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[Proposal] Unofficial cuts/mixes of songs must be specified

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Topic Starter
dong
My proposal applies to the "metadata" section of the ranking criteria.

I believe that all cuts/mixes of songs, official or unofficial, must have this fact specified somwhere which is visible in both osu!direct and the website's beatmap listing.

Why?

It seems to be a common occurence nowadays that songs are being mapped after being cut to a shorter length, whether that be official (a TV size beatmap) or an unofficial cut.

When looking at the beatmap listing either on the website or through osu!direct, the only information visible to the user is the artist, title, source, and some difficulty information. The problem here does not arise for official cuts, as in the ranking criteria it is stated that, for example, a TV-size beatmap should be specified as such in the title, however fan-made works are not included.

This means that many beatmap titles are misleading in that the information that it is a shorter version of a song is left out. Often players do not realise that this is the case until they have already finished playing the beatmap, much to their dismay. This also means that unofficially cut versions have become indistinguishable from full versions of the same song.

Some recent examples of this in ranked beatmaps:
https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/933600 (currently qualified) - this beatmap features an mp3 which is both different to the full length version of the song and the official short version of the song, which means that the metadata is quite misleading, in my opinion. Does this mean that you could cut a second off of the actual TV-size version of the song and use that as an excuse not to include "TV-size" in the title? Does this count as a remix of some kind?

https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/935111 - this beatmap is simply an unofficially cut version with no mention anywhere in the title or tags. As a result, the metadata is indistinguishable from the other ranked mapset which features the full, original version of the song.

(several ranked mapsets of "Harumachi Clover": https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets?q=harumachi%20clover - I seriously do not understand what is going on in this example. Some sets specify "TV-size", some do not, despite being the same length, or different lengths. The metadata here is a complete mess. If i download a map titled "Harumachi Clover (TV Size)", i expect to get a map of length 29 seconds. If i download a map titled "Harumachi Clover", I expect to get a map of length 4:10.

Some previous discussions of this topic have been held on r/osugame and can be found here, to mostly positive reception:
https://redd.it/b0h4k9 (excuse the language)
https://redd.it/bd67gj

previous iterations

edit:
My proposition is that any beatmap featuring an unofficial cut of a song should specify so in the title using the term "(Cut ver.)". Similarly, unofficial extensions of songs should specify "(Extended ver.)".

pishifat wrote:

If the song is shortened for reasons other than a remix, a cover, or an official cut, it should include (Short Ver.) at the end of its title. This is to clearly signify shortened songs from their full versions. Songs that are insignificantly shortened, songs that are shortened in ways that nearly match their original versions, and songs that are a full loop of a looping track are exempt.


After some discussion, it has become apparent that (Short ver.) is not the correct wording, at that we should use (Cut Ver.). Additionally, songs which have been extended either by slowing down portions of the song or looping portions of a song should be marked with (Extended Ver.), however this is something which is frowned upon in the Ranking Criteria as is:

Ranking Criteria wrote:

The audio file of a song should not be artificially extended in order to meet a time limitation in the beatmapset section of this criteria. This can include (but is not limited to) looping sections of the audio file, lowering the BPM of the song or section of the song, or adding small amounts of music to the song without incorporating it throughout the entire song. This does not apply to song compilations or audio files less than the minimum rankable beatmapset length.


Songs which have been rearranged entirely using different portions of the song in different places are considered a 'mix' or an 'edit'. The best wording is yet to be decided. The ruling now reads as follows:

Everyone wrote:

If the song is shortened for reasons other than a remix, a cover, or an official cut, it should include (Cut Ver.) at the end of its title. This is to clearly signify shortened songs from their full versions. Songs that are insignificantly shortened, songs that are shortened in ways that nearly match their original versions, and songs that are a full loop of a looping track are exempt. Songs which have been extended either through looping parts of the track or slowing down sections of the song should add (Extended Ver.) at the end of its title.


Edit 28/08/2019:

cl8n wrote:

If the song is shortened for reasons other than a remix, a cover, or an official cut, it should include `(Cut Ver.)` at the end of its title. This is to clearly signify shortened songs from their full versions. Songs that are insignificantly shortened, songs that are shortened in ways that nearly match their original versions, and songs that are a full loop of a looping track are exempt. A song that has been extended either through looping or slowing down segment(s) should add `(Extended Ver.)` at the end of its title.


