first of all: hi to all! i´ve been reading this forum passivly for two day´s and now i decided to join :) if my english and my spelling is bad, pls be patient (it´s just school english, my native thounge is german) i´ve got some legal questions concerning sfx libraries as i read in gamasutra some developers use commercial sfx libraries and of course most of the musicians/sound designers do. what if someone aks me for sfx and i use a sample from one of those libraries (only those for which i own a license of course). would it be ok to charge money for it? "resell it"? for my understanding it wouldnt be right to sell it. as far as i know (pls correct me) it is ok to use them in your music but what about single samples (a gunshot for instance)? are those licenses tranferable? or does the developer have to buy a license from the producer of the sample library but what if i did a "preselection" of suitable sounds that includes samples from a dozen libraries? does the developer have to buy licenses from each producer of those libraries? and (this is my last question :-) ) is it ok to alter those sounds (like mixing several sounds, cut them, using a pitch shifter, reverb etc.) and claim them your own? this is part of the sound designing process in my opinion.... well maybe those questions are too "newbie" but i´m still looking forward to read your answers :-) p.s.: i didn´t post this thread in the beginners forum because the main topic there seems to be coding and technical stuff...

You're right - simply taking a sound from a sample library and selling it unsynchronised is forbidden. You have to alter it sufficiently to create a new sound.

You could charge for this service if you were hired by someone to create sound effects. However, it wouldn't be OK to alter a bunch of sound effects from a commercial library and try and sell them as if they were your own original sound effects. Then you'd be in direct competition with the original producer using a derivative of their work.

Your English is great :)

Quote: Original post by Kenbar
You're right - simply taking a sound from a sample library and selling it unsynchronised is forbidden. You have to alter it sufficiently to create a new sound. You could charge for this service if you were hired by someone to create sound effects. However, it wouldn't be OK to alter a bunch of sound effects from a commercial library and try and sell them as if they were your own original sound effects. Then you'd be in direct competition with the original producer using a derivative of their work.

thanks for the answer :-)

so it would be ok to mix a sonic warp sample, some rocket flairs and a pad sound, cutting them and sell it for a website as startup sound?

i´ve read that some producers of sample libs have special license agreements for web and game productions... (i didnt read one yet tho...) do you have experiences with those?

is there something like a general adivce/rule about this topic (something like "if you always do it like this you wont get any legal problems"? :-)

Quote: Original post by Kenbar

Your English is great :)

thanks alot (im trying my best, thats why it takes me at least 15min to write a post like thist one :P )

Quote: so it would be ok to mix a sonic warp sample, some rocket flairs and a pad sound, cutting them and sell it for a website as startup sound?

Yeah, that'd be cool so long as none of the library SFX were playing on their own (because then someone could steel them).

Quote: i´ve read that some producers of sample libs have special license agreements for web and game productions... (i didnt read one yet tho...) do you have experiences with those?

Like this:

http://www.sound-ideas.com/ringtones.html

Generally speaking, if your sounds are unsynched and anyone can rip them then you probably should be paying for the extra license. For example, many PC games use loose WAVs or the WAVs are easily extracted from the archive. In this case you should screw with the sound, much like in your web startup-sound example above.

General advice is:

* If you're really worried about it then don't use any library sounds.

* If you do use library sounds then screw with them and make them your own. You should do this anyway so that your project doesn't sound identical to others.

* If the sounds are synched in a linear soundtrack, like in a cutscene cinematic or a piece of music, then you don't have to worry about it.

You can find all kinds of royaly free sound effects libraries.

Besides that, a lot of sampling won't be considered sampling in court.

If you contact, say, sound forge. And you buy their Acid Pro, when you buy sound banks for it, you own a liscense. Liscenses can be tricy, but for the most part once you payed that first chunk, acid and sony sound forge are out of the deal.

What you always have to remember is that once you put the work in to make a track, that track is yours. No matter what fragment came from where. The rest of theworld is doing better with this...

And if anyone tries tp hassle you, seriously, take it as far as it takes to not go to court. If they want war, give them war. Intimidate them from even trying with a part of the recording. We get away with stealing everything these days.

I'm BORED with stealing shit, but hey, some people only do remixes.

If you bought a sound sample on a cd and you have a reciept, those sounds ARE yours.

If you dwnloaded them or piratd them in any other way then simply stealing them at sam ash, the probably have a signature attatched to them in order to identify them when heard.

cool.

Quote: Original post by NewbSabott
If you bought a sound sample on a cd and you have a reciept, those sounds ARE yours.

...and in the process you will have agreed to a licence agreement specific to that particular library/effect/however-it-was-packaged. The licence will tell you what you can and can't do with the sound. The same goes for free sound effects. If you've legally aquired a sound and used it in a piece of music or synched to an animated scene, or however you happen to be using it there shouldn't be a problem. The main area you can get into trouble is if you try to resell the sound in unaltered form.

thanks for the answers... :-) !

so it depends on the license those libs are under.

now im smarter


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