A friendly warning

I absolutely adore KS, and have played numerous third-party levels, and this is the reason why I would like to warn the community (particularly newbies who are just starting to discover the world of third-party levels) about, well, certain levels becoming inaccessible after knyttlevels.com is redesigned and the copyright rule enforced. So (no spoilers):

Obviously, the legendary "Don't Eat the Mushroom" won't be available, as it uses a whole song by a commercial artist, without permission. Similarly obvious is the exclusion of Medic Ted's "A Psychedelic Adventure", which uses music from a commercial game without permission.

Slightly less obvious is that two absolutely gorgeous levels which both attained cult status, won't be available: "Riku Island" and "A Walk at Night". Both use a cover of Mark Seibert's song from Sierra's commercial game, "Quest for Glory"/"Hero's Quest", which is, I believe, not only used without permission but also without Seibert credited.

I love these levels. I think they're all masterpieces. And so do many other players, if the old forum is anything to judge by. This is why I'm posting this. If you haven't played them, get them while you can, while they're still available. Links to the old forum are forbidden now, but you can only get the latest version of "Riku Island" (v5.5) there. Look for it - try the environmental list by Elder at "Favorite level lists". Remember that all links to posts and topics there still work, you just have to substitute "forum" with "forum2" in a link to make it work.

(Also, of the newer levels, the recent environmental hit, "Knytt on the Moon", uses music from a commercial film without permission. The music itself is not copyrighted, but the recording used in the level is.)

No.....but you can replace the music with something very similar 

Quite honestly, when we start making copyright our main priority instead of putting in the music we love the level quality and quality in general declines. I highly doubt knyttlevels will be sued for copyright infringement. It's a stupid rule to make levels with copyrighted music on it unavailable and I highly stress you get rid of the rule.

Quite honestly, when we start making copyright our main priority instead of putting in the music we love the level quality and quality in general declines. I highly doubt knyttlevels will be sued for copyright infringement. It's a stupid rule to make levels with copyrighted music on it unavailable and I highly stress you get rid of the rule.

Just because its inconvenient doesn't mean we shouldn't follow the law.

The problem is, unlikely though it may be, it is possible that the archive and/or the forum might be forced down by a copyright infringement complaint.

Now, this probably won't happen, but it's not really worth it for the community as a whole to take the risk, and it's a bad idea for the forum management to appear to accommodate this sort of thing.

There really are many levels that will be affected by this. The reason they weren't taken down before was either because it was done without the knowledge of the staff, or because the level was hosted on some other filehosting site, so all that could be done in the short term was to remove the link, or because of various other reasons. Don't Eat the Mushroom is the most prominent example of a level that makes use of copyrighted material without permission. I'm actually surprised nothing was done about it at any point, and its existence and high visibility can only have encouraged a permissive attitude towards copyright infringement.

Now, however, since all levels are to be hosted on the same site, enforcement of the rule is going to be practical. There really are many levels from the "golden era" of KS levels that break the rule. I don't know what exactly is going to be done about them. Some levels will be able to survive without their music, or with replaced music (for authors who have gone MIA, someone with the level could perhaps strip it of the offending material, and then upload the level so it's still available). However, a good portion of these levels rely on the music. DEtM needs What Is Love? to maintain its aura of bizarreness. Lemme Take You To The Beach likewise, only more so since it's even named after the song. Vengeance needs its music to maintain its intense atmosphere, and replacing the music with the default ambient stuff would just kill it.

There are other examples. I suppose these levels are just going to be lost. (Of course, there won't be anything stopping users from trading "bootleg" copies of the offending levels outside the confines of the forum and archive- but this of course would be done at the users' own risk.) The loss of DEtM in particular will be painful, as it is responsible (by way of videos on YouTube and posts on other forums) for drawing in a good many users who otherwise would not know anything about KS.

Quote from: special_d on March 28, 2009, 20:16:18

Quite honestly, when we start making copyright our main priority instead of putting in the music we love the level quality and quality in general declines. I highly doubt knyttlevels will be sued for copyright infringement. It's a stupid rule to make levels with copyrighted music on it unavailable and I highly stress you get rid of the rule.

Just because its inconvenient doesn't mean we shouldn't follow the law.

Fair point, but then why do this NOW? Why the sudden decision? If it were that way from the beginning - hey, guys, don't make levels with copyrighted music - I'd have less of an issue with it, but just starting this spontaneously right now? It seems like it goes along with the upgrade which seems really lame.

Now, however, since all levels are to be hosted on the same site, enforcement of the rule is going to be practical. There really are many levels from the "golden era" of KS levels that break the rule. I don't know what exactly is going to be done about them. Some levels will be able to survive without their music, or with replaced music (for authors who have gone MIA, someone with the level could perhaps strip it of the offending material, and then upload the level so it's still available). However, a good portion of these levels rely on the music. DEtM needs What Is Love? to maintain its aura of bizarreness. Lemme Take You To The Beach likewise, only more so since it's even named after the song. Vengeance needs its music to maintain its intense atmosphere, and replacing the music with the default ambient stuff would just kill it.

And therefore this, is the problem with copyright - Mushroom wouldn't be the same without Haddaway, ditto for a number of other levels... and since music is such an integral part of KS getting rid of these things would be a terrible shame and would make the levels considerably worse.

