Nintendo DS - Legalities of the samples used.

[davidjfranco]

Hi there,

Working on the Nintendo DS and I'm curious, it seems that the hardware requires you to make something similar to a 'Soundfont' that your MIDI sequences will play through, the DS has no inbuilt sounds so you have to make these soundfonts from scratch... I'm curious, If I want to put for example; the Steinberg Grand into it, can i sample instruments I legally own? Creating a few wavs, that make up my soundfont. How does that work...

Anyone with official experience?

Thanks!

David

[lukpcn]

Hi there,

Working on the Nintendo DS and I'm curious, it seems that the hardware requires you to make something similar to a 'Soundfont' that your MIDI sequences will play through, the DS has no inbuilt sounds so you have to make these soundfonts from scratch... I'm curious, If I want to put for example; the Steinberg Grand into it, can i sample instruments I legally own? Creating a few wavs, that make up my soundfont. How does that work...

Anyone with official experience?

Thanks!

David

Read the licenses of them and everything will be clear.

[EgM]

You're lucky to be able to compose in midi for the team you work with :) Most of the time on GBA and NDS, you have to compose (track) modules (XM/IT) and samples are saved in the file. like the previous poster said, if you own a license to the soundbank you use, you're alright.

Eric E. Hache
www.gamemusic.ca

[Crossingsound]

hey buddy,
I am working on a game using midi too. As mentioned before you should be kewl using your samples. Might want to double check your liscencing agreement with your libraries just in case. Feel free to PM me with any other questions that may come up regarding your game. :D

[EgM]

Can you give me the name of that sound engine or the utilities used? :)

Thanks

Eric E. Hache
www.gamemusic.ca

[Duncan Watt]

There's a lot of speculation going on in this thread :)

I don't mean to be negative, David - but weighing the very difficult legal mess you could be creating for the dev/pub (and yourself) if you're *not* clear to use the samples against how relatively easy it would be to pick up the phone and ask the sample library publishers for permission, why not just ask?

In my personal opinion, this isn't a case for 'better to apologize than to ask permission' - you're obviously a professional, I honestly can't think of a reason why you wouldn't simply check with the sample library publishers (unless maybe you got the gig using the samples and have been caught out, in which case you can still convince the sample publishers to let you use them, all is not lost). If they say no, then you ducked a bullet. If they say yes, you're cool. Worse, if you went all Napster about it and the sample publishers found out a year or so down the line and sued the publishers, I'd bet you had a huge time trying to dig yourself out of *that* hole. Why risk it?

I'm not trying to be combative, I'm really wondering what's driving your reluctance to check it out with the people who made the samples in the first place. Why speculate?

Good luck with the game!

Duncan

ps I'm sure we'd all be interested in hearing the results of your conversations with the sample publishers, too - would you be willing to post what they say?

[Sean Beeson]

The fastest man is here :)!

[Scott Cairns]

I cant see why it would be a problem.

Technically, you're storing sample sounds on Xbox's, PS2, PCs etc too. :)

But as Duncan said, it cant hurt to ask I guess.

[Duncan Watt]

Yes, Sean. I am ubiquitous.

:n:

[Sean Beeson]

Yes, Sean. I am ubiquitous.

:n:

Had to look that one up :p (J/J)

Great to see you here!
Sean

[mhuang]

IIRC some sample library makers requires you to buy an additional license to use their sound in your custom game soundbanks. I believe sonic implant requires this this.

[groovyone]

I'm going to answer this anyway since I'm back out of the wilderness that is.

Legally for most sample banks you can't just port them to another sample bank for a game. You'd need

HOWEVER.

You CAN sample and modify samples and change them then mechanically they are yours. If you do that you are not violating the mechanical copyrights of the original samples. Unless of course there's some clause in the sample library's license that also prevents that, but it's pretty hard to prove where a sample comes from when it's been chopped up, EQ'd compressed and DS'ified to the point it doesn't sound much like the original 48kHz source.

However if you use it a lot and want it to sound the same, then perhaps consider the extra license.