Terms of Use for Playing Musical Instruments

[Ranaku]

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.

[ChazNatlo]

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.

[technole]

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.

[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.

[WhiteArchmage]

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'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.

[RobynDaBank]

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.

[Rannie]

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...