<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/09/13/thanks-complicated-music-licensing-schemes-alan-wake-updated-to-remove-bowie-song-from-credits/>
"Here we go again. For those of us that view video games as a vital and still
emerging form of culture and art, one of the more frustrating aspects of the
industry is how music is licensed for game soundtracks and how that licensing
complicates games as they age. For instance, we saw this play out earlier this
year with an aged
Spec Ops: The Line game getting delisted from Steam
entirely, much to the surprise of both the public and the director of the game.
The culprit? Well, the licensing for the soundtrack in the game had expired.
Now, think about what this means if you place this in the context of
preservation of culture. Soundtracks are obviously important in entertainment
mediums. Music can make or break a film or TV show. Video games are no
different. I fell in love with the
Mass Effect series long ago, for example,
and a huge part of it was the atmospheric draw of the soundtrack.
But as important as the music is, as I can feel the copyright protectionists
out there nodding along with me, so too is the cultural output that makes use
of it to create a whole new piece of art. Take the hit game
Alan Wake from
2010 as an example. Alongside an excellent original score, the soundtrack also
features several licensed songs, most notably David Bowie’s
Space Oddity. Or,
it did, that is, since the original release will have that song stripped out of
it in an update due to a licensing expiration."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
