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[Proposal] Promote the song's artist in the beatmap description

posted
Total Posts
35
Loctav
Popcorn Fairy
4,496 posts
Joined February 2009
Topic Starter
Loctav
As repeatingly said, the artists of the songs used by osu! mappers are overdue a lot of credit. Many people learn about new artists via osu! but many artists have repeatingly mentioned the lack of credit they receive themselves for content becoming Ranked and popular in osu!.

I believe every artist that finds their song in osu! is deserving to have their assets, their online presentation and their creations promoted, they deserve to have their songs be promoted and purchased, to have their reputation grow and to aspire as artist altogether.

While the Featured Artist category brings a lot of partner's on board, the ones not on board still deserve the promotion and recognition for their beloved creations.

So I propose the following guideline for the Ranking Criteria, affecting all game modes equally:

The beatmap description should contain a referral to the song artist's official web presence(s). This may be their official website, a store where you can purchase their songs or other websites where the artist is officially represented with their work. The artist should be asked for permission to implement this referral when it appears feasible. The beatmap description can remain without a referral for artists not allowing it or simply not having a web presence.


Wording has been created by me spontaneously, so I am all open to suggestions.
frukoyurdakul
638 posts
Joined December 2015
frukoyurdakul
Totally supporting this, starting with putting their official websites into my own ranked maps.
Loctav
Popcorn Fairy
4,496 posts
Joined February 2009
Topic Starter
Loctav
don't forget to ask them first, not everyone may like it.
-Sylvari
402 posts
Joined October 2013
-Sylvari
What about maps already being ranked? They mostly lack of any credits towards the artist. Especially that after reaching Ranked status by the beatmap the creator of it can delete that from the describtion.

In my opinion something like credits to artists after clicking at Artist's name on site could display their socials/stores etc. could be good, but it's as well many effort.
Last edited by -Sylvari , edited 1 time in total.
Loctav
Popcorn Fairy
4,496 posts
Joined February 2009
Topic Starter
Loctav
Establishing a team to apply these to beatmap descriptions retrospectively is an idea I had in mind, however, one step at a time by having it apply to the newest content.

Having clickable artist names is maybe a way (although I doubt it's really a good design choice), but in lazer, the beatmap description is actually very prominent because the beatmap listing opens *in-game* when you click the beatmap link anywhere in-game. So this place could and should be utilized.

Mappers can sure delete it from the description, but it can be rolled back and locked down in the state prior the deletion (and the mapper can be sanctioned for attempting this then)
Last edited by Loctav , edited 1 time in total.
-Sylvari
402 posts
Joined October 2013
-Sylvari
Maybe making something non-editable by the beatmap creator should be alright. Because even if you would put it in the description the beatmap creator may put it in the place where it wouldn't be noticeable at the first place in both site and in-game laser due to used space.

Adding a line that this should be visable at the first place in the map description would be better idea, but we need to keep in mind that some mappers like to use custom banners at the beatmaps description so then we are back to square one
Last edited by -Sylvari , edited 1 time in total.
Loctav
Popcorn Fairy
4,496 posts
Joined February 2009
Topic Starter
Loctav
I think the beatmap listing design could benefit from some changes here then, but as said, one step at a time. The beatmap description is a good place for stuff like that right now. And even if a better solution may be implemented in the future, we still have the referrals present on the beatmap listing once this idea has been approved to be common practise. Also the beatmap description offers a lot more wiggle room for the mapper to promote the song's artist in a personal fashion.

All in all, you shouldn't be overly concerned about mappers trying to circumvent this by maliciously editing their referral or beatmap descriptions retrospectively. We first want this to become a thing. There's no point in arguing how to prevent mappers circumventing it if it isn't even common practise yet.
Last edited by Loctav , edited 4 times in total.
frukoyurdakul
638 posts
Joined December 2015
frukoyurdakul

Loctav wrote:

don't forget to ask them first, not everyone may like it.


If they don't, I'm happy to remove my maps from ranked, no big deal. I don't think I'm gonna get any responses from them, though.
Last edited by frukoyurdakul , edited 1 time in total.
-Sylvari
402 posts
Joined October 2013
-Sylvari
And I am worried about the part "The artist should be asked for permission to implement this referral when it appears feasible."

I mean the artists already has the option to DMCA (as even noticeable part of osu!website on the bottom) so if artist will know about the osu! via the fans knowing an artist from osu! they actually can DMCA if they are not feeling great with their song being used that way.

I really like the idea of the promoting artists via the sharing their websites etc. just the point about the approval is a bit problematic...
Last edited by -Sylvari , edited 1 time in total.
Pachiru
osu! Alumni
2,957 posts
Joined June 2013
Pachiru
The fact that the mapper has to get the artist approval to use the referral link can be quite problematic for some who are not very fine with having their songs used on the game.

However, the idea is very nice and it would be fair to promote the content we're using.
Loctav
Popcorn Fairy
4,496 posts
Joined February 2009
Topic Starter
Loctav

Pachiru wrote:

The fact that the mapper has to get the artist approval to use the referral link can be quite problematic for some who are not very fine with having their songs used on the game.