After more discussion, a definition for what constitutes a cut 'significant' enough to require the marker. My suggestion:

"An significant cut to a song is a cut which omits at least a single verse, chorus, solo, or movement in the song."
KING KIRBY
this would be a pretty convenient implementation to the game
helix
I expect people will bring up the fact that mappers can just add 'cut version' or something similar to the tags (which some have already been doing) and that isn't really enough imo.

Surely editing the mp3 in this way constitutes it being a remix, meaning it would be perfectly fine to change the metadata to suit the changes - (cut ver.), (short ver.) or something to that effect
Nao Tomori
i think necessitating it in tags (cut, shortened, etc), and in description is a minimum standard that should be applied . aside from that i think putting it in title would be fine too but others may have different opinions.
Topic Starter
dong

Nao Tomori wrote:

i think necessitating it in tags (cut, shortened, etc), and in description is a minimum standard that should be applied . aside from that i think putting it in title would be fine too but others may have different opinions.


as an absolute minimum sure but the bigger problem can be seen here:


this information needs to be in the title
baz

helix wrote:

I expect people will bring up the fact that mappers can just add 'cut version' or something similar to the tags (which some have already been doing) and that isn't really enough imo.

Surely editing the mp3 in this way constitutes it being a remix, meaning it would be perfectly fine to change the metadata to suit the changes - (cut ver.), (short ver.) or something to that effect


While under the ranking criteria, if you boil the meaning of a remix down, it could be argued that a cut version is just a remix, but I don't think that it would be an accurate description as to what has been changed.

To me, a remix takes an existing song and alters it to create a new piece of music, and I wouldn't describe a song that has been remixed to remove parts of a song as a remix.

For example, if we take three map sets of Gold Dust:
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/96006 - DJ Fresh - Gold Dust by galvenize
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/163897 - DJ Fresh - Gold Dust (Sonic Entropy Remix) by galvenize
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1963417 - DJ Fresh - Gold Dust by Sotarks

The first two use the correct titles for their versions of the song.
The third version, on the other hand, uses the same title as the full version of the song despite being cut down nor has it been remixed by the mapper in any way to add a new creative take on the song.

While the wording of an addition to the title could take form in several different ways (Cut, Edited, Alternative/Alt, Shortened/Short) the lack of anything is frustrating as it doesn't clearly describe what the song is.
Annabel
Definitely agree that if something is cut, at the very least include it in tags. (Cut, short, etc) but it would also be nice if (Short Ver.) or (Cut Ver.) was also included in the title field. Although, I feel like this would be weird to force onto many songs since people would be required to check if there was a longer version than whatever was mapped (From a modding PoV) and it would also require a definition as to what is cut/remixed/whatever depending on the criteria of the marker.

While I think the idea is good, making a mandatory marker just seems confusing as to what is genuinely cut or not.
helix

eiri- wrote:

Definitely agree that if something is cut, at the very least include it in tags. (Cut, short, etc)

Tags are not shown on osu!direct, nor the beatmap listing or the song selection screen. I would say this is the main issue this thread is trying to combat.

eiri- wrote:

Although, I feel like this would be weird to force onto many songs since people would be required to check if there was a longer version than whatever was mapped (From a modding PoV)

When the mapper provides the metadata for verification during the ranking process, it should be clear whether the version they have mapped is an official mp3 or not. I'm sure checking this would take no more than one minute.

eiri- wrote:

and it would also require a definition as to what is cut/remixed/whatever depending on the criteria of the marker.

Seems pretty simple to me - if it's not one of the officially released lengths of the song (usually either full size or tv-size/short ver) then it is going to be a cut version of some description.
Topic Starter
dong
I realise at the moment that an official consensus on what the convention should be for the phrasing of the metadata for a fan-made cut version of a song has not been discussed.

May I suggest, if this information is to go in the title, for the phrasing to be "Shortened ver."? It implies that it is unofficial as opposed to just saying "Short ver." and gets the message across nicely.

Anyone else?
Noffy
I doubt most people would notice the difference between Short Ver and Shortened Ver. Another issue is that the title field DOES have a limit and making required additions to a title too long can go over the limit in some cases (81 characters) so it's best to keep such things concise while still being clear.

