How does the licensing work in Take/Figure Sharing?

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QVprod
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29 Jan 2015

Basically these terms weren't written with commercial purposes in mind. It's more of a fun thing. Sure a music lawyer's input would be nice but I think what's stated is very clear. By uploading you're essentially providing royalty free material for anyone to use however they choose while you have a right to do the same with any material anyone else has uploaded.

Basically if you wan't to use the service without giving up your rights to royalties, you have to keep stuff you upload unlisted, send your stuff directly to people you want to collaborate with and hopefully they're kind enough not to rip you off either. With that in mind it's simple enough (and possibly safer) to just send a stereo wave file or mp3 with the bpm to whoever you collab with through regular email as in that case it would not be royalty free.

Personally the only use I see for Discover, is an easy way to get Take and Figure songs into Reason.

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joeyluck
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29 Jan 2015

EnochLight wrote:I think if Discover as a curated, communal, Factory Sound Bank. Nothing more.
JiggeryPokery wrote:
No, that's a really bad comparison and you need to stop that way of thinking now, imo.

You've
JiggeryPokery wrote:bought
JiggeryPokery wrote: Reason, thus
JiggeryPokery wrote:paid
JiggeryPokery wrote: a license fee (or rather, Props have paid a fee for the loops, eLabs et al, and all the other FSB sound designers, you pay Props) to freely use those paid for samples and patches in your commercial work.

With Discover you can freely use other people's efforts in your commercial work and nothing has been paid to anyone else. Buy you'd be alright, Jack! You get all the royalities!! ;)

Of course, if you're
JiggeryPokery wrote:not
JiggeryPokery wrote: producing commercial work, i.e., you're a hobbyist, then Discover I imagine works fine. But who is a hobbyist and who is a commercial producer? Already last year we saw a commercial artist caught with his pants down, so to speak, using warezed music software. Let's recap that great excuse: Oh, it was my engineers laptop, no really, it was, it was an emergency and I didn't have my laptop with my own real license!

So commercial producers are happy to use material and software illegally if they can find ways to justify it to themselves. So someone will be more than happy to scour your work on Discover looking for something they can rip off. If Sam Smith found a musical loop of you farting on Discover, he can simply put a beat to it and his fans will buy it on iTunes in their hundreds of thousands and he'll make millions from you farting into your iPhone.

They have that fanbase, the quality of the content itself doesn't matter, cos fans will buy any old shit!

Although frankly, you farting into an iPhone is likely of far higher musical quality than Sam Smith ;)
I think you're looking at it entirely the wrong way. Think of it like a communal ReFill, or a 'community made ReFill' (like the Xmas ReFill or the Halloween ReFill)! You've submitted patches, loops, all kinds of cool things! Things that other users can use freely in their production.  

And having that mindset when using this service as EnochLight described is EXACTLY the way you should think when going into it. "I'm sharing something with the Propellerhead community for them to use freely." Telling someone to not think that way and to treat it like a service where you should be owed royalties is false, right? Until those terms change—please don't mislead folks into what they should be owed after uploading something to Discover.

Start a poll, gather ideas, contact Propellerhead with what you feel is the best way to execute a change in the terms that would include rights attribution and/or royalties. But until then, inform people and affirm what it actually is. 

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EnochLight
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29 Jan 2015

EnochLight wrote:I think of Discover as a curated, communal, Factory Sound Bank. Nothing more.
JiggeryPokery wrote:
No, that's a really bad comparison and you need to stop that way of thinking now, imo.
No Matt, IMO you're way off the mark.  There's no reason for me to stop that way of thinking, as it's a completely safe way to use the service.

