Audio Submission Terms.

[Rucklo]

Did anyone ever read what it actually says when you submit an audio to the Newgrounds AudioPortal ???

Well, follow the first link and read it if you haven´t. If you have, go read it again.

It all seem OK to you? Sure it does. There is only ONE con here;
When you submit audio to the AP, you give permission to Flash authors to use your music, free of charge.

This will actully mean that ANYONE using flash can use your music in their projects. And ANYONE includes companies, that for example could be producing flash-commersials for various webpages. This might lead to the fact that someones audio, that originally got submitted to the NGAP, is part of a project that a company might make loads and loads of cash from.
They don´t even have to credit the author! Check the terms for submitting;

When you submit your audio, please be aware:

1. You are making the legal claim that it is your own original work.
2. Loops you made from existing copyrighted songs are not your own original work.
3. If you turn out to not be the original author, you will be responsible for any repercussions.
4. You are giving permission to Flash authors to use your audio, free of charge.
5. You will remain the owner and credited author of the submission.

Nr. 4 and specially nr. 5 are interesting in this case;

"5. You will remain the owner and credited author of the submission."

This in no way would mean that anyone actually HAVE TO credit you, it only protects your song from theft.
I belive most artists would be cool with their stuff being used all over the place, but do know that this actually could have consequences that noone could forsee.
The terms are quite old, and things changes. The AP today is NOT what it was when totally fresh in 2003. The AP was from the beginning thought of as a portal for short loops, but it has grown into something totally different.

The A-Bot on the AP FrontPage (that green robot to the left) says;

"The music in this part of Newgrounds was created by NG users! It´s free for all flash authors to use in their flash games and movies!

This collaboration provides exposure for aspiring musicians, while flash artists don´t have to worry about royalty fees, and licensing fees! F-U RIAA!"

What I suggest here is that we (the audio artists) come up with ideas in this thread, what we think would be suitable and fair.
Remember what the A-Bot says though, and remember that the AP is here for the flash artists. Also remember that the AP is a way to not having to worry about the RIAA, it is a legal alternative to not using copyrighted material in flash projects.

What I would like to prevent is that some company screws serious and hardworking artists over, maybe perhaps even from music being submitted to other sites than NG without the authors permission...?!!
We can use this thread for discussion of such, and in a couple of weeks or so, we´ll notify Tom about this thread and what we´ve come up with.
Hopefully he can see things our way, and see to it that some reasonable changes for the terms are made.

Let´s try and see what happens! At least I hope this thread can create some discussion about the subject it touches! Perhaps something from here could be very valid when the future AP revamp gets done?!?!

I´ll go first here by suggesting/pointing out that;

- I belive it would be in NG´s interest to get credit for the music it host, one way or another. I belive that if flash authors want to use music they fond on NG, they should also bind themself SUBMITTING the flash (with proper audio credits of course:) to NG.

- If someone wants to use the music on other websites then NG, or for financial gain, I belive the author should be contacted and questioned about this first!

Basicly what I´m after here is just a legal note, just in case something bad happens. Also I realise that if some changes do take place, the new changes will be valid for music submitted from the date the new terms are presented. All music until the day will be under the "old" terms (the ones we now have).
I have read the terms and this thread is a result of my personal understanding of them.

[Triskele]

You basically wrote everything that was on my mind...damn you, now I have nothing to contribute.

Nice thread :D

[Rucklo]

At 6/16/06 08:19 PM, Triskele wrote: You basically wrote everything that was on my mind...damn you, now I have nothing to contribute.

Weee nice one. :D Well, try to twist and turn it. Its very late here (2am), so my thinking isnt directly peaking (im working all night hubba!).

- Are there any cons with this?
- What would Tom and NG agree to edit, and make changes of the terms?

If we want anything to get through herem we´re gonna have to make this as realistic as possible!

[starbucks95905]

i am currently not cool with my audio bein used all over, i want mine used nowhere but newgrounds

[DavidOrr]

This is exactly why I put previews of my full songs, and none of my better music. All my stuff on Newgrounds is all essentially rejected stuff that didn't go into somthing else.

I would have to see someone else getting credit for a song I wrote that I was really proud of.

[Rucklo]

Huh... That is a shame and a big loss for NG indeed.
You guys have any suggestions of what terms YOU would like to see?

Here´s one for a "future revamped AP";
- When submitting audio to the AP you get two choises of submitting; Submit to the public (EVERYONE can use your stuff, as it is now, but perhaps not even limited to flash only...) or submitting to newgrounds exclusivley, wich would have terms of their own.