(Cut Ver.) could work well enough.
It's modifying the metadata to the same extent the song is being modified, and if users feel like it'd be beneficial to browsing maps as expressed in the reddit threads.. then yeah. Sounds ok.

The main issues are as eiri- has written but shouldn't be too big of a concern for most cases as song length is usually easily identified when finding metadata. Also https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/917229 will probably need defining of what is or isn't considered a cut too, so this and that thread go hand in hand.


Also, about harumachi clover example listed. This case is because it is currently impossible to retroactively change map metadata.
TV Size harumachi clovers ranked after last year's metadata changes have the standardized tags, while those from before the rule changes do not. Maps ranked before a (Cut Ver.) rule is added would still not have the label, unless osu's set-up changes in a way to make those changes possible after rank.
Topic Starter
dong

Noffy wrote:

Also, about harumachi clover example listed. This case is because it is currently impossible to retroactively change map metadata.
TV Size harumachi clovers ranked after last year's metadata changes have the standardized tags, while those from before the rule changes do not. Maps ranked before a (Cut Ver.) rule is added would still not have the label, unless osu's set-up changes in a way to make those changes possible after rank.


Thanks for the clarification, I didn't know about last year's change. Of course I'm not concerned with past maps not being updated, that has been a fact in all of osu!'s history that previously ranked maps cannot be altered.

"(Cut ver.)" is an even better suggestion then if we're worrying about title length. Thanks! It still gets the same message across, in my opinion.
helix

Noffy wrote:

The main issues are as eiri- has written but shouldn't be too big of a concern for most cases as song length is usually easily identified when finding metadata. Also https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/917229 will probably need defining of what is or isn't considered a cut too, so this and that thread go hand in hand.


Just thought I'd add something and reply to this bit - I feel that a cut would be defined as a version of a song that is not already an official release (such as full version, tv size, or cut version from a video game with official metadata). It's already pretty obvious from the rest of the thread why the alternative is a problem so I won't go on :P
Topic Starter
dong
Taking your guys' advice into consideration I've edited the OP to more consisely phrase my proposition. Hopefully it's ready!
pishifat
i don't have much opinion on this proposal, so i'm gonna run it by all bn/nat members to see what they think. hopefully we'll be able to reach a conclusion in a few days
Ascendance
Don’t think it’s necessary to be included into the title (tags would be fine) but not opposed to it if it happens
Nozhomi
I would agree with Nao, using tags to inform about if it’s cut or not + description should be enough to not mess too much with the current metadata system.
Nao Tomori
to be clear i also think putting it in title is good
Trynna
I don't think it's super convenient to have a rule that says like "oh you must use (Short Ver.) if a song has it in it's title" but then add (Cut Ver.) just to mess things up for the ppl checking it. If anything, a way to merge those two would be better than just adding one more marker. I don't think being an official cut or not is that benefitial to know from a player's perspective, as in the end they are trying to show something extremely similar
pishifat

Trynna wrote:

I don't think it's super convenient to have a rule that says like "oh you must use (Short Ver.) if a song has it in it's title" but then add (Cut Ver.) just to mess things up for the ppl checking it. If anything, a way to merge those two would be better than just adding one more marker. I don't think being an official cut or not is that benefitial to know from a player's perspective, as in the end they are trying to show something extremely similar

if implemented, the merged marker described here is how i'd do it
Topic Starter
dong

Nozhomi wrote:

I would agree with Nao, using tags to inform about if it’s cut or not + description should be enough to not mess too much with the current metadata system.
The point of my proposal is to have the information in the title though, to avoid this:


I don't see what good putting it in the tags will do. It doesn't address the issue at all.
Ryuusei Aika

dong wrote:

I believe that all cuts/mixes of songs, official or unofficial, must have this fact specified somewhere which is visible in both osu!direct and the website's beatmap listing.


dong wrote:

My proposition is that any beatmap featuring an unofficial cut of a song should specify so in the title using the term "(Cut ver.)".


i don't know what would be your proposal, but there's a small logic problem in the first one so the second one is better.

for the first one, one case can be the very first version of a song is "full ver", like nearly all rhythm game songs, their first version is the original one while their "full ver" are actually called "extended ver", "original mix" etc. so in that case, players would like to see the shorter (original) version while downloading those rhythm game songs so adding a cut ver after those shorter songs shows disrespect to the artist and also conflict with the initial point with that proposal (well standardize tv size/short ver/game ver is also disrespectful but that's another story)
the second one is more reasonable since it divides the "propose of the artist" and "propose of the fan-made" better and respect the artist to some extent.

from my pov the wording of this rule can be a little bit generalized (not limited in cut ver or remix ver), like:
For any beatmaps that use an unofficial edited version of a song, it must be clarified in the song title field that this song is an unofficial edited version. This can avoid misleading while downloading a beatmap and ensure that players would have exactly the song they want.