*EDIT: after typing my response out and getting to the end, you just may have swayed my opinion!   :D
JiggeryPokery wrote:You've bought Reason, thus paid a license fee (or rather, Props have paid a fee for the loops, eLabs et al, and all the other FSB sound designers, you pay Props) to freely use those paid for samples and patches in your commercial work. 
...as well as use anything on Discover in my commercial work.
JiggeryPokery wrote:With Discover you can freely use other people's efforts in your commercial work and nothing has been paid to anyone else. Buy you'd be alright, Jack! You get all the royalities!! ;)
Damn straight, because Discover is a communal FSB that people apparently have no problem contributing to.
JiggeryPokery wrote:Of course, if you're not producing commercial work, i.e., you're a hobbyist, then Discover I imagine works fine. But who is a hobbyist and who is a commercial producer? Already last year we saw a commercial artist caught with his pants down, so to speak, using warezed music software. Let's recap that great excuse: Oh, it was my engineers laptop, no really, it was, it was an emergency and I didn't have my laptop with my own real license!
Being a commercial artist or a hobbyist makes absolutely no difference, since the work available on Discover is free for use for everyone.  I'm not sure how anyone would get caught with their pants down when the service is meant to be used exactly like I described.  IMO.  
JiggeryPokery wrote:So commercial producers are happy to use material and software illegally if they can find ways to justify it to themselves. So someone will be more than happy to scour your work on Discover looking for something they can rip off. If Sam Smith found a musical loop of you farting on Discover, he can simply put a beat to it and his fans will buy it on iTunes in their hundreds of thousands and he'll make millions from you farting into your iPhone.
You're confusing the use of unlicensed material that's copyrighted (your commercial producer ripping people off example) with licensed material available to all for use (Discover, or Reason's FSB).  
JiggeryPokery wrote:They have that fanbase, the quality of the content itself doesn't matter, cos fans will buy any old shit!

Although frankly, you farting into an iPhone is likely of far higher musical quality than Sam Smith ;)
That we can agree on.   ;)

JiggeryPokery wrote: The first statement will likely be true of most users, people would keep what they consider their best work to themselves. But then what is one person's rejected material they've uploaded to Discovery can become gold-dust to someone else.

They could still potentially earn a lot of money on something they didn't write, merely arranged, and you still might not be able to do anything "good" (whatever "good" means here) with your original loop.
Yes, this is possible.  But, the same could also be said of work you curate from the service.  The door swings both ways.
JiggeryPokery wrote: For example Adam Fielding's now infamous production is not his song. It's clearly written by the person who uploaded the loop. Adam did a typically great job of arranging it. But now Props are using that arrangement to market Discover, and by extension their commercial products, to whit, Take and Figure. So Props sell more Apps; Adam earns nothing for arranging, because he's agreed to do the work free, but does earn a bit of kudos, while the original uploader doesn't even earn that, he's long since forgotten. But let's be clear, that original uploader is the writer of that track. It's arguably no different to The Verve just using a brief Andrew Oldham string loop and writing a whole new song around it - the court ruled it was Oldham's song.
NO, let's be clear: in this example, the original Figure artist who uploaded that bit is a contributor to a part of the song that Adam based a complete [kind of] work on.  I also contributed a part to it.  Adam did most of the work.  True, his work - or rather - our work - is being used for free to advertise Props service, but it's also free recognition to the people involved.  It's not a terrible trade-off, IMHO.
JiggeryPokery wrote: Props "get out of jail free card" is that they hope that people can sort this out between themselves. But in practice a lot of people are selfish and they simply won't bother. And the hobbyist who wrote a tune he didn't like or can't use, that then goes on to become a hit for someone else deserves to be paid. And the irony is that existing commercial producers are far more likely to steal stuff off Discover than hobbyists, because it saves them a ton of money ripping off existing material. The hobbyists likely do share and it will be a lovely, egalitarian commune with flowers and unicorns. Yeah, don't kid yourself!! :D

And let's be frank, the moment someone uploads a Disney loop, or anything else that isn't the creation of the uploader, and someone else unwittingly uses it commercially and someone somewhere notices, and they will, that will be the day PH find themselves up a gum tree without a paddle (apologies for the mixed metaphor), but I don't see that contract will be much of a defense in court.
I have no opinion on whether it's going to work or not (as a "service"), nor do I have an opinion on the licensing merits.  A person who uploads copyrighted work can certainly start a pot of trouble, and clearly Props licensing/EULA for their sharing services is setup to protect them in the event of such abuse.  This is why for myself - I'll look at it as I said: a communal FSB.  Anything I upload, I would expect it to be used by anyone and everyone who wants to - just like the FSB.  