If the artist isn't fine with having their song used in the game, then maybe the song shouldn't be in the game...?
Nao Tomori
Nomination Assessment Team
3,089 posts
Joined December 2014
Nao Tomori
it is not easily possible to contact many artists and many artists who may not particularly care about their songs being used are contractually obligated to say no dont use it - at best you can strongly suggest placing direct links to support artists (not a rule), but in some cases their sites may be dead, they might not have a site, they might not release their songs officially (only youtube/niconico uploads) etc... it becomes very convoluted fast imo. how would you approach solving cases where it is not simple to link to an artist?
Loctav
Popcorn Fairy
4,496 posts
Joined February 2009
Topic Starter
Loctav
a.) You link *something* that represents the artist officially (even if it is just their youtube channel)
b.) You link *nothing* (hence why it's a guideline) but somehow show to the nominating BN that you tried finding something or tried reaching out.


And making the effort to reach out to them to ask should be at least expected. If they don't reply and/or don't care, then you at least tried and should be good to refer to them.
Last edited by Loctav , edited 1 time in total.
UndeadCapulet
1,100 posts
Joined April 2013
UndeadCapulet
we already have a website-wide rule about making sure you have permission to use stuff in your mapset, adding this again to the ranking criteria would be redundant and unnecessary. if artists being ok with maps is what you're worried about, maybe work to enforcing that rule better instead.
Niva
Global Moderator
3,187 posts
Joined November 2009
Niva
(saw this being posted on a certain Discord server (・・；))

ehh... i'm leaning towards in favor to indifferent towards this being implemented as a guideline/rule tho (i mean i've literally been doing that since 2013 and i'm cool with whether the proposal passed or not passed through) but this particular line :

Loctav wrote:

The artist should be asked for permission to implement this referral when it appears feasible.


really bugs me tho as due to how different copyright system works this can be very case-by-case basis iirc (for example, if the song is under Public Domain then it would be more than fine to get the song pushed forward even without a referral but if the song is released under Creative Commons license, such as Charles445's Thunderstruck or my Taylor mapset, then a form of credit (in this case a referral) becomes an obligation even without contacting the artist beforehand).

---

all in all tl;dr i liked the main idea of giving further credits to the artist(s) but as it stands the "The beatmap description should contain a referral to the song artist's official web presence(s)." part still could be revised/reworded better (or even deleted) in order to make the proposal more effective at its core sense in my opinion c:
Last edited by Niva , edited 6 times in total.
Loctav
Popcorn Fairy
4,496 posts
Joined February 2009
Topic Starter
Loctav

UndeadCapulet wrote:

we already have a website-wide rule about making sure you have permission to use stuff in your mapset, adding this again to the ranking criteria would be redundant and unnecessary. if artists being ok with maps is what you're worried about, maybe work to enforcing that rule better instead.


It's not about permission to use stuff but about placing a referral. Having permission to use the stuff doesn't necessarily include the allowance to put referrals to the artist's web presence(s). This rule isn't about making sure the artist is fine with the song being used, this rule is about giving the artist sufficient credit by making people find their way to the artist and where they host their content.

You guys really need to stop worrying about copyright problems, because copyright isn't even the issue here. It's about respecting the artist's will to have their web presence be referred to or not.
Last edited by Loctav , edited 1 time in total.
lewski
1,253 posts
Joined September 2014
lewski
Regulating beatmap descriptions with ranking criteria is ineffective since the description can be changed after the map is ranked. You could fix that by locking the description after ranking, but that's just a bandaid solution and it'd also disable certain nice things you can do with the description (such as linking to other maps of yours). Links to the artist's web presence should be implemented in some other way.
Loctav
Popcorn Fairy
4,496 posts
Joined February 2009
Topic Starter
Loctav

lewski wrote:

Regulating beatmap descriptions with ranking criteria is ineffective since the description can be changed after the map is ranked. You could fix that by locking the description after ranking, but that's just a bandaid solution and it'd also disable certain nice things you can do with the description (such as linking to other maps of yours). Links to the artist's web presence should be implemented in some other way.


A band-aid solution perhaps, but still a feasible way for an initial implementation of a common practise that is long overdue. I only want to have mappers give the artists the credit and promotion they deserve.

Mappers editing out necessary description parts can be sanctioned, as mentioned before.
Okoratu
Nomination Assessment Team / Elite Nominator
4,913 posts
Joined May 2012
Okoratu
extend this to include visuals used in backgrounds / videos, if a guideline like this is made i think it should encompass all assets in a beatmap

of course in some cases it's impossible to find out who actually is to credit for some of the hitsounds or something but e.g. backgrounds, videos (amv or whatever if ure using that) should be included
-Arche
132 posts
Joined December 2014
-Arche
Same as Okoratu, I think your proposal is cool, but then we should do the same for background's artist too and etc..
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