-

side note, @metadata people: if we can remove those rules that standardize tv size/short ver/game ver and apply the rule above instead (or change to "you must add tv size/short ver/game ver in tags" or something), i guess it'd be better since it's the artist who decides how their song title would be like, and it sounds really unright that an original "-TV Ver.-" song must be written as (TV Size) in a rhythm game that still has many copyright problems unsolved.
Seto Kousuke
Tbh i totally agree with this, it's not that complex to add a "(Cut Ver.)" and not everyone manually cuts songs for it... only a few people often does this so it's not like it will be very common to be confused if should be used "cut"/"tv size"/"short ver." since their usage is pretty easy to understand and it would make titles of songs a lot less missleading, maybe a few people might need to get used but I really think it's not that confusing since it's usage is quite straightfoward
Mirash
it seems like a good idea but at the same time i dont want to add CUT VERSION to all of the zts tracks that are basically looped for 9 minutes
https://old.ppy.sh/s/889315 this for example is a cut and doesn't suffer from it anyhow and i dont think people need to know its a cut
realy0_
imo i really agree with this but for the case when the song is actually extended, it is just misleading cuz a cut often meant shorter version of the song, not a longer official tv size ver

the case i'm actually talking about is when you cut a full ver into a tv size but with extra parts of the song like https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/775766#osu/1630299 or https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/745312#osu/1571309

also for non-anime songs it would be super weird imo
Topic Starter
dong

realy0_ wrote:

imo i really agree with this but for the case when the song is actually extended, it is just misleading cuz a cut often meant shorter version of the song, not a longer official tv size ver

the case i'm actually talking about is when you cut a full ver into a tv size but with extra parts of the song like https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/775766#osu/1630299 or https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/745312#osu/1571309

also for non-anime songs it would be super weird imo
These are the cases I am talking about where this distinction is necessary, yes. What makes a non-anime song weird here? Have you seen Sotarks' Gold Dust mapset, for example? Why would the distinction be necessary for your examples but not a 'non-anime song'?

Mirash wrote:

it seems like a good idea but at the same time i dont want to add CUT VERSION to all of the zts tracks that are basically looped for 9 minutes

https://old.ppy.sh/s/889315 this for example is a cut and doesn't suffer from it anyhow and i dont think people need to know its a cut
Isn't this song from a video game? Of course the track is gonna be looped. Cutting a looped song is expected, see, for example, any Pokémon or Undertale BGM map.
Nao Tomori
well the idea is that this wouldn't distinguish between them. i think you could add an exception for looped songs so it wouldn't be needed there for example.
Kawawa
I personally prefer to see clean title. so It's not necessarily thing for me, so kinda close to 'convenience option' but image examples are actually persuasive. so It would be better If display them on the title when considering the convenience and necessity of the community
realy0_

dong wrote:

realy0_ wrote:

imo i really agree with this but for the case when the song is actually extended, it is just misleading cuz a cut often meant shorter version of the song, not a longer official tv size ver

the case i'm actually talking about is when you cut a full ver into a tv size but with extra parts of the song like https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/775766#osu/1630299 or https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/745312#osu/1571309

also for non-anime songs it would be super weird imo


These are the cases I am talking about where this distinction is necessary, yes. What makes a non-anime song weird here? Have you seen Sotarks' Gold Dust mapset, for example? Why would the distinction be necessary for your examples but not a 'non-anime song'?

