Is this considered my original work?
Hi,
I am writing a song that is supposed to have little bits and pieces of songs from a game called Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Almost the entire song is my original work, but there are a handful of notes that are intended to reference the game's music. It's supposed to be kind of a challenge to see if you can find the parts that are from the game's soundtrack. When I upload this song, should I call it my original work or not? It's only I think 4 groups of 4 notes, but they are intended to be a copy so I don't know if it's ok or not.
Comments
We're not lawyers here, so don't take this as legal advice:
If you're not copying an "substantial recognizable" melody then you should be fine. In any case, if you publish via musescore.com it has got you covered. Meaning that if your score is deemed a violation by Nintendo, they can file in a claim and .com will make the score a private score and notify you.
In reply to We're not lawyers here, so… by jeetee
Sure about the notify part of that? A few of my scores have copyright claims against them (and for good reason), but I never got notified, instead I found that out my accident. Then again they were unlisted anyway, even before that claim...
In reply to Sure about the notify part… by Jojo-Schmitz
Hmm.. perhaps no more, I got one of those mails back in the Thomas days
It depends on the degree of inspiration.
If the original theme you inspired is still recognizable in your work, unfortunately it is not entirely your work. You could call it "Variations on XXX" and you must cite the original work as well. It is up to the firm, which is the representative of the owner of the work, whether a claim is made or not.
The citation/inspiration shouldn't exceed its purpose.
If the original theme is not recognizable at all and the part you inspired is limited to a few notes (but really few), no claim will be made.
Let's say: if you use the first three notes of "Autumn Leaves" and the rest of the melody and rhythms aren't at all similar to the rest of the piece it cannot be claimed// d e f | gagf edef d c# | a gf edcbb ag# ab | ...
Even if claimed, they cannot win because these three notes don't constitute a theme and they don't monopolize the use of these three notes.
Conversely: Of course, if a piece consists of the repetition of three/four notes with the same intervals with continuous repetition to other degrees, then we can assume that this constitutes a piece of melody/theme. example: The opening theme of Beethoven's 5th Symphony: ggg eb, | fff d, |
It depends on the degree of inspiration.
In reply to It depends on the degree of… by Ziya Mete Demircan
Ok. So what about 4 or 5 notes? And I have them mixed into the measures, so you might have a note and then a 4 note pattern that is inspired from the soundtrack, and then a few more notes.
In reply to Ok. So what about 4 or 5… by [DELETED] 38870950
I've pretty much explained the criteria to you; You make your decision with these in mind.
Sometimes 4 notes are more, sometimes 6 notes are less. It depends.