Hello there. Title says most of my thought.

It came to me that there might be much more maps locked due to copyright, aside from Anhedonia. How bad is it? How many maps are estimated to be locked from download through official means? There are also probably nowadays more people starting to play coming from other fanbases, but that's old news.

Finally, is server shutdown actually realistic? For instance, could something like the KissAnime shutdown event also happen to this game? Perhaps even, only featured artist content will be ever officially downloadable if such an event were to happen.

Thanks.

Hello there!

I mean, you aren't wrong. I've seen plenty of beatmaps that are no longer downloadable due to copyright issues. But with that- if the song in a beatmap IS copyrighted or a company/artist essentially wants that so and so map down, the beatmap itself goes down along with an external website showing some sort of complaint for say?

I highly believe that osu won't get shutdown for copyright itself, as we do comply with taking the beatmap/song down.

That's my thought of it, thanks for bringing this up!

that is pretty scary but you are right, it is possible but probably just all maps would not be available to download except people that actually buy the songs and then map them which are like less then 1% i guess and have license in the description that is even less people, and featured artists.

so if it were to happen right now, i would be not surprised but pretty worried.

thanks for this post, you will now have big big discussion right there

the entire point of expanding FA library to this level is for when (probably not if) that will happen

If copyrighted content is uploaded, copyright holders have the ability to file a DMCA takedown which osu! does comply with. In theory, provided osu! follows through with these notices (which they do), they have "safe harbour" under US law. That said, there was a court case a few years back that said that LiveJournal may be potentially liable for infringement given a moderator team approves submissions. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say the beatmap ranking process could be considered similar.

I'm not aware if they eventually went to jury trial (does anyone know? They probably settled?), but regardless of all this, osu! isn't immune to potential litigation no more than anyone else. You don't even necessarily need to reside in the country to be sued in that country. The most important thing to remember is just because you aren't liable doesn't mean you won't have to go through a long court battle. This is arguably a failure in the copyright system itself, but that's a whole other topic. Meanwhile, it could be argued that users posting beatmaps are covered under Canada's "UGC" exception for example, since they're not commercial (well... unless the beatmapper is charging people to map I guess). Sadly, other jurisdictions (like the US) don't recognize this type of exception and that doesn't answer the question of the hosting of it for a game that is commercial in nature and benefits from such UGC submissions. TL;DR: If you get the RIAA or someone on your back, it's not desirable regardless of where you stand legally.

So is there a clear answer to this question? No. But that's just part of hosting a service that allows user generated content to be submitted. There's always some risk no matter who you are: youtube, reddit, whatever. It would be a great shame to kill such a community, but yet the question your asking is up to lawyers to debate, and up to any potential licensing deals peppy may make or already have, not us. We can only speculate.

osu! isn't a game that's made for the purpose of piracy like KissAnime though, so while again, it's not immune to potential legal challenges, it seems it's not as big a target as sites that host content specifically for the purpose of piracy. I think that's why we're seeing FA's more and more promoted though, as they are the safe answer.