But if your entire point to your reply was simply "don't think of it as a communal FSB because someone might upload copyrighted work that you could get sued for using", then that's a fair point.  Was that your point?
joeyluck wrote:I think you're looking at it entirely the wrong way. Think of it like a communal ReFill, or a 'community made ReFill' (like the Xmas ReFill or the Halloween ReFill)! You've submitted patches, loops, all kinds of cool things! Things that other users can use freely in their production. 
See, this is how I look at it.  A communal "refill".  There's nothing to stop someone from making a refill, using copyrighted material, and selling it in the Prop Shop.  Or giving it away on the forums.

Discover presents the exact same sort of risk, IMHO.
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JiggeryPokery
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30 Jan 2015

Ok, Enoch, look at this from a different angle.

What if Discover were a Google service?

Read this:
http://thetrichordist.com/2015/01/26/zo ... -internet/

There's a lot of hyperbole in that article, yes, but the core aspects are valid. He's right when he says "I believe that many artists are being duped into agreeing to terms for the Music Key service that grotesquely favor Google without understanding the implications." Discover is already proving that true and it's even more dangerous; even if you don't earn a cent from your music, PH can monetise it for themselves, like they've already done with Fuzzed Up, using it to advertise Reason on their Facebook page : "Even More Fuzzed Up... made with Reason by Propellerhead". There is nothing wrong with making adverts, that's important, but Discover seems to be a system designed to trounce the rights of the people who's music they use in their soundtracks so they can create such ads almost for free. That's a very disturbing development.

I think we do run a big risk brainwashing ourselves into considering paid for material like the FSB in the same manner as free material like a communal ReFill or Discover, especially since the latter is specifically designed to act as a marketing tool. It's not free sharing - you share for fee, PH and others can earn money off it and use it commercially. It's a different form of piracy and a way of avoiding payments to Rights Societies like the PRS.

It's an insidious form of rights erosion for everyone who produces, and you should be concerned, not falling for it. You had more rights if Adam and the now long-forgotten Fuzzed Up author shared privately, entirely outside of Discover, because the copyright was protected. If PH wanted to use it you could a) have chosen to donate it free, or b) negotiated a license fee, or b) it would have been covered by PRS payment, if you were member. Inside Discover the copyright utterly worthless. It's "We're going to copy, right?"

I know your response will be along the lines of "But Adam and the now long-forgotten Fuzzed Up author most likely wouldn't have met outside Discover". That's true, but still that doesn't excuse the way their finished material having "met" through Discover is used in ways that are materially unfair to the creators.

So look at Discover, then replace all instances of "Propellerhead" with "Google", and ask yourself, do you still feel you'd contribute to it?


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Upright
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30 Jan 2015

In light of all that's been discussed here I don't see the Discover platform becoming hugely popular unless it's fueled by users in regions of the world where they aren't concerned or savvy when it comes to licensing and royalties. 

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EnochLight
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30 Jan 2015

JiggeryPokery wrote:Ok, Enoch, look at this from a different angle.

What if Discover were a Google service?

Read this:
http://thetrichordist.com/2015/01/26/zo ... -internet/

There's a lot of hyperbole in that article, yes, but the core aspects are valid. He's right when he says "I believe that many artists are being duped into agreeing to terms for the Music Key service that grotesquely favor Google without understanding the implications." Discover is already proving that true and it's even more dangerous; even if you don't earn a cent from your music, PH can monetise it for themselves, like they've already done with Fuzzed Up, using it to advertise Reason on their Facebook page : "Even More Fuzzed Up... made with Reason by Propellerhead". There is nothing wrong with making adverts, that's important, but Discover seems to be a system designed to trounce the rights of the people who's music they use in their soundtracks so they can create such ads almost for free. That's a very disturbing development.

I think we do run a big risk brainwashing ourselves into considering paid for material like the FSB in the same manner as free material like a communal ReFill or Discover, especially since the latter is specifically designed to act as a marketing tool. It's not free sharing - you share for fee, PH and others can earn money off it and use it commercially. It's a different form of piracy and a way of avoiding payments to Rights Societies like the PRS.