i said it would be super weird for non-anime song cuz i (and most people) would just not be used to see the (cut ver.) in the title if it was applied just right now
Bibbity Bill
i mostly agree with adding it to the title since it wouldn't be hard to tell since bns source the metadata when they mod anyway, but the rule should definitely be worded in a way to indicate only on larger cuts just so if some one only cuts off a few seconds off the end it wouldn't need the (Cut Ver.) marker. it would also prevent confusion since i'm sure there are some official releases that are a few seconds shorter than some others (im sure they exist out there none on the top of my head currently)
NEVlR
I can somewhat relate to what eiri said but I don't think it's a bad idea, if the goal is to distinguish the full versions from cuts. If it's only a few seconds off the end you could just add "Songs that are unofficially and significantly shortened by their mappers [...]" (although i can already feel the question "but how significant" arising from that)
Topic Starter
dong
I notice that this discussion is currently happening: https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/917229
A definition of a "cut" has been suggested in this thread as follows:

glossygloss wrote:

Cut: A song file that has had a portion of audio removed to shorten the beatmapset's play time.
Well, going by this definition, if a song that loops (such as a BGM like an Undertale, Pokémon or zts track as previously mentioned) is cut, does that count as removing a portion of audio? I think if a song loops indefinitely then an exception can be made so long as a cut is not made part-way through a loop.

Touching again though on what Ryuusei Aika said though, as I don't think I responded properly:

Ryuusei Aika wrote:

one case can be the very first version of a song is "full ver", like nearly all rhythm game songs, their first version is the original one while their "full ver" are actually called "extended ver", "original mix" etc. so in that case, players would like to see the shorter (original) version while downloading those rhythm game songs so adding a cut ver after those shorter songs shows disrespect to the artist and also conflict with the initial point with that proposal (well standardize tv size/short ver/game ver is also disrespectful but that's another story)
the second one is more reasonable since it divides the "propose of the artist" and "propose of the fan-made" better and respect the artist to some extent.
In this case, the shorter version is the original version, so no metadata changes need to be made - the cut ver. marker should not be added - and the extended ver. is as expected the version with the extended ver. marker. I think that each different version of a track should be distinguished starting from the original version of the song. If an artist makes a new version of the same song, whether shortened or extended, without their own marker in the official metadata, it should then be added based on which version is the original version.
Noffy
apparently the rc vote concluded at some point and has results on the bn website

pishifat wrote:

i don't have much opinion on this proposal, so i'm gonna run it by all bn/nat members to see what they think. hopefully we'll be able to reach a conclusion in a few days


59 "Agree" votes (62%)
24 "Neutral" votes (25%)
12 "Disagree" votes (13%)


95 BN/NAT members voted out of a current total ~110 (not sure exactly how many as BNs have joined/left since the vote took place)

Would need someone like pishifat to do additional vote breakdowns if needed.

Seeing as the majority is in favor of adding this rule, we should try to work out wording to apply it to rc. Which is the hard part because people can get confused and break stuff if the wording isn't perfect and concise.

I ask people please play devil's advocate and imagine how the following can be loophole'd or stretched or messed with before it's potentially applied to the live RC. Writing this stuff isn't my biggest strength as I've learned in previous endeavors.

would need to be a guideline due to having exceptions.

Proposal wrote:

If the song is an unofficial cut that is not made that way for a remix or cover, it should include (Cut Ver.) at the end of the current title string. This is to easily distinguish shortened versions of songs from their full length counterparts. Exceptions are if a song is only slightly shortened where musical sections match the original song, or if the cut is (a) full loop(s) from a looping track.


- any cuts of original song that aren't official are cut versions.
- if someone makes a cover and it's a short version of the song. that's considered the original length and doesn't use cut ver tagging.
------ yes people can abuse this to make their own covers to evade the rule. dunno how to close that loophole if that's even possible.
- if the cut is so slight that musical sections still match and length is generally the same, it wouldn't get the tag.
- wording for looped song exception feels clunky but idk how to word it better right now

could potentially also use (Short Ver.) instead of (Cut Ver.) so there's fewer different tags running around. However I can't imagine how to merge it with the current short ver. tag rule as one is for officially labelled cuts and this is for unofficial unlabelled cuts. Determining which track length is the original between short/extended versions, especially from rhythm games, can often be ambiguous due to the age or obscurity of the information: hard to find, need to use web archive to check websites, etc.
realy0_
i wonder how this would be applied to cases where you use a unoffical extended mp3 ? do you have to put a (Cut Ver.) in the second map if it doesn't follow this ? "This is to easily distinguish shortened versions of songs from their full length counterparts."

https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/514204#osu/1092402
(official)
https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/515939#osu/1095534
(unofficial extension)
show more
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