Quote from: Razzorman on March 28, 2009, 20:41:50

Quote from: special_d on March 28, 2009, 20:16:18

Quite honestly, when we start making copyright our main priority instead of putting in the music we love the level quality and quality in general declines. I highly doubt knyttlevels will be sued for copyright infringement. It's a stupid rule to make levels with copyrighted music on it unavailable and I highly stress you get rid of the rule.

Just because its inconvenient doesn't mean we shouldn't follow the law.

Fair point, but then why do this NOW? Why the sudden decision? If it were that way from the beginning - hey, guys, don't make levels with copyrighted music - I'd have less of an issue with it, but just starting this spontaneously right now? It seems like it goes along with the upgrade which seems really lame.

It does go along with the upgrade. The upgrade makes it much easier for any copyright problems to be dealt with quietly and efficiently.

Not "Walk at night" 

My favourite level of all time... thats why i have three copies  (normal knytt stories, greenmod and just another copy) Muahahaha.

but seriously its such a shame, DetM , Riku Island and the new one knytt on the moon all down the internet drain.

But heres a problem, if we want to use certain music we have to contact the person who created it and ask thier permission, right? Well what happends if they're famous? The we can't use can we? (This might screw up the intro to the Scavenger series  )

Now i can say this is  "unfair" and other things but oviously the decision has been done and we have to suck it up. Thankfully i have a copy of every level you just named  so im set for life 

But its still a shame............... oh well. There will still be fantastic levels 

This has been the case in the past too. Not just now.

The principle will be the same as it used to be.

If you use copyrighted material in a level, it can get the forum/archive in trouble, because it basically means sharing a song that you normally have to pay for, and thus you got it illegally for free without the permission from the author.

Its the same as using a peer-to-peer network or even just uploading that mp3 file to the forum. You share something you haven't made without the artist knowing about it.

We will continue to act the same: Yes, it is illegal. And no, we will not check every level to see if its breaking the rule. If you indeed think you are above the law, and are willing to take the risk to put illegal music in your level, then be sure to know that it'll be taken down if we get a request and on top of that, we could be giving your ip adress to this party.

I also will have to put a "report this level" link on the archive, and if its used to tell us that a level has illegal music in it, we'll also will remove it (after confirming that it does).

So technically, if you're lucky, you could upload the level to the archive, and it could be there for some time.

Then again, it'll be on J's hosting service, so he might not want this cus he doesn't want to loose his hosting.

To combat this, I might add an option to have an url to your level instead of uploading it to the archive itself. That'll make it more secure for J in case of illegal levels.

Still, you're taking the biggest risk in uploading a level with illegal content. We just want to protect everyone.

Dont worry LPChip im not going to    (guess ill just use some defult music instead or ask some one with musical talent on the forum to help me instead )

if we want to use certain music we have to contact the person who created it and ask thier permission, right? Well what happends if they're famous? The we can't use can we? (This might screw up the intro to the Scavenger series  )

Actually you'd be surprised.

I believe limanjs16 (or James16) managed to get approval from Moby to use music in a level.

And for non-profit projects (small or big) if you ask politely (grab their email from the official site) they'll often grant authorization. Send them a link to download KS for themselves, so they can see what game their music is going to, tell them that you want to use one of their tunes in a level that you're designing to release to the community (maybe even send them a draft of the level) and ask for permission to use the music, and chances are it'll work.

Don't think that because their face is on the cover of "Rolling Stones" that they're untouchable and not interested. (although due to the sheer mass of emails that they recieve, it may take some time, and sometimes they'll not respond, or say no).

Quote from: Strange Darkness on March 29, 2009, 11:21:31

if we want to use certain music we have to contact the person who created it and ask thier permission, right? Well what happends if they're famous? The we can't use can we? (This might screw up the intro to the Scavenger series  )

Actually you'd be surprised.

I believe limanjs16 (or James16) managed to get approval from Moby to use music in a level.

And for non-profit projects (small or big) if you ask politely (grab their email from the official site) they'll often grant authorization. Send them a link to download KS for themselves, so they can see what game their music is going to, tell them that you want to use one of their tunes in a level that you're designing to release to the community (maybe even send them a draft of the level) and ask for permission to use the music, and chances are it'll work.

Don't think that because their face is on the cover of "Rolling Stones" that they're untouchable and not interested. (although due to the sheer mass of emails that they recieve, it may take some time, and sometimes they'll not respond, or say no).

Thanks for that  I might try that, the level still in progress and i think i might have to change the intro any way, it all depends in the end. (also i don't think i have seen DJ Shadow's face on any of the albums, just to let you know)

Yeah, it is a bit of a shame about the whole copy-right thing, the standark music is decent, but there isn't enough variety...

Oh yeah, I'm not sure if this the best place to ask this, but what should we do if we want to use music from a game?...

Yeah, it is a bit of a shame about the whole copy-right thing, the standark music is decent, but there isn't enough variety...

Oh yeah, I'm not sure if this the best place to ask this, but what should we do if we want to use music from a game?...

Thats gonna start a whole new arrgument! 
But anyways i think this rule applies for the game genre too. Because its gonna be even harder if u want permission from a company (eg. Bungie - who made Halo)