It's an insidious form of rights erosion for everyone who produces, and you should be concerned, not falling for it. You had more rights if Adam and the now long-forgotten Fuzzed Up author shared privately, entirely outside of Discover, because the copyright was protected. If PH wanted to use it you could a) have chosen to donate it free, or b) negotiated a license fee, or b) it would have been covered by PRS payment, if you were member. Inside Discover the copyright utterly worthless. It's "We're going to copy, right?"

I know your response will be along the lines of "But Adam and the now long-forgotten Fuzzed Up author most likely wouldn't have met outside Discover". That's true, but still that doesn't excuse the way their finished material having "met" through Discover is used in ways that are materially unfair to the creators.

So look at Discover, then replace all instances of "Propellerhead" with "Google", and ask yourself, do you still feel you'd contribute to it?
Unlike that Google fiasco (which I'm quite familiar with, as a collaboration with Julibee and I has been curated there), the terms of Discover were made clear and available to us before we chose to use the service.

Still, as I mentioned above - you certainly raise some points - but these reservations aren't much different than using a community Refill or "commercial" refills supposedly sold in any shop.
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Faastwalker
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30 Jan 2015

So, by uploading something to Discover in the public domain you waive rights of ownership, according to Propellerhead? Doesn't this fly in the face of basic copyright laws concerning ownership of intellectual property?! :?

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EnochLight
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30 Jan 2015

Faastwalker wrote:So, by uploading something to Discover in the public domain you waive rights of ownership, according to Propellerhead? Doesn't this fly in the face of basic copyright laws concerning ownership of intellectual property?! :?
No, you do not waive the right of ownership (please read the EULA part 3.1). Copyright laws vary from region to region.
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Upright
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30 Jan 2015

Faastwalker wrote: you grant anyone else who has access to your content to basically do what the hell they like with it, including using it for commercial gain, whilst giving you the finger!!

Yup and the only way to avoid this is to simply NOT UPLOAD anything to the site. I was considering upgrading to Reason 8 for the sharing but now that I understand how it works I have no desire to upgrade. 

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Yorick
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30 Jan 2015

QVprod wrote:Basically these terms weren't written with commercial purposes in mind. It's more of a fun thing. Sure a music lawyer's input would be nice but I think what's stated is very clear. By uploading you're essentially providing royalty free material for anyone to use however they choose while you have a right to do the same with any material anyone else has uploaded.

Basically if you wan't to use the service without giving up your rights to royalties, you have to keep stuff you upload unlisted, send your stuff directly to people you want to collaborate with and hopefully they're kind enough not to rip you off either. With that in mind it's simple enough (and possibly safer) to just send a stereo wave file or mp3 with the bpm to whoever you collab with through regular email as in that case it would not be royalty free.

Personally the only use I see for Discover, is an easy way to get Take and Figure songs into Reason.
I just don't understand why they've done it like that. It seems like they've just decided people can't sell music anymore, or at least Reason/Take/Figure users can't so let's not bother with protecting people from exploitation.

But people are making money from music, and people do use Reason to make money from music. I have, and who am I? I'm just one dude.

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EnochLight
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30 Jan 2015

Faastwalker wrote:So, by uploading something to Discover in the public domain you waive rights of ownership, according to Propellerhead? Doesn't this fly in the face of basic copyright laws concerning ownership of intellectual property?! :?
EnochLight wrote:

No, you do not waive the right of ownership (please read the EULA part 3.1). Copyright laws vary from region to region.
Faastwalker wrote:
This;
Faastwalker wrote:3.1
Faastwalker wrote: You retain all of your ownership rights in the Content that you create or upload to the Sharing Services.
Faastwalker wrote:

Faastwalker wrote:...... but then this;
Faastwalker wrote:

Faastwalker wrote:However, by uploading Content you grant every user and Propellerhead a non-exclusive right to use your music (with the right to sublicense). The license includes a right to copy, reproduce, communicate to the public, distribute, prepare derivative works of, modify and adapt your Content – even for commercial purposes – in any and all media and distribution methods and to the extent permitted by the Terms of Service. The license applies worldwide and is royalty-free and irrevocable.

