Quote Originally Posted by Penthea View Post
The rule about copyrighted music is just SE covering their behind so that if a music label complains SE can say "well we're not permitting it" to avoid a messy legal situation.

Sure you could get reported for playing copyrighted music but I doubt most players would even think of reporting it given it doesn't actually cause them any problems. You can turn performance audio off if you don't like it. I am also inclined it might be difficult for GMs to see if the music is copyrighted unless they see it live and recognise or are told what the song is. Unless their logs can easily play back music that has already been played, it might be too much work for them to investigate.
The GMs, though, don't have to check if every song being played is owned by copyright. They stated in the ToS that you can ONLY play FFXIV music, so if you're playing a song that's not a track from this game, it doesn't matter if it's public domain or even your own creation. Under the strictest reading of the rules, it's not allowed.

That being said, though, I do think you're right in that stating that anything that's not a track from this game being banned is a way of deflecting responsibility for copyright infringement over to the person playing the song rather than themselves, and gives them standing to ban a person from the game for playing copywritten music if at some point a lawsuit over it comes up.