Music PWADs and copyrights

[Maes]

I had the intention of releasing an old PWAD of mine which I made and kept for private use only and which contains .MUS conversions of my favourite songs (in MIDI format) but I stopped and checked what was the official idgames archive upload policy for music PWADs...

Well, other than an official heated warning against uploading commercial MP3s, I saw that in general music PWADS using MIDI of commercial music are very looked upon by players, and somehow lie in a "grey zone", from a legal point of view, like MIDI sites do, after all.

So, what's the actual story?

Should I go on and publish my commercial-midi filled PWAD or I should better keep it to myself, like I always had?

[myk]

Is that just a bunch of commercial MIDIs dumped into a PWAD or does it include levels as well?

If it's just MIDIs you might as well keep it stored there on your machine; mostly because if people want such MIDIs they can go get them from the many available MIDI archives.

[Maes]

myk said:

Is that just a bunch of commercial MIDIs dumped into a PWAD or does it include levels as well?

Only music, as the name "music PWAD" suggests, and like most PWADs under "\music" at idgames archive.

I saw that the ones containing commercial stuff (such as the infamous BEATLES.WAD) are all either very old (1994-1998 being the most common years), and most contain negative reviews not much about the quality, but about the lack of originality/using copyrighted material.

The only exceptions are those containing original music...well, so I guess I should forget publishing my Eurobeat Collection 2 PWAD :-)

[myk]

Right; back then many people used slow modems so it was hard to spend time and energy scourging the Internet for the only MIDIs one could use back then, other than ripping from other games or making one's own, so those compilations may have made sense for early wad makers. But now...

[Maes]

myk said:

Right; back then many people used slow modems so it was hard to spend time and energy scourging the Internet for the only MIDIs one could use back then, other than ripping from other games or making one's own, so those compilations may have made sense for early wad makers. But now...

Bah, music haters :-(

I also asked elsewhere so I can get a clear idea of what exactly happens with the copyright of those "internet MIDI files".

Sure, there are a few cases where you can legally purchase them (usually only from a music store, and you would be interested only if you're a professional musician or something), but most of the midis around seem to be just rearrangement by hobbyists.

Sure, there might be the occasional "studio leakage" case, but 99% of existing midis are hobbyist rearrangements.