Faastwalker wrote:It's not hard to see why people are confused by all this!! :s0106: In laymen's terms it says - You retain ownership rights in any content you upload ..... BUT ..... you grant anyone else who has access to your content to basically do what the hell they like with it, including using it for commercial gain, whilst giving you the finger!!
Faastwalker wrote:
[/color]

Oh I don't doubt it's confusing people, but it's clear that you do retain ownership - as stated in the first paragraph.  If what you asked was true (if you "waive rights of ownership")  then you would no longer be able to do anything with it commercially, etc.  
 
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Yorick
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30 Jan 2015

Enoch "ownership" here is simply a word meaning you can still do what you want with your own track. But you've given up the right to have a say in what another user does with a derivative work that contains your intellectual property. You cannot prevent the user selling the derivative work for a commercial you find unethical for example - the most obvious use of this agreement imho.
People may say "oh well how likely is it, someone will take my song & make $1,000,000 from it as a hit?" Not very likely.
But they could sell your song for $200 for an internet commercial for some local politician. Or sublicense the "beat" your hook gets used in, for $20 on Rocbattle. Or a host of other little ways people can make bibs and bobs from this "free music" you're licensing them for no money.

It all just further devalues music too.
"Of course it's free, music should be free"
Yeah, but coffee and beer isn't free....

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Gaja
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30 Jan 2015

QVprod wrote:Basically these terms weren't written with commercial purposes in mind. It's more of a fun thing. Sure a music lawyer's input would be nice but I think what's stated is very clear. By uploading you're essentially providing royalty free material for anyone to use however they choose while you have a right to do the same with any material anyone else has uploaded.

Basically if you wan't to use the service without giving up your rights to royalties, you have to keep stuff you upload unlisted, send your stuff directly to people you want to collaborate with and hopefully they're kind enough not to rip you off either. With that in mind it's simple enough (and possibly safer) to just send a stereo wave file or mp3 with the bpm to whoever you collab with through regular email as in that case it would not be royalty free.

Personally the only use I see for Discover, is an easy way to get Take and Figure songs into Reason.
Yorick wrote:
I just don't understand why they've done it like that. It seems like they've just decided people can't sell music anymore, or at least Reason/Take/Figure users can't so let's not bother with protecting people from exploitation.

But people are making money from music, and people do use Reason to make money from music. I have, and who am I? I'm just one dude.
I think you're leaving parts out here. It doesn't say anywhere: you're not allowed to use Reason or figure or take without using discover. They're not saying you agree not to publish anything anywhere but discover. Everybody can still work like they have before and publish work like they have before even if they have agreed to the discover tos. You're not selling your soul. To the contrary imo. Of course it's interesting to look at it from a professional pov, but it's not what it's intended for. I'd say it's more for fun, but if you happen to create something that makes it to the top, then nothing should stop you. Also nothing would force anyone not to also share possible royalties as well. Of course nothing forces one to do so, but decent people have been known to exist and maybe some of them might even also use discover. For me the question is would I share income with someone I collaborated with on something? Of course I would. I don't expect anyone to do the same, but I'd certainly share. On the other hand music isn't my main income, so I don't need to worry too much about that.
I'm not saying anyone would have to see it that way, but it certainly a view that's capable of calming the upset excitement a bit.
Cheers!
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normen
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30 Jan 2015

Faastwalker wrote:So, by uploading something to Discover in the public domain you waive rights of ownership, according to Propellerhead? Doesn't this fly in the face of basic copyright laws concerning ownership of intellectual property?! :?
EnochLight wrote: No, you do not waive the right of ownership (please read the EULA part 3.1). Copyright laws vary from region to region.
At least in germany you can't sell your ownership rights to anyone anyway. If its done by you you have the ownership rights, period.

The way I understand this license for Discover is that you grant a right to use *exactly this* rendering of the performance, music or whatever. That what you download from Discover. So if someone was to download your genius hookline from discover and likes it and then proceeds to make a song where he sings, plays or otherwise performs it himself then he'd infringe your copyright on the *music*. If he'd just include it as you uploaded it to Discover he'd be fine.

