It's kinda stupid to spend money on mapping in the first place.
Also agree with that.
Also agree with that.
forum
[Proposal] Restricting Ranked/Loved Status of Commissioned beatmaps
posted
Total Posts
53
agree of above average size
3 strikes seems like a good number btw, 5 is too lenient imo
3 strikes seems like a good number btw, 5 is too lenient imo
It's dumb to make a pay wall for mapping so please go ahead with this
big agree
yes
Some initial copyright grey areas:
What are you guys' stances on songs that are not protected by copyright? Or are royalty-free? What if the artist has not filed a proper copyright? Happens more often than you think with Doujin music especially. Or what if the song is produced in a country whose copyright treaties are not fully protected by US copyright laws? (For example, you can use certain North Korean non-state-sanctioned/approved music regardless of copyrights since NK and US lack treaties protecting all NK songs, only songs approved by the Great Leader are protected.)
Some fine-tuning to the rule:
How would you define "permission". Is it enough for an artist to say "sure, you can use my song"? I assume you also require people to inform the artist that you will be profiting off their work, so I guess the "explicit permission" should include proof that you explicitly told them that there is monetary gain on your part.
The problem with "Legal issues are bound to happen":
Many commissions nowadays range from $10-50. I think only me and Sotarks have ever had 3 or 4 digit commission requests, and I highly doubt anyone else will receive such commissions. The problem is that these numbers are far too small to attract lawsuits anyways. Copyright law is a very rare field, and you are easily looking at lawyers billing $300+ an hour to file lawsuits. I can say with certainty that legal problems are 99.99% not going to arise any time in the near future. I reserve 0.01% if Sony decides it has spare change and wants to try establishing a precedent, but it's so unlikely because the court can also just dismiss for insignificant amount-in-controversy.
Thoughts on commissions and osu!legal:
I personally don't think commissions is any worse than osu!supporter. If anything, I think the entire concept of osu!supporter is what Artists would be more upset about, because rather than missing out on like 10% of a 50 dollar commission, they are actually losing sales due to their works being freely downloadable/hosted. And osu! enjoys sanctimoniously dismissing these claims as "we are promoting their work!!!" So for me, if you want to ban commissions, definitely consider osu!'s revenue stream too. I don't mind banning commissions, because honestly I thought the decision had already been made over a year ago when I announced Mapping Mafia lol. This just seems like writing the community's general stance on commissions into actual Community Rules which honestly should have just been done like 9 months ago anyways. From a legal perspective, it's the better thing to do, and limits peppy's legal risk in the future. But I mean, this entire site is walking on a legal minefield anyways. We aren't like YouTube where you can reasonably expect user-submitted content to be original content. Virtually 99.99% of content on this site is clearly pirated and everyone knows it. Maybe in a few years Mapping Guild will make a dent in that percentage though.
What are you guys' stances on songs that are not protected by copyright? Or are royalty-free? What if the artist has not filed a proper copyright? Happens more often than you think with Doujin music especially. Or what if the song is produced in a country whose copyright treaties are not fully protected by US copyright laws? (For example, you can use certain North Korean non-state-sanctioned/approved music regardless of copyrights since NK and US lack treaties protecting all NK songs, only songs approved by the Great Leader are protected.)
Some fine-tuning to the rule:
How would you define "permission". Is it enough for an artist to say "sure, you can use my song"? I assume you also require people to inform the artist that you will be profiting off their work, so I guess the "explicit permission" should include proof that you explicitly told them that there is monetary gain on your part.
The problem with "Legal issues are bound to happen":
Many commissions nowadays range from $10-50. I think only me and Sotarks have ever had 3 or 4 digit commission requests, and I highly doubt anyone else will receive such commissions. The problem is that these numbers are far too small to attract lawsuits anyways. Copyright law is a very rare field, and you are easily looking at lawyers billing $300+ an hour to file lawsuits. I can say with certainty that legal problems are 99.99% not going to arise any time in the near future. I reserve 0.01% if Sony decides it has spare change and wants to try establishing a precedent, but it's so unlikely because the court can also just dismiss for insignificant amount-in-controversy.
Thoughts on commissions and osu!legal:
I personally don't think commissions is any worse than osu!supporter. If anything, I think the entire concept of osu!supporter is what Artists would be more upset about, because rather than missing out on like 10% of a 50 dollar commission, they are actually losing sales due to their works being freely downloadable/hosted. And osu! enjoys sanctimoniously dismissing these claims as "we are promoting their work!!!" So for me, if you want to ban commissions, definitely consider osu!'s revenue stream too. I don't mind banning commissions, because honestly I thought the decision had already been made over a year ago when I announced Mapping Mafia lol. This just seems like writing the community's general stance on commissions into actual Community Rules which honestly should have just been done like 9 months ago anyways. From a legal perspective, it's the better thing to do, and limits peppy's legal risk in the future. But I mean, this entire site is walking on a legal minefield anyways. We aren't like YouTube where you can reasonably expect user-submitted content to be original content. Virtually 99.99% of content on this site is clearly pirated and everyone knows it. Maybe in a few years Mapping Guild will make a dent in that percentage though.
