Terms of Use for Playing Musical Instruments

[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)

[Sove92]

They know it, they don't care.

[Kaliesto]

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.

[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.

[Kaliesto]

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.

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

[_Pigzig]

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

[DragoAskani]

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.

[WhiteArchmage]

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"

[Hanayumi]

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.

[Bearded]

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.