Hi all!

I am wondering the following.

How can you use music, in an online video game, without breaking license agreement. (video game in the browser)

The music pieces I refer to has a license type, where it states clearly, you can distribute it with a video game, but not as a stand alone piece.

The problem I have is that, if I would make my game online playable, the music, is also available through a link in the browser. This is not the intend, but since this is how the browser works, there is not much to do about it.

What can be done is: (1 or more at the same time)

1. Encrypt the music piece, so it can only be obtained through decrypting. Problem is that the decryption secret is also available through a link.
2. Obfuscate the links. So instead of http://mygame.com/mymusic/thegreatestsongever.mp3,​ it looks more like http://mygame.com/eyeg63eygey3ge3yeg3ygey3ge3geeve3e3.dat​​​ - of course hacking the code can expose again which url is the music.
3. Use tokens. So before getting the music, the game needs to request a token, and only with the token the music piece can be downloaded. - Of course the token can be easily found if someone is determined enough, by looking in the code, or all the downloaded resources.

I was hoping 1 and 2 may be sufficient to show “good intent”, to not distribute the piece of music all by itself. 3 could also be done, but is more complex, you need server side logic as well.

Thoughts, comments?

Thanks
/CKs

Does your game use entire licensed pieces? Not just portions?

Tom Sloper said:

Does your game use entire licensed pieces? Not just portions?

I am planning on buying some music pieces from a website. They should be as-is, in the game. So the whole tracks, not just a part of them. ?

Idea 4, may not be any better than the 1st 3: chop up the music into pieces and play the pieces in order, hopefully seamlessly.

Idea 5: embed the music in code, not as a separate asset.