Has anyone been banned for using Perform yet?

[spuzmonj]

Any chance of SE replying to this and giving some insight? I feel like the game population would suffer if they started banning everyone who played something in-game or posted a YouTube video.

[Deathgiver]

I totally don't understand the issue SE has with this. Since you can't macro perform you're technically playing the song yourself, perform is just the instrument you're using. It's equivalent to going to the guitar shop and picking up a guitar and the sales guy telling you that you aren't allowed to play Led Zeppelin songs because they don't have the rights to those songs.

[Zarabeth]

I totally don't understand the issue SE has with this. Since you can't macro perform you're technically playing the song yourself, perform is just the instrument you're using. It's equivalent to going to the guitar shop and picking up a guitar and the sales guy telling you that you aren't allowed to play Led Zeppelin songs because they don't have the rights to those songs.

Because of those pesky copyright laws.

[Deathgiver]

Because of those pesky copyright laws.

Those pesky copyright laws should only effect the player, not SE. SE is nether performing, nor distributing the material so there's literally no reason they should be held liable if someone did get a copyright strike.

[Dyvid]

Those pesky copyright laws should only effect the player, not SE. SE is nether performing, nor distributing the material so there's literally no reason they should be held liable if someone did get a copyright strike.

That is an interesting point. When someone does a piano cover of a song, does the artist sue the piano maker for the piano player? SE is really just the instrument.

Wow hold on I had to address this.

You don't understand how copyright works at all. For all of the tracks Nobuo Uematsu made from FF1-FF11, he owns absolutely zero of them. He was employed by Square at the time in which his job was to create music. By standard copyright practice any and all music created by him during this time period belongs to Square unless otherwise agreed upon. After this time period he left Square, now Square Enix, and became more of a contractor. Square commissioned his work for title songs. These songs are not necessarily owned by Square, but Square currently holds the rights to use them. Square cannot however extend these rights to anyone they like (the players). These would be Answers, Dragonsong, and whatever else they pointed out for us not to play.

To loosely quote one of the devs of FFXV before the launch of the game, when asked if they could put in old FF music to listen to in the in-game car: "we own that music, and that sounds like a good idea, so we'll do that". And thusly so, a wide range of music spanning FFI - FFXIV was included in the game. Indeed, Square also owns the majority of the music within FFXIV. Not the intro title music that they commissioned from Uematsu, but all of the music created by the sound team under Square.

I was thinking the same thing. When a track is made for a TV, Movie, or video game; the studio owns the copyrights of that sound piece. It's why a B movie space drama can't license the soundtrack of Star Wars from John Williams to play in their movie, because Disney now owns the rights to those notes. Same reason an indie RPG can't license the FF soundtrack from Nobou Uematsu. My frustration comes from that. Someone made a video of them playing Balamb Garden from FFVIII and had that video blocked by SE, makes no sense.

[Freyt]

Someone made a video of them playing Balamb Garden from FFVIII and had that video blocked by SE, makes no sense.

Given the nature of copyright claims on YouTube, are we really sure SE took it down?

[Risvertasashi]

I totally don't understand the issue SE has with this. Since you can't macro perform you're technically playing the song yourself, perform is just the instrument you're using. It's equivalent to going to the guitar shop and picking up a guitar and the sales guy telling you that you aren't allowed to play Led Zeppelin songs because they don't have the rights to those songs.

Technically, naming your character Cloud Sephiroth and Sasuke Stark is a bannable offense. Realistically, though, it doesn't happen.

As has been said to death... SE's just covering themselves. As long as the copyright holders aren't complaining, nothing will happen. But SE does have to put those notices up so they are covered.

[Naunet]

As has been said to death... SE's just covering themselves. As long as the copyright holders aren't complaining, nothing will happen. But SE does have to put those notices up so they are covered.

Them "covering themselves" is neutering what could be a hugely successful feature with the potential to foster a massive creative community. In true SE fashion, they are going overboard with restrictions, making the enjoyment of their work very difficult.

[Tempest222]

If I actually had any sort of musical ability to be able to use this feature, I probably still wouldn't use it given the potential for things to go south quickly. Personally I probably wouldn't play anything at all that wasn't my own original work as you never know who might run by a decide to be a jerk and report you, or who might record you playing and upload it somewhere that's going to draw attention and get you into trouble. Given the restrictions that are placed on this feature, I'm really not sure why they bothered adding it in the first place.

[Enla]

Them "covering themselves" is neutering what could be a hugely successful feature with the potential to foster a massive creative community. In true SE fashion, they are going overboard with restrictions, making the enjoyment of their work very difficult.

They're also based in Japan where Fair Use is all but non-existent and where there are pretty severe legal implications for perceived copyright theft. This is the same country where businesses that will go after people on Youtube who post covers even if they provide their own audio track. LoTRO on the other hand was able to embrace this system and encourage people to play whatever they wanted because Turbine was located in the US where the laws are decidedly more lax on the matter. Hell, they heavily encouraged the entire thing and Weatherstock has been an annual event in that game for years now - where bands can come together and play coprighted music for people on top of Weathertop.

In the end what this amounts to is a Japanese company enforcing rules based on the laws of their home nation which can come back to bite them in court if a DMCA challenge is issued by any copyright holder. Is it nonsensical? Oh, very much so! But their stance of needing to cover their ass won't change unless the laws become more lax over seas.