ZDoom

How about remix/cover/rearrangement/etc?
Cover and remix are avaliable on yutube and no one in hurry to delete it and give ban with subpoena to uploader.
But sometime I find videe with annotations like "Audio track "Paganini-Caprice no.24" was deleted due the right holder's request". Who is that mystery right holder?
Violinist which play it?
Sound studio which record it?
Relative of Paganini?
Paganini itself in the, a little rotten, flesh?

Spoiler:

---

Besides I dont think some skrilex, rihanna, dragonforce, or what is now popular, experimental death-concrete-deep house-cyberpunk, I dont know, start hunt down anyone who use part of their track in not so popular doom map/mod, to take time for it.
Some EXTREMEsphere sound for example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsEWdf-O_DQ
https://youtu.be/EW4kTuG04og?t=34s

It is usually the record company that does this, for what it's worth. I had a video once with music from a Namco game on it, and the copyright claim came from JVC/Victor, who sold the OST disc that the song came from.

Fan-made remixes, reduxes, covers etc. are fine, unless of course, the creator sells it for cash. Radio and club mixes are a bit more worrisome, as these are usually made by third-parties who obtained permission from the original author, and as such, must be paid for by radios, discos etc. to play it. However, if an individual Youtube user, amateur musician or creative independent artist creates a remix or cover out of the song, it won't get you into trouble (take a look on the countless Doom remixes).

Reactor wrote:Fan-made remixes, reduxes, covers etc. are fine, unless of course, the creator sells it for cash.

Whether or not you're infringing on copyright doesn't at all depend on whether you get money for it (although you can be hit harder if you make a certain amount of money off of the infringement, but it's still infringement even if you make no money off of it). Covers are generally close enough to the original to be considered derivative works, thus need permission from the copyright holder. I don't know the legal status of remixes, but I'd imagine it depends on how different it is from the original as to whether it's considered transformative (transforming the original into a new separate thing) or derivative (an alternate version derived from the original), with the former being in the clear and the latter covered by the original's copyright.

Also, don't confuse complacency with legality. Just because companies haven't gone after someone for something doesn't mean that someone is legally clear (and conversely, even if a company has gone after someone doesn't mean that someone isn't legally in the right). A company's action or inaction only indicates a company's action or inaction, not whether someone is doing something illegal or not.

Not to mention, Youtube takedowns generally happen because the Content ID bot picks up the "audio fingerprint" of a given song - generally either a hash or checksum of the audio overall, or a deliberately embedded bit of data that exists in the inaudibly low part of the sound spectrum. But just because a given thing (like a cover) doesn't match the audio fingerprint of an existing song doesn't make you immune to getting a copyright strike - it just means the bot doesn't do it to you automatically. If the rights holder finds your video, they have every right to issue a takedown notice to you themselves.

I don't get it...aren't companies after piracy and plagiarism? A remix or cover is neither...

Reactor wrote:I don't get it...aren't companies after piracy and plagiarism? A remix or cover is neither...

But you're generating traffic (and occasionally money, via ad support or Patreon) with someone else's creation (in this case, the written music and lyrics, not the recording).

Reactor wrote:I don't get it...aren't companies after piracy and plagiarism?

Cost vs savings. If it would cost them more to go after someone than they'd save or get back by the reduction in piracy, there's less incentive for them to do it. If it would cost them a couple thousand to sue you, but they'd only get back a couple hundred for their effort for example, what's the point? They'd have more money by not doing anything. They may do it anyway as a deterrent (to "send a message" that any random person could be next), or they may not consider a specific instance worth the cost. Again, whether they do or not doesn't speak to the legality of what you're doing.

Reactor wrote:I don't get it...aren't companies after piracy and plagiarism? A remix or cover is neither...

Correct. But you are missing something important here:

Record companies are the most rabid pursuers of copyright infringement. But as things are they rarely own the rights to the composition. They only own the right to the recording.
So, they cannot do ANYTHING when you cover a song they happen to distribute. The composer/publisher of the song, on the other hand, could, but there's various means in place to ensure that they still get their money so they normally do not feel the need to go after you.

In Germany, there's GEMA, for example, and other countries have similar institutions - and you can be certain that sites like Youtube have to pay quite a bit of money to them to cover this kind of use of music.

So the bottom line is, it is better to ask the company of the original song, from what the MIDI was composed whether or not it's good to go. If you get a response that it's fine, then I guess it's no skin off your nose.
I did the same with the used Tristania songs (they had to be converted to IMF format to be of any use), and I got a positive response from the authors themselves. With this permission, I had no troubles publishing the game.

What "company"? The record company has nothing to say here and cannot give you any ok. You have to ask the publisher of the song's composition - not the recording! - and that's not easy to deduce from just looking at a CD most of the time. In general, the composer is the owner here.

Yes, I was referring to whom the copyright is labeled. Most of the time, it's the original author.