That maybe aint gonna happen, but hey, who knows? maybe the revamp aint that far away from now ;)

[Triskele]

At 6/16/06 08:46 PM, Rucklo wrote: Huh... That is a shame and a big loss for NG indeed.
You guys have any suggestions of what terms YOU would like to see?

Here´s one for a "future revamped AP";
- When submitting audio to the AP you get two choises of submitting; Submit to the public (EVERYONE can use your stuff, as it is now, but perhaps not even limited to flash only...) or submitting to newgrounds exclusivley, wich would have terms of their own.

That maybe aint gonna happen, but hey, who knows? maybe the revamp aint that far away from now ;)

That's what they've got on Garageband...you decide to what degree your music can be shared when you submit it.

Personally, I don't care all that much my music gets used...the techno-y stuff I put on here is just for fun, my main pursuits are Celtic and DJ work, and both of those are all public domain anyways...so yeah.

[R00ts]

The AP is too similar to it's humble beginnings in 03'. It needs to be revamped. The Flash Portal gets its, now its time to get ours.

Our voting system is significantly simpler, allowing for any simple nub to 0 down a track, the blam feature is non-existant, meaning that I've had a few encounters with abrasive noise people have submitted for kicks and giggles. Stolen music sits and waits, hoping nobody will find it.

The place isn't looking too sharp, or at least not as sharp as it could be. I just wish we got the same attention the flash guys get with their fancy best-of lists and voting systems. Is what we do unimportant? Do we spend less time and effort into creating pieces for others to listen to? No, and that message needs to be heard.

[Rucklo]

At 6/16/06 09:35 PM, R00ts wrote: The AP is too similar to it's humble beginnings in 03'. It needs to be revamped. The Flash Portal gets its, now its time to get ours.

Our voting system is significantly simpler, allowing for any simple nub to 0 down a track, the blam feature is non-existant, meaning that I've had a few encounters with abrasive noise people have submitted for kicks and giggles. Stolen music sits and waits, hoping nobody will find it.

The place isn't looking too sharp, or at least not as sharp as it could be. I just wish we got the same attention the flash guys get with their fancy best-of lists and voting systems. Is what we do unimportant? Do we spend less time and effort into creating pieces for others to listen to? No, and that message needs to be heard.

Yes very true indeed. However I found the issue of this thread more important and urgent than getting a "fancy voting system".

I belive the NG staff are quite aware of the little "worn out" AP, actually just go read what Tom replied

here (scroll down about 10 posts or so...).
The day of revamp will come, but what about the legal issues? Main thing that bugs me here is that, like I stated in the first post, OUR MUSIC CAN BE USED FOR FINANSIAL GAIN, and we can´t do SHIT about it. Now that is the main thing here.

Also, it´s still important to remember this is a FLASH site, and we are in no position to make any demands whatsoever.
However I felt this matter to be important enough to make a thrad about, so I could get more opinions on this, and then eventually notify Tom about our thoughts (or simply putting it into the NG Evolution thread, if thatone still is valid and active...).

I did ask Tom about this a week ago or so, but he did not reply. Therefore, I fgured, many small people can do great things (ugh, im gettin tired here... :)

[R00ts]

I was merely adding to the issues of the AP, I wasn't trying to downplay the issues of the TOS or anything.

[Rucklo]

At 6/16/06 11:40 PM, R00ts wrote: I was merely adding to the issues of the AP, I wasn't trying to downplay the issues of the TOS or anything.

Cool.

What´s TOS?

im REALLY tired now.. its 5.45 in the morning here :S

[Triskele]

At 6/16/06 11:42 PM, Rucklo wrote:

At 6/16/06 11:40 PM, R00ts wrote: I was merely adding to the issues of the AP, I wasn't trying to downplay the issues of the TOS or anything.

Cool.

What´s TOS?

im REALLY tired now.. its 5.45 in the morning here :S

Terms Of Service

...you are tired :D

[Khuskan]

LEGAL MODE ENABLE.

Notice the following clause in the agreement

At 6/16/06 08:16 PM, Rucklo wrote: 5. You will remain the owner and credited author of the submission.

As part of the submitting agreement in newgrounds, you still remain the credited author of the submission, so you still own the license and copyright etc, and by uploading to NG, you're agreeing that your copyright allows for what newgrounds allows.

As this states that the audio is STLIL your property, you also, in theory, have the right to take it off NG at any time or charge for its use outside of newgrounds.

I myself am getting increasingly worried by the whole copyright and creditation issue that I've actually taking to linking to a creative commons license in my profile to people understand their rights regarding my music. The licenses are free, all you need do is link to them on the website.

[Rucklo]

At 6/18/06 06:10 AM, Saint_Isaiah wrote:

An NG CD!

