What's your stand on downloading music from games? I understand many of the older games won't have soundtracks to buy but does that make it ok to take the music? And if it does have a soundtrack, would it be just as illegal as copying band music?
- Mike
Posting a recorded soundtrack that is still available for purchase is illegal. It's different than a band because the band's have publishers for their works, Colombia, Sony BMG, Atlantic, etc., while games publishers are for the games themselves, not the music. Band's producers and record labels make their money off the music, but you buy a game for the experiance, not the sound. It would be comparable to downloading an image of Mario. Nobody complains about that, but if you put the Mona Lisa all over the net, people might get fussy. A bit of a stretch, yes, but the point's still there.
You'll notice that our Halo Soundtrack features several dozen more tracks than the Official Soundtrack, but also has grunt/flood/other effects in it. We also feature a "Buy Here" button for Sumthing's Official Soundtrack.
I've written many, many letters to publishers and developers of games to ask about posting soundtracks. Most don't reply, some say they appreciate our support, and some say they could care less, but I would NEVER post a soundtrack if a company didn't want it. One letter I received back (from the Electronic Arts legal team) explained it very well....paraphrasing, they said that essentially, postin gthe music from a game (if recorded directly from the game, not from a soundtrack CD) is no different than someone taking a screenshot or a movie of the game on a website like IGN or GameSpy. So long as you're not making money off of it (profiting is the correct term) then the company usually doesn't mind at all because in essence you're promoting their game.
If you can buy the soundtrack on anything other than EBay (meaning retail locations or their corresponding websites), we will not feature those songs on our website. In other words, if you can buy it somewhere, it won't be here.........we may have our own version of it, but we will not feature "purchasable" music.
Good question, hope that helps ;)
So downloading music off this site is not illegal? I want to be 110 percent sure, since I really want to download Donkey Kong music and I don't want to get in trouble.
It's not illegal as far as we know... but if a publisher says no through one contacting the other, said tracks will be removed and/or not featured. We aim to be one of (if not THE) place to get your favorite tunes without worry :).
- Mike