I'm down on this too
Really solid proposal, definitely agree.
Sparhten wrote:
They are legal issues waiting to happen
osu! in itself is a lawsuit waiting to happen, as I'm sure everyone knows considering there's 320532853278 illegal files uploaded to osu! daily. osu! is safe from that though since staff plays dumb and pretends they don't know this happens so they can just dmca stuff when requested. Taking this into consideration I'd say it's really immoral to reference that as a reason to disallow commissioned beatmaps.
still dunno what this does since people getting commissions will just lie about it (or act like sotarks and meme about it obnoxiously while staff doesn't do anything as usual) and all of these punishments are ignoring the main issue of not being able to tell if a map is commissioned lol
Nice post should be spread around more though~
Yea something needs to be done about commissions
newton- wrote:
agree of above average size
3 strikes seems like a good number btw, 5 is too lenient imo
my thoughts are the same, 3 would be good
as for the suggestion itself, it's a great idea, especially because lately commissions are becoming more and more popular within the community, doing something like this would be perfect
also ur cute
Agree, but only ranked status. I
want to believe people pay for maps (it's their choice), not for leaderboards and effort of BN who can get nothing from it, not a single cent.
want to believe people pay for maps (it's their choice), not for leaderboards and effort of BN who can get nothing from it, not a single cent.
agreed
supported, this should have been done a while ago.
wtf?
yes, agreed
Disagree
Agree
But somebody pls explain monstrata's in 3 sentences
But somebody pls explain monstrata's in 3 sentences
Left wrote:
Agree
But somebody pls explain monstrata's in 3 sentences
osu! is a grey area in terms of copyright. Most copyright companies won't even go for us since the money commissions make are at most 3-4 digit's with an average of $20-$50. also, osu!supporter should be looked over for promoting ilegal works.
For those who want a tl;dr for monstrata's stuff
My response to those:
Some initial copyright grey areas: This has to do less with commissions and more generally how you get permission for any content used when ranking any beatmap.
Some fine-tuning to the rule: How does anyone else get "permission" to use song and other content for any ranked beatmap?
The problem with "Legal issues are bound to happen": Fair point, and, uh, risk assessment.
Thoughts on commissions and osu!legal: When paying for osu!supporter you are not paying to be able to download maps. You can do that without supporter.
Some initial copyright grey areas: How do you get permission for public domain, royalty-free, or stuff that have special conditions?
Some fine-tuning to the rule: What do you need to be considered to have "permission"?
The problem with "Legal issues are bound to happen": Profit on commissions are too small to attract a lawsuit
Thoughts on commissions and osu!legal: Artists are loosing out on their fair share because of osu!supporter, so commissions are not any worse than osu!supporter.
My response to those:
Some initial copyright grey areas: This has to do less with commissions and more generally how you get permission for any content used when ranking any beatmap.
Some fine-tuning to the rule: How does anyone else get "permission" to use song and other content for any ranked beatmap?
The problem with "Legal issues are bound to happen": Fair point, and, uh, risk assessment.
Thoughts on commissions and osu!legal: When paying for osu!supporter you are not paying to be able to download maps. You can do that without supporter.
Topic Starter
Ill respond to strata and make adjustments in the next day or ao busy with work atm
@abraker
Two counter arguments to osu!supporter:
1. Payment for priority download. No longer an issue, I think you really have to try before you hit a cap without supporter. But it doesn't discredit the fact that caps used to exist for many years.
2. Supporter is what keeps the site running, so you are effectively paying to keep the site available.
Either way you look at it, the money goes directly or indirectly towards making + keeping pirated content available.
Two counter arguments to osu!supporter:
1. Payment for priority download. No longer an issue, I think you really have to try before you hit a cap without supporter. But it doesn't discredit the fact that caps used to exist for many years.
2. Supporter is what keeps the site running, so you are effectively paying to keep the site available.
Either way you look at it, the money goes directly or indirectly towards making + keeping pirated content available.
Topic Starter
J0rgen wrote:
What happens to already ranked/loved commissions?
Same as previous changes to the ranked section theyre left as is
Sparhten wrote:
Beatmapping should not be seen as something that you spend years learning to earn money from if you want something like that as a hobby you should choose another hobby.
Can you explain why not? Not taking into account the legal point of view (which is a different story), why can't people make money with something they like doing? To me this seems more like a personal opinion right now so I'd be interested to hear a reason.
Sparhten wrote:
they promote low quality mapping with low standards trying to meet the bare minimum to hit the ranked/loved sections
This is not necessarily true, just because you earn money from it doesn't mean that you put no effort in it and end up making a low quality map. A lot of mappers often make GDs but are demotivated to finish them because they get tired of the song or the rhythm/patterns become too repetitive but they are still able to make a good map. So if someone makes a commissioned map of a song they don't particularly like, the map is not automatically bad because of that. The commissioned maps I've seen weren't worse than other maps made by those mappers so this is definitely not an argument for banning commissions.
