighted music...

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.

How i look at it. When bards are performing it like they are covering the songs.

Take a look at warframe and octavia.

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Originally Posted by Axxion

Take a look at warframe and octavia.

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And the mandachord makes bard performance look like a pro music tool. A grand total of 5 notes with no octave shifting at all....

Even cover versions need to pay a fee to the original copyright holder(s) and they have no obligation to permit the use of their copyrighted music.

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Originally Posted by Bearded

Even cover versions need to pay a fee to the original copyright holder(s) and they have no obligation to permit the use of their copyrighted music.

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thats facts, however you are most likely to be taken down on twitch more then in game.

Also we do not know is they have license for it as well.

.. we have all just literally been yelled at by our neighbors for our loud music.

Forgive me while I laugh and roll around.

Ridiculous thread is ridiculous. I could see if people were profiting from it but playing music in game is no worse then someone having a radio on loud so everyone heard it.

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Originally Posted by Snorky

Ridiculous thread is ridiculous. I could see if people were profiting from it but playing music in game is no worse then someone having a radio on loud so everyone heard it.

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The copyright thingy is very strange and full of traps. I can understand that SQEX only allows music where they have the copyright. And it is also so, if you want to hold the copyright or patent rights on something then you have to protect it. Otherwise it can be that it becomes public domain.

Cheers

Best joke i heard in a long time, bringing ToS, western players and "reading" into one context really shows that this must be a foreigner.

And i mean that not even in a mocking way, what i mean is basically nobody over here gives two kupo nuts about any ToS be it from games or companies like Apple or Google. People just click accept and they don't read at all. You can basically write in the ToS what you want and people would still blindly accept it.

So no hopes that this will change at all, sorry though that the japanese datacenters have to suffer for it.

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.

Quote:

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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!

Quote:

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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.

Quote:

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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shigure_A

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.

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Basically for westerners, if it's not -actively- hurting anyone, it's okay regardless of what the rules say. In the west, a ToS agreement won't even hold up in one of our courts of law in most cases. This sort of thing have been going on for years whether it's bards playing copyrighted music or modders using lewd mods in countries with heavy censorship. At least in America, a company cannot be held legally responsible for what a customer does with their product.

To this end I refer to two other games: City of Heroes and Archeage. Archeage in particular is another game with playable instruments and custom sheet music to make and play any songs you want, including copyrighted music. This has been going on for years, very openly, with no issues. I don't know if it's different in Japan but in the USA it's not much different than someone uploading a video on Youtube of them "covering" the song with their own instrument, it's fine.

In terms of City of Heroes, NCSoft was actively sued in court by Marvel over potential trademark and copyright concerning iconic comic book characters. The courts dismissed almost ALL of Marvel's claims and in the end the two parties just settled out of court.

It may also sound pretty crass but it honestly just boils down to something far more simple and I don't say this to be mean. Why are there so many "copyright violators" and rule breakers? Because they want to. That's just all there is to it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jagick

Basically for westerners, if it's not -actively- hurting anyone, it's okay regardless of what the rules say. In the west, a ToS agreement won't even hold up in one of our courts of law in most cases. This sort of thing have been going on for years whether it's bards playing copyrighted music or modders using lewd mods in countries with heavy censorship. At least in America, a company cannot be held legally responsible for what a customer does with their product.

To this end I refer to two other games: City of Heroes and Archeage. Archeage in particular is another game with playable instruments and custom sheet music to make and play any songs you want, including copyrighted music. This has been going on for years, very openly, with no issues. I don't know if it's different in Japan but in the USA it's not much different than someone uploading a video on Youtube of them "covering" the song with their own instrument, it's fine.

In terms of City of Heroes, NCSoft was actively sued in court by Marvel over potential trademark and copyright concerning iconic comic book characters. The courts dismissed almost ALL of Marvel's claims and in the end the two parties just settled out of court.

It may also sound pretty crass but it honestly just boils down to something far more simple and I don't say this to be mean. Why are there so many "copyright violators" and rule breakers? Because they want to. That's just all there is to it.

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This is a very interesting story.
I would like to continue to be aware of the dangers, and I am very happy that there are such past examples and that you have introduced them to us.

Changing the subject, I was recently very concerned about the difference in thinking between Japan and the rest of the world.
However, this thread shows that all countries have the same way of thinking in a good way.
I would like to thank you for the many responses.