Legal music questions...

Alright, I realize that this is a thorny issue on the Linden's sides... the music problem.

There's a bunch of people I've gone to that have a bunch of mp3s (actually ogg files, but still sitting on their shelf, and whatnot... that's fine, I don't have a problem with file-sharing. But, the Lindens think it's a problem, because technically it could be considered file sharing. And until the lawyer blitz that the RIAA is sending against everyone cools off, I'm tempted to side with the Lindens on that one.

But that's not why I'm bugging you all today

I'm a musician. I produce, record, and release my own music. I have full access to the raw files I use to record my music digitally. is there any way, short of a clumsy queueing-up-script, to get a full song in here to sell to my fellow Lifers? Perhaps set up some sort of legal music program, letting people upload music on a case-by-case basis (to be decided by the Lindens).

Frankly, I think it'd be great. having music that's exclusive to SL would be a big boon to the community, I think. Plus, more people can listen to my music and hopefully enjoy it I just think it's silly that I have to hack my songs apart in ten-second increments just to have it re-mangled by a scripted soundbox.

Just my thoughts,

Lordfly

that is the very besy way to do it as far as i know. if u have new music u want people to hear, set up a music event so people can hear your music. set up a record that people can click on to hear your songs. it is extremely silly the way it is now to break up 10 second files, and why they chose wave is something i don't understand. Wave files are much larger than mp3 as you probably know, I think they did it this way so the world wouldn't be totally flooded with music files of everyone trying to play their song at the same time possibly 10 other people are trying to do the same thing. So all you can do is hack your songs up into small 10 second deals, let people hear it and if people like it you can sell it and once you make sales you can reinvest your profits back into putting up more of your songs. That's probably the all around best way to do it.

I agree with you lordfly, mainly because I do the same exact thing as you... record and produce my own music. I use programs such as cakewalk and cubase, and you can get pretty specific on cutting songs into nine seconds.. here's the thing though.. i have a music script that preloads and detects the clips and all... sometimes it works real well in piecing the clips, and sometimes it sounds like utter crap. I have uploaded a few of my songs, and it's what i tend to live with at the moment.

It especially burns a nice hole in your pocket when you have to uplad 42 clips on a 6 minute song, too.

--Water

First: Although the files start as wavs they are compressed (ogg format) on the client before even being uploaded. They are stored and downloaded compressed as well. Wav was chosen since it is the standard for editing music, I think. They mentioned that support for uploading ogg files might be added later, although it would be limited to select quality settings.

I don't think it should be any cheaper to dowload longer files, if such a thing were made possible.

I used to play on a laptop and kept the sound off because the laptop sound just didn't sound good. Now I have a new computer and 5.1 surround sound. I still keep the sound off most of the time because of the noise pollution. :/ Its also a reason none of my games make noise. Although if any sound artists wanted to make effects for my games we could work out a good deal.

The idea of sounds I think was to make the world seem more alive with sound effects and background noise. 10 seconds is a great limit for most sound effects. You really don't want a door creaking, a bell ringing, a bird squak, owl hoot, door knock, foot step, gun shot, explosion etc to last for more than 10 seconds. The real difficulty comes with music, which I believe the system isn't designed for, and shouldn't be designed for.

Copyrighted songs are already too prolific in game, and that is with the high expense and difficulty. And actually difficulty is near 0 because the scripts have already been made, its just a matter of cutting the song up. It really is too bad that legitimate uses, songs for which you do own full copyright on, have to suffer for this. It would be nice if there was a way to easily tell a copyrighted song from a non copyrighted song etc. so it wouldn't happen.