Previously, the wording surrounding content usage rules was somewhat vague and regularly misunderstood. Furthermore, no mention of DMCA and general incompleteness when compared to the Ranked or Loved environment gave room for misunderstandings, and subsequently, frustration. This rewrite of the rule is intended to alleviate some of these issues and lay a better foundation for community tournaments to properly take the rules into account. They are a result of internal discussions between peppy and the Tournament Committee.
- The tournament must only use beatmaps of songs which are cleared in terms of content usage permissions. Any usage of tracks which are explicitly disallowed will revoke a tournament's eligibility for support. See the ranking criteria for details regarding exceptions for artists or tracks which are listed as disallowed.
- The tournament must abide by the following content usage rules:
- Usage of any beatmaps which have a DMCA takedown notice in any form is strictly prohibited.
- The creation or reuse of any beatmaps that violate content usage permission rules is strictly prohibited, except if they are Ranked, Approved, or Loved.
- If permission to use disallowed songs is granted by the artist, the host must include proof of permission in their email to tournaments@ppy.sh upon tournament conclusion.
As previously mentioned, these changes came about after a long discussion between peppy and the Tournament Committee. There is no change in enforcement of the rule. Any tournament previously debadged due to content usage violations would also have been debadged under the new version of the rule.
DMCA'd maps are maps commonly recognised by a DMCA takedown notice on the beatmap page. This concerns maps that are no longer downloadable on site, or maps that have had contents removed from them. Please do not use any such map in your tournament, as it will result in immediate withdrawal of support.
In the current mapping ecosystem, maps from artists that have explicitly disallowed use of their songs in osu! may still be Ranked or Loved if proper proof of permission is presented in the beatmap description or discussion page. By extension, that means its use in community organised tournaments is also permitted. For simplicity's sake, all maps with a Ranked, Approved, or Loved status are therefor permitted, unless a DMCA takedown notice is present of course.
Maps not in one of those 3 categories are only permitted if proper proof of permission is presented at tournament conclusion. If it involves a custom chart, you may also add proof of permission in the beatmap description or discussion page since that makes things more transparent to the players in your tournaments. This is not to be used as an alternative means of providing proof and proof of permission must also be present in the email you sent upon tournament conclusion.
#tournaments channel in the osu! Discord server. Good luck with your tournaments!