Regarding "Desert Exploration 1"

The phenomenon mentioned in the OP is called in music 'sampling'. All across music history artists have 'sampled' from other artists. This would be breaking copyrights in all technical fields like computers but with music, well sounds are sounds. You hear about all these artists nowadays saying 'so-so band inspired me' basically means they sampled what they liked from the sounds of X band. Just to toss a random example from top of my head: LL Cool J sampled almost directly from Earth Wind and Fire.

I think we're safe the way sampling has been handled in the past. Pretty much the only time someone can pull copyright is if you use a song complete and intact without permission, this counts karaoke versions as well. Re-mixes seem to be fine though.

 

Please note, that many people have noticed the reference to "Nyan Cat" independently. So one should not underestimate the possible outcome of a lawsuit.

And that the song was added to a .gif doesn't mean, that no one owns the copyright. There is still an artist somewhere on the world, who wrote this piece...

 

Not really. It's just a Japanese girl who uploaded it after using a Hatsune Mikku program. The song's free to use.

 

Haha that whole story is amazing and hilarious. Pretty sure the noble and dignified "meme copyright holders" are just looking for a settlement, given the absurd damages claimed. I doubt Starbound has anything to worry about, as they are comparatively smaller fish.

As a general FYI, sampling is a very iffy thing and fair use only goes so far if the intention is to profit from the work. LL Cool J or whoever (lol) almost definitely negotiated the right to sample from Earth Wind & Fire. Off the top of my head, I know The Verve lost most of their rights to the song "Bittersweet Symphony", even though they negotiated a sampling right, because it was argued they sampled "too much" in a legal filing. What I'm saying is copyright law is amazing and horrible.

 

Knowing what little I do about this crap, shouldn't WB be able to use these characters in their specific forms, as they copyrighted their game as a whole containing them in 2009 before the trademark was made in 2010. Basically, WB should have every right to use the two characters in the specific context of Scribblenauts. A claim might be made that they're the same or belong to someone else, but as of 2009 those objects in the game as they are, belong to WB, and the trademark of 2010 would merely render them unable to use them outside of that context.

 

Should not Kellogg's be suing the creators of Nyancat then? Pop Tart is not being public domain.

 

There is a certain percent that if modified by that much, it is a new product. I believe that if you modify it between 20 - 30% then it is a new product and you can't be sued for it.

 

But how do you quantify that?

 

No Idea?

 

Okay nevermind, It is apparently only on certain conditions

 

But the "Nyan Cat" song is free media. I don't see the problem, here.

 

Really? It's being sold on amazon by its creator atm, so I'm not sure if that's true. Do you have any evidence?

 

Last I heard on a case similar to this, the song was essentially fee media and anyone had the right to use it. It could have changed since then, but I think it still stands..

 

That's typically handled by lawyers who charge lots and lots of money.

 

Well, I really really really had to listen to hear the similarity, and even then I had to just infer on what was the supposed similarity. I'm guessing you're talking about the intro of the nyan cat song compared to the violin (I think?) part of desert exploration 1? If so, it's really only the like first 5 notes that uses a similar interval pattern. They are still different notes, and the part after that (the fast notes) are way different as well, and the full songs sound NOTHING alike (and the only part it sounds anything similar to is the first 3 seconds of the nyan cat song).

You can't sue for songs that are similar for a mere 3 seconds. Note, that I use similar lightly. Just cause it's a happy tune, that uses a similar rhythm doesn't mean it is similar. Listen to the notes and intervals really closely, and you'll hear plenty of differences.

Real talk though, the song gives me a mad Donkey Kong Country vibe (until the melody kicks in of course).

 

There's a huge difference between creative liberty (which that track is using) and outright taking resources from another person (which Scribblenauts is doing). The first is legal and not looked down upon at all. The second is illegal, a cause for suing, and highly frowned upon.

In other words, Starbound is fine. No worries.

 

Er, sampling is not the same as inspired at all, and is not what has happened here at all! When an artist says they were inspired by another artist, it is usually called an influence, and is very much not sampling. You don't hear them taking parts of their songs DIRECTLY from their recording (which is sampling).

Sampling (done heavily in hip hop and rap) is taking an already recorded song or sound (literally anything that is already recorded), finding some piece of it or sound you think sounds cool, and slicing it to use in a new song. It can be simple, such as slicing just the kick, or snare, to make your own drum kit soundpack for use in music making software (I've done this before, gives you plenty of realistic drumkits ;P), but a lot of times you'll hear it taking entire phrases or verses. They always add stuff to it though, such as drums and other melodies. They'll even chop up the samples to fit the rhythm better and to do scratching and etc. In fact, a lot of times you can hear sampling of movie lines!

A quick search brings me to a wikipedia definition of this.
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a sound recording in a different song or piece.

I don't mean to come off as a dick or pretentious or anything, so I hope I don't offend you.

 

Another thing that should be mentioned is the statistics and probability behind making a song. (Sorry, I know it's dry, but I'm an engineer, I can't help it.)

There are only so many notes that humans can hear, and only a fraction of those are enjoyable to listen to. (I.e., you don't want to listen to high-pitched squealing music, right?) There are also a limited number of rhythms that can make up a song. Even though the combinations that make up the melodies we hear are highly, highly varied, statistics say that at some point there will be some overlap. So it's entirely possible Curtis was just composing music as normal and that part happens to sound like Nyan Cat. It's coincidence, nothing more, and you can't really sue for coincidence.

Ah, but nowhere on the site does it say that it's a Pop Tart. It's just a generic toaster pastry. Kellogg's has no grounds to sue.

Similar to the post above, the few (10? 20?) notes in the Starbound song that resemble the Nyan Cat song could be from anywhere, including independently composed by Curtis. Just because a binch of people "recognize" something doesn't mean that's a reason to sue; lots of people "recognized" the Nyan Cat's Pop Tart, but it's not, it's a generic toaster pastry.

The reason WB is getting sued is because they use the exact art that sybolizes Nyan Cat. It can't possibly be mistaken for anything else. There's not "generic" Nyan Cat - there's just the one.

 

Yeah, plenty of grocery stores do their own off-brand pop tarts.

 

Nope, you bought facts out to the table. I was generalizing too much on that, but this particular case taking similar 'sounds' means taking similar patterns of notes which I consider sampling, even if it's not direct it's still mimicking the sound. At this point it's semantics and how you view the subject. I don't think similar sounds should be anything worth suing over, that would be like suing a game for using the same color blue in it's main menu.