PC game music rights

Technically, you don't really "own" your computer games. You have a licence to use them, subject to the agreement you had to click on when you installed the game. So it might be legal, might not be, depends on the licence and how the courts would interpret it. If you actually owned the game itself, then you can transfer content from one format to another to your heart's content, as long as you don't distribute it. Unless you have to break any sort of copy protection to get to the data, then you run into the DMCA rules about that.

Upshot, probably not technically legal, but not something anyone is going to ding you over.

it's your property; you can use it anyhow you want - as long as it is personal use.fireandcloud

thats not true...your techically only renting the games...

as for the music issue, its possible it may not be legal since their are some games that have seperate "soundtrack" CS's.

[QUOTE="fireandcloud"]it's your property; you can use it anyhow you want - as long as it is personal use.cobrax25

thats not true...your techically only renting the games...

as for the music issue, its possible it may not be legal since their are some games that have seperate "soundtrack" CS's.

um not really. Renting means you are "barrowing" it and must return it at a later date.

Its varies based on the EULA, but the wait its been explained to me (by a law student friend of mine that concentrated on internet law) is that you paid money to own the intellectual properties of a copy of the game. You can do with it as you wish, so long as it doesnt go against the EULA.

To give you an example my friend gave me, EULAs say you cant reproduce the game for profit. This doesnt mean you cannot make 200 billion copies of the game for yourself, however. As for the music, they are part of the game and so long as you reproduce them for personal use only you can do with them as you please.

This carries over to modifications as well. Modders hack apart game code and customize it to their own ends, but they do not make a profit from it so its OK to do.

The moral of the story: do what you want, just dont make money off of it.

[QUOTE="cobrax25"]

[QUOTE="fireandcloud"]it's your property; you can use it anyhow you want - as long as it is personal use.mrbojangles25

thats not true...your techically only renting the games...

as for the music issue, its possible it may not be legal since their are some games that have seperate "soundtrack" CS's.

um not really. Renting means you are "barrowing" it and must return it at a later date.

Its varies based on the EULA, but the wait its been explained to me (by a law student friend of mine that concentrated on internet law) is that you paid money to own the intellectual properties of a copy of the game. You can do with it as you wish, so long as it doesnt go against the EULA.

To give you an example my friend gave me, EULAs say you cant reproduce the game for profit. This doesnt mean you cannot make 200 billion copies of the game for yourself, however. As for the music, they are part of the game and so long as you reproduce them for personal use only you can do with them as you please.

This carries over to modifications as well. Modders hack apart game code and customize it to their own ends, but they do not make a profit from it so its OK to do.

The moral of the story: do what you want, just dont make money off of it.

on ure last line....not really. u cant give a copy to someone. profit or not, thats also against the law.

u dont buy the game, nor are u renting it. when u buy a copy of the game, ure buying a licence to use the game..not the game itself. and that licence comes with restrictions (which can differ from country to country). u cant distribute it...at all...period. u cant give a copy away nor can u sell it. as far as the EULA is concerned thats breaking the law. ure not allowed to break the copy protection if there is any...offically thats against the law. in quite a few countries...ure also not allowed make a copy for backup purposes unless the EULA specifically says u can. things like modifying or reverse engineering a game without the publishers (not the developers in most cases....the publisher owns the game in most cases) consent is also a no no (though the chances are no one will prosecute for that). theres loads of other restrictions in the EULA too but those are the main ones as far as i know.

as for the TCs query...its a grey area legally speaking. technically ure not using it for the purpose it was intended (ie being heard while playing a game). alot of games soundtracks are also released seperately as an extra revenue source so ripping the music out of a game would undermine that (yes i know...those poor multinationals...my heart goes out to em :P). of course it could be argued that music exists to be heard..it doesent matter about the scenario that its heard in (IE playing a game). do rememebr though that the music in the game u buy is not ure property. like all music bought, it belongs to the publisher and they dictate the terms under which u can listen to it. so technically they could sue id say.

now in reality...the chances of actually being sued for doing it would be virtually nil id imagine. if u bought the game (a proper copy) and only used the music for personal use then i really couldnt see a court back the publisher unless the judge is a real asswipe. and the chances of a publisher getting in a hissy fit over it would also be extreemly low. as long as they cant proove that u have distributed it (for a fee or not, doesent matter) then i really cant see a case like that actually happening. fair use and all that.

on ure last line....not really. u cant give a copy to someone. profit or not, thats also against the law.

u dont buy the game, nor are u renting it. when u buy a copy of the game, ure buying a licence to use the game..not the game itself. and that licence comes with restrictions (which can differ from country to country). u cant distribute it...at all...period. u cant give a copy away nor can u sell it. as far as the EULA is concerned thats breaking the law. ure not allowed to break the copy protection if there is any...offically thats against the law. in quite a few countries...ure also not allowed make a copy for backup purposes unless the EULA specifically says u can. things like modifying or reverse engineering a game without the publishers (not the developers in most cases....the publisher owns the game in most cases) consent is also a no no (though the chances are no one will prosecute for that). theres loads of other restrictions in the EULA too but those are the main ones as far as i know.

as for the TCs query...its a grey area legally speaking. technically ure not using it for the purpose it was intended (ie being heard while playing a game). alot of games soundtracks are also released seperately as an extra revenue source so ripping the music out of a game would undermine that (yes i know...those poor multinationals...my heart goes out to em :P). of course it could be argued that music exists to be heard..it doesent matter about the scenario that its heard in (IE playing a game). do rememebr though that the music in the game u buy is not ure property. like all music bought, it belongs to the publisher and they dictate the terms under which u can listen to it. so technically they could sue id say.

now in reality...the chances of actually being sued for doing it would be virtually nil id imagine. if u bought the game (a proper copy) and only used the music for personal use then i really couldnt see a court back the publisher unless the judge is a real asswipe. and the chances of a publisher getting in a hissy fit over it would also be extreemly low. as long as they cant proove that u have distributed it (for a fee or not, doesent matter) then i really cant see a case like that actually happening. fair use and all that.

osan0

That's pretty much the whole story. Plus, if you don't tell anyone, no one will find out. Even if they do find out, nothing will happen unless you are some harcore distributor that sends copies to hundreds of people. At worst, they will ask you to remove the content and stop doing whatever illegal activity you were doing.

It's usually just not worth the fuss for them. Look at mods for example. Mods are illegal in most games but almost all publishers/developers don't care. That is, they don't care until they think that they will lose profit because of you. For example if you create a huge mod that looks a little like their future game, then they start threatening with a lawsuit and pointing at the small prints.

I'm pretty sure you can do it. Nobody would prosecute you for playing music from a game you legally purchased for your own use on your own devices. If the game has good enough music to listen to, then I think publishers would want people to be playing them on ipods "hey mang what you listening too", "C&C soundtrack", "Oh cool mang I gotta get that game" etc.

THe thing about EULA is that they arent really legal things.

EULAs are more of criteria the developer/publisher uses to tell if someone is doing something wrong. For example, lets say you rip music off a game and this goes against the EULA and you get caught somehow. The publisher will take you to court, and they will tell the judge why you deserve to be fined, but the EULA doesnt stipulate what your punishment should be, and it doesnt exactly use any laws.

Whether or not you are punished is determined solely by the legal system you abide by.

The worst a developer will do, if they even catch you, is send you a later saying "You owe us such and such" or "we are taking you to court"...they wont call the police, you wont go to jail.

In layman's terms, the EULA is like a tattletale system which works more like an honor system based on fear.