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jfrichards
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30 Jan 2015

Yorick wrote:...they could sell your song for $200 for an internet commercial for some local politician. Or sublicense the "beat" your hook gets used in, for $20 on Rocbattle. Or a host of other little ways people can make bibs and bobs from this "free music" you're licensing them for no money...
This is a very good point Yorick.  It points to the idea that you should not post any music on Discover that you think has any potential for commercial use.  As it stands now, the bra1nbox/heygo/fielding/lunesis piece with the hook "Memories Remain" could be taken by anyone and sold by them as a jingle for Hallmark Cards.  I still think it would not hold up in court, but is a normal musician going to take the difficult path of suing to get their $1000?  Probably not.

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Yorick
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30 Jan 2015

Yorick wrote:...they could sell your song for $200 for an internet commercial for some local politician. Or sublicense the "beat" your hook gets used in, for $20 on Rocbattle. Or a host of other little ways people can make bibs and bobs from this "free music" you're licensing them for no money...
jfrichards wrote:
This is a very good point Yorick.  It points to the idea that you should not post any music on Discover that you think has any potential for commercial use.  As it stands now, the bra1nbox/heygo/fielding/lunesis piece with the hook "Memories Remain" could be taken by anyone and sold by them as a jingle for Hallmark Cards.  I still think it would not hold up in court, but is a normal musician going to take the difficult path of suing to get their $1000?  Probably not.
I don't know about you bro, but I'd call the police if someone stole my $200 guitar, or my wallet that had $20 in it. If you're fine with people making $200 here and there from something you wrote, while you make nothing, upload it to Discover. I'm not cool with that, nor with taking what someone created and making money from it.

Until I knew for certain, that's why I experimented with only uploading this sort of silliness: http://phead.mu/s/NNAcHs5x
If you can turn that silly lyric/vocal into something that makes money, you deserve it. :D
But I don't have R8, only Take/Figure, and the license agreement wasn't anywhere I could find until someone posted it here.
I must have agreed to it prior to uploading though... :frown:

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Yorick
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30 Jan 2015

Faastwalker wrote:So, by uploading something to Discover in the public domain you waive rights of ownership, according to Propellerhead? Doesn't this fly in the face of basic copyright laws concerning ownership of intellectual property?! :?
EnochLight wrote: No, you do not waive the right of ownership (please read the EULA part 3.1). Copyright laws vary from region to region.
normen wrote:
At least in germany you can't sell your ownership rights to anyone anyway. If its done by you you have the ownership rights, period.

The way I understand this license for Discover is that you grant a right to use *exactly this* rendering of the performance, music or whatever. That what you download from Discover. So if someone was to download your genius hookline from discover and likes it and then proceeds to make a song where he sings, plays or otherwise performs it himself then he'd infringe your copyright on the *music*. If he'd just include it as you uploaded it to Discover he'd be fine.
Yeah you're not selling away your copyright. That's what happens in a "work for hire" ghostwriter agreement for example, which I guess you're saying is illegal in Germany.
This is an assignment of a perpetual license to use your copyrighted material. You as owner of your copyright, assign permission for other Discover users to use your material to create derivative works, to then sell/license/giveaway etc.

It's quite possible a Discover user could grab hundreds or thousands of the better quality pieces from Discover, adjust them a little, and put them on a sync license library for example. Hey if you can do that, there's some money for you. But I don't think that's cool.

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EnochLight
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30 Jan 2015

Yorick wrote:Enoch "ownership" here is simply a word meaning you can still do what you want with your own track. But you've given up the right to have a say in what another user does with a derivative work that contains your intellectual property. You cannot prevent the user selling the derivative work for a commercial you find unethical for example - the most obvious use of this agreement imho.
People may say "oh well how likely is it, someone will take my song & make $1,000,000 from it as a hit?" Not very likely.
But they could sell your song for $200 for an internet commercial for some local politician. Or sublicense the "beat" your hook gets used in, for $20 on Rocbattle. Or a host of other little ways people can make bibs and bobs from this "free music" you're licensing them for no money.