DMCAs exist thoMonstrata wrote:
Either way you look at it, the money goes directly or indirectly towards making + keeping pirated content available.
To start things off: I am firmly against beatmap commissions personally. I think they're ultimately toxic to the game and the normalization of their presence will signal a sharp decline in the health of the modding and mapping scenes as well as the artistic integrity of the game. osu! is built on a decade-old legacy of free and open artistic expression and anything that introduces the taint of money into that process is in my opinion, taking away from what has and will continue to make osu! unique.
With that out of the way, we should all remember that the Ranking Criteria exists to lay out a set of ground rules and expectations that fundamentally eliminates or diminishes the presence of game-breaking or profoundly unpleasant mapping techniques that make less fun to engage with. It does this in a manner as objectively as possible - by the elements in question being established and then judged by the community and experts on the matter. Techniques and mistakes outlined in the RC have been conclusively proven to diminish the gameplay experience.
While disallowing beatmap commissions via the RC is a tantalizing prospect, it in essence, goes against the core values of the criteria - that the issues it encompasses are judged to be objective flaws to mapping as a whole. Beatmap commissions are not objective flaws in that manner, they are a social issue, and should be judged in that perspective.
Unless of course, that one can argue conclusively with supporting evidence that beatmap commissions are objectively lowering or diminishing the quality of modern beatmapping. In which case, feel free to provide examples, and we can discuss those on the merits of each individual instance.
Otherwise, the declaration by the osu!team (something I personally refer to as 'the edict') many months ago paints this conundrum as a social and political issue - which really, it is. We are staunchly against money having any sort of influence in volunteer roles and the BN are no exception to this. It is the opinion of other members on the team that commissions are not fundamentally wrong, and perhaps even pose positive benefits to the game when undertaken properly in collaboration with artists and the appropriate blessings/permission that all entails.
With that out of the way, we should all remember that the Ranking Criteria exists to lay out a set of ground rules and expectations that fundamentally eliminates or diminishes the presence of game-breaking or profoundly unpleasant mapping techniques that make less fun to engage with. It does this in a manner as objectively as possible - by the elements in question being established and then judged by the community and experts on the matter. Techniques and mistakes outlined in the RC have been conclusively proven to diminish the gameplay experience.
While disallowing beatmap commissions via the RC is a tantalizing prospect, it in essence, goes against the core values of the criteria - that the issues it encompasses are judged to be objective flaws to mapping as a whole. Beatmap commissions are not objective flaws in that manner, they are a social issue, and should be judged in that perspective.
Unless of course, that one can argue conclusively with supporting evidence that beatmap commissions are objectively lowering or diminishing the quality of modern beatmapping. In which case, feel free to provide examples, and we can discuss those on the merits of each individual instance.
Otherwise, the declaration by the osu!team (something I personally refer to as 'the edict') many months ago paints this conundrum as a social and political issue - which really, it is. We are staunchly against money having any sort of influence in volunteer roles and the BN are no exception to this. It is the opinion of other members on the team that commissions are not fundamentally wrong, and perhaps even pose positive benefits to the game when undertaken properly in collaboration with artists and the appropriate blessings/permission that all entails.
Nozhomi wrote:
It's kinda stupid to spend money on mapping in the first place.
Also agree with that.
its true :v
agree with ephemeral
slight tangent but talking about legal "issues" here kinda annoys me. you guys aren't working on behalf of the ppy company and this seems silly to speculate about from the outside. plus the scope would clearly be larger than the RC
slight tangent but talking about legal "issues" here kinda annoys me. you guys aren't working on behalf of the ppy company and this seems silly to speculate about from the outside. plus the scope would clearly be larger than the RC
Topic Starter
yeah general rewrite the post to something more suiting such as a potentially requireing them be added to tags or just dropping this all together will update on sunday
i think ephemeral summarized why this wouldn't be a good fit for the ranking criteria. it's fine to have preferences on subjects like this, though it's not what the rc is designed to uphold (especially when it's an aspect of a map that isn't 100% knowable without being the mapper)
if you want to do this tags thing, create a separate thread for it. this one's crowded with 50 unrelated posts already
Sparhten wrote:
yeah general rewrite the post to something more suiting such as a potentially requireing them be added to tags or just dropping this all together will update on sunday
if you want to do this tags thing, create a separate thread for it. this one's crowded with 50 unrelated posts already
Topic Starter
pishifat wrote:
i think ephemeral summarized why this wouldn't be a good fit for the ranking criteria. it's fine to have preferences on subjects like this, though it's not what the rc is designed to uphold (especially when it's an aspect of a map that isn't 100% knowable without being the mapper)
Sparhten wrote:
yeah general rewrite the post to something more suiting such as a potentially requireing them be added to tags or just dropping this all together will update on sunday
if you want to do this tags thing, create a separate thread for it. this one's crowded with 50 unrelated posts already
Yeah would be appreciated if this was archived so i coukd make a new thread with diffrent changes