Yeah, well it´s a little off topic, but whatever.

Anyway, I e-mailed Tom with a couple of random ideas i collected a while ago, and a Newgrounds DVD with flashes is something they´ve been working on for a while and it´s more likley to happen before any NGCD.
Publishing music is something that´s in his mind already aparently, but hey, who knows, perhaps they will add NG music on the DVD?

I read somewhere that they do not want to come out with ideas in public at early stages (for all sections of this site), because they do not want anyone yelling up their arses "when is this and that gonna happen??!!".
Also, the best thing to make oneself heard i think is to post stuff in the NG Evolution thread.

[Khuskan]

The audio portal is already using a HUGE ammount of server bandwidth and storage space. Although a lot of this is due to the massive inefficiency of the current system (even deleted tracks can be streamed of the server!), the average size of an audio submission these days is more than the average size of a flash submission.

Think of how it works for the NG team. The AP uses (I would imagine) around half the server storage space, while only (again only a guess) actually being visited by a third of the NG community. Although updating it may improve the efficiency, and have more people come and see the work, it would also mean that there would be an even higher server load.

You have to understand that it would cost NG a lot of money to expand the AP much more than it already us.

[mhb]

let's put it this way:

money is worthless and stupid.

music is Life.

according to man law you can't have the last wing and the last beer.

so which do you choose?

[snazzypadgett]

uh...didn't quite catch what the hell mhb's talking about (lol), but the NG CD sounds like a GREAT IDEA! It could even be a double album, because we have so much talent here ^.^ Anyway, a CD is not hard to produce! We already HAVE the music, we have an unlimited supply of artistic resources for album cover art, CD printing art, etc. Tom would actually MAKE money off of the deal, I'm sure of it! And since the artists wouldn't get royalties (Tom and Newgrounds needs the money guyz ^.^), the artists would get exposure like we've all dreamed of!

All in favor?

AYE!!!!

[Erkie]

It's already been done before.

Step One: Get authorizations from each track from each artist, who probably has specific needs and may request money if there's any involved.
Step Two: If you make profit, split it for all the artists, OR, don't charge anything for them.

Which means it's more effort for the person organizing it, with no benefits other then sending people to a medium that can't handle what's there already.

[mhb]

At 6/18/06 02:20 PM, DJ_Dinero wrote: uh...didn't quite catch what the hell mhb's talking about (lol), but the NG CD sounds like a GREAT IDEA! It could even be a double album, because we have so much talent here ^.^ Anyway, a CD is not hard to produce! We already HAVE the music, we have an unlimited supply of artistic resources for album cover art, CD printing art, etc. Tom would actually MAKE money off of the deal, I'm sure of it! And since the artists wouldn't get royalties (Tom and Newgrounds needs the money guyz ^.^), the artists would get exposure like we've all dreamed of!

All in favor?

AYE!!!!

i've actually e-mailed tom before about an ng cd and an ng dvd idea. he told me that the idea has been thrown around before and it's not off the table but that it's a big step to move into merchandising. so i'm pretty sure that after newgrounds gets the site revamp, everything is squared away with stuff, and there's enough time and money to be invested then something like that will happen.

[Rucklo]

Back ON TOPIC; >:(

At 6/16/06 08:16 PM, Rucklo wrote: 5. You will remain the owner and credited author of the submission.

As part of the submitting agreement in newgrounds, you still remain the credited author of the submission, so you still own the license and copyright etc, and by uploading to NG, you're agreeing that your copyright allows for what newgrounds allows.

As this states that the audio is STLIL your property, you also, in theory, have the right to take it off NG at any time or charge for its use outside of newgrounds.

Right you are.
Full ownership of the audio still is in the authors hand.
But I still think the agreement is a little vauge. What I mainly think should be changed in the agreement is the term "FLASH". I´m not sure I really like the fact that everthing is "ok" as long as it´s in a flash, even outside Newgrounds.com. However, this is the agreement so far, and this is only my personal opinion, and it might just be the feeling of "lost control" oer the audio.

But well, i have a question of how you guys would see this situation;

You agree that your audio can be used in FLASH projects. If you do not like it, you have the right to take your audio OF NEWGROUNDS, and thus the audio is not available for the FLASH we assume it have been used in. However, if you put the song BACK in the AP, then it would be available for the same FLASH author again?!? Or would this simply be overruled by "5. You will remain the owner and credited author of the submission."?

I do hope that, when the day of revamp comes, there will be a more clear agreement, and perhaps different OPTIONS of submitting (this audio is only available for the NG crowd etc... Engaging the flash authors in what terms are valid for the audio in question might help enlighten people of this matter in the long run).