It all just further devalues music too.
"Of course it's free, music should be free"
Yeah, but coffee and beer isn't free....
Yorick,

This is not unlike content one would share in a community Refill. The exact same scenario could happen.
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Yorick
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30 Jan 2015

Yorick wrote:Enoch "ownership" here is simply a word meaning you can still do what you want with your own track. But you've given up the right to have a say in what another user does with a derivative work that contains your intellectual property. You cannot prevent the user selling the derivative work for a commercial you find unethical for example - the most obvious use of this agreement imho. People may say "oh well how likely is it, someone will take my song & make $1,000,000 from it as a hit?" Not very likely. But they could sell your song for $200 for an internet commercial for some local politician. Or sublicense the "beat" your hook gets used in, for $20 on Rocbattle. Or a host of other little ways people can make bibs and bobs from this "free music" you're licensing them for no money. It all just further devalues music too. "Of course it's free, music should be free" Yeah, but coffee and beer isn't free....
EnochLight wrote: Yorick, This is not unlike content one would share in a community Refill. The exact same scenario could happen.
But a community refill is very different in that it's mostly sounds and templates to create musical ideas, rather than lyrics, vocals, melodies, hooks and other unique musically performed components.
I contributed to the Ochen K Chip84 refill and it's nothing like writing a vocal line or melodic hook and putting it on Discover for someone to add a kick drum to, and sell.

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Some Desperate Glory
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Location: San Francisco

30 Jan 2015

joeyluck wrote:
See it's this type of thinking that I cannot understand. It's bitter and it's greedy. We know the terms up front. There's no need to think about battling for royalties. It's a sharing service in which you grant other users rights by uploading to it.

And again, if there's something you don't see value in that you upload and someone else makes money from it, you would then become serious about what you wrote? Sounds like the family member that comes along once you become rich and famous; ready to cash in because they are tied to you by blood. 
I do hear what you're saying, Joey, but I'm more worried about the collateral damage.  If Discover takes off I wonder how it will affect the people who make their living writing music for videos and advertisements and the like.  If you can scrape all kinds of high-quality, royalty free music for free off discover, why would you ever pay a freelance musician again?

I think this might have the unintended consequence of being another ratchet in the devaluation of professional musicians.

So while you may use the service just for fun by uploading high-quality music snippets you could be inadvertently competing with professional musicians.  And let me tell you, it's hard to compete with free.
Still nostalgic about the old days, writing songs with my Amiga 500, Korg M1, and Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler.

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EnochLight
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30 Jan 2015

Yorick wrote:But a community refill is very different in that it's mostly sounds and templates to create musical ideas, rather than lyrics, vocals, melodies, hooks and other unique musically performed components.
I contributed to the Ochen K Chip84 refill and it's nothing like writing a vocal line or melodic hook and putting it on Discover for someone to add a kick drum to, and sell.
A community refill can contain any content you want, including rex files (loops, entire song portions, etc), waves, complete Reason song files, hooks, etc.  One could certainly argue that what could be done with that sort of content is far more flexible and more powerful than a stereo mixed down compressed MP4 via Discover...

Just because you yourself haven't contributed such content to any of the refills you've participated in doesn't mean it doesn't exist or couldn't be used that way.  I have plenty of refills with that sort of content.
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

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joeyluck
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30 Jan 2015

joeyluck wrote:
See it's this type of thinking that I cannot understand. It's bitter and it's greedy. We know the terms up front. There's no need to think about battling for royalties. It's a sharing service in which you grant other users rights by uploading to it.

And again, if there's something you don't see value in that you upload and someone else makes money from it, you would then become serious about what you wrote? Sounds like the family member that comes along once you become rich and famous; ready to cash in because they are tied to you by blood. 
Some Desperate Glory wrote:
I do hear what you're saying, Joey, but I'm more worried about the collateral damage.  If Discover takes off I wonder how it will affect the people who make their living writing music for videos and advertisements and the like.  If you can scrape all kinds of high-quality, royalty free music for free off discover, why would you ever pay a freelance musician again?

I think this might have the unintended consequence of being another ratchet in the devaluation of professional musicians.

So while you may use the service just for fun by uploading high-quality music snippets you could be inadvertently competing with professional musicians.  And let me tell you, it's hard to compete with free.
That's a good point. But there is tons of free stuff out there already. I don't think Discover will become the Mecca of places to go to download music for free use—as it currently is not optimized for search. And again, there's tons of other free stuff out there.  That's if they wish to use free use music.  All the commercials and films I've worked on, they pay someone for rights (as the typically also want to be able to ask for changes).

Plus, many of these folks here who are debating over what the terms of service really mean, are the same folks saying that they would never record vocals with a phone or write a song with a mobile app... Saying it's 'not professional.' Yet, at the same time they are anxious that it might be good enough for the professional industry?

I'd love to see the terms of service of Discover reworked.  You make a good point. 
My responses are mostly towards the folks who are already responding like they have been wronged. Even when they know the terms of service of front and haven't even used the service...

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platzangst
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Joined: 16 Jan 2015

30 Jan 2015

Yorick wrote: I don't know about you bro, but I'd call the police if someone stole my $200 guitar, or my wallet that had $20 in it. If you're fine with people making $200 here and there from something you wrote, while you make nothing, upload it to Discover. I'm not cool with that, nor with taking what someone created and making money from it.
But if you gave someone a $200 guitar as a Christmas gift, you would be a jerk if they used it to record a hit song and then you came looking for your $200 back.

Anyone who pays attention to what they participate in should already understand that uploading material to Discover is, essentially, a gift to all other users. This should not be a surprise to anyone who can read.

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platzangst
Posts: 728
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

30 Jan 2015

Some Desperate Glory wrote: I do hear what you're saying, Joey, but I'm more worried about the collateral damage.  If Discover takes off I wonder how it will affect the people who make their living writing music for videos and advertisements and the like.  If you can scrape all kinds of high-quality, royalty free music for free off discover, why would you ever pay a freelance musician again?
A few points:

There are already some royalty-free sources of music - not a lot, and arguably not of the best quality. One would assume that after one lifts out of the local and amateur scenes, though, an ad agency is going to value original compositions over some generic music just anyone can get.

Even so, there are construction kits that one can get for dirt cheap from various suppliers. Does a studio musician really see all that much money from "Pro Commercial Stings Vol. 5" that someone buys off of Big Fish for 15 bucks? They certainly won't get the same kind of royalties the ad agency will generate.

At worst, Discover may enable some people to take shortcuts in producing music. But taking shortcuts does not necessarily mean achieving success - someone with no talent or ear for music isn't going to be able to construct a pleasing commercial soundtrack solely out of a handful of random Discover bits, certainly not on a regular enough basis that they're going to become the high-in-demand soundtrack producer that all the ad agencies are looking for.

The mechanisms that devalue the worth of freelance musicians are already in place; in my opinion Discover will do little to change that trend one way or the other.

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normen
Posts: 3431
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

30 Jan 2015

Yorick wrote:But a community refill is very different in that it's mostly sounds and templates to create musical ideas, rather than lyrics, vocals, melodies, hooks and other unique musically performed components.
I contributed to the Ochen K Chip84 refill and it's nothing like writing a vocal line or melodic hook and putting it on Discover for someone to add a kick drum to, and sell.
If you think so, don't upload your stuff to Discover.. I think programming a kick-ass synth preset is pretty much the same as putting down a kick-ass take, it probably even takes longer to do so and certainly doesn't take less skill. I also think that the current generation mostly has no issue with people re-mixing their stuff (in any way, see youtube etc.). And if that hookline or whatever is the cause for that "fame" that brought in money.. You can still use it yourself to make the same money..

I am seeing stuff like this constantly, I am a co-developer of an open source game engine. Most people just use what we did in months worth of our spare time and make a game to sell it on some app store.. A few people come back and contribute something back to the engine that I in turn could use to make a game myself..

You can still use Discover to make music with single people, if its not public then its not open for public use. And I'm pretty sure they add some way to get a revenue stream from Discover as well at some point. Still can't agree to your basic notion of Discover and what it does in its current form being a no-go at all.

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