C3's question thread

[rambomhtri]

OK, I open this thread so we can talk nicely about questions and stuff about C3's content, multitracks and all related with them. There are a lot of people asking questions about them in threads that have nothing to do with C3, so here it is, a properly thread. I'll start with quite a lot questions:

1. If you, C3 team, don't want to make noise, why did you start to use a public internet site where anybody can download your stuff? That's the opposite of not making noise. I'm pretty sure you're not making noise nowadays because not many people are interested in multitracks. But, if a lot of people suddenly want multitracks, you know how internet works, C3 site would be spreaded like wildfire.

2. I don't get why labels, Harmonix or whatever can get hurt by isolated instruments, but they don't care/don't get hurt about the millions of sites that has the entire mixed copyrighted song. If it's because money, and it's always about money, I would care more about what I sell. You buy CD's, entire songs, not multitracks. So it does more hurt an entire song that only part of it, cause you can buy or download for free the entire song, but you can only download for free from internet that isolated instrument of the song (and then you are not competing with any label cause you're not sharing for free anything they are selling). To sum up, if you upload an entire song, you are competing them, but if you upload part of it or an isolated instrument, then you're not competing with anyone, cause no one here is selling multitracks in the market like that.

3. They are so available. Just search in YouTube. Almost any song I searched for using "name of the song + multitrack/stem/isolated" was uploaded to YouTube. Or even better, you google Metallica + stems/multitrack/isolated, and you get tons of sites that share plenty of them. So the point is, if anyone want a multitrack, they can get it for sure using the first page of Google.

4. Phase Shift or C3 are definitely not the first sites that somebody looking for a download link of an album would look at, but anyways, they both are dealing with copyrighted material, so there are plenty of reasons to put on the table to close both sites if any company wants to. I don't know, I see it like... it's like an assassin that has killed a lot of people tries to be less "assassin-ness" by not killing kids. I mean, the police has plenty of reasons to arrest him, it doesn't matter if the assassin doesn't kill kids no more.

5. What's really the problem about multitracks? I mean, there're people that can sell them, OK, but are they really a menace? Unless there was a site with millions of views per week that sells multitracks and people earn big bucks, someone selling multitracks does not hurt anybody, mainly because no-one will ever notice. I'm not justifying it. If I upload a Metallica album to a free share page, someone downloads it and then sells it to a guy, I wouldn't like it, but it would not hurt me in any way. And I still can hardly imagine that someone can find a guy that is all set to pay for them; cause you got to find someone "dumb" enough that did not google "Metallica multitracks" before.
What else can you do with multitracks that C3 people hate so much they had to encrypt all the stuff?

6. If copyright here is the issue, they could shut down these both sites tomorrow. Why they don't do it? Don't they know about these 2 sites? If they are still available because they are not too famous (Harmonix and co don't know about these 2 sites), then here's another paradox. You create a web site to be spreaded like wildfire, that's internet, that's the basis of internet. If you just want to share privately, then you don't open a public domain and share it to the world. You can't trust the longevity of your website on depending how famous it is. I mean, what's the logic? Let's open a web site and do not too "legal" stuff, and let's hope we don't do much noise, cause if we do, we close. Let's hope we get 4000 users per week. If we go further, they shut this down. That has no sense, right?

[Maupy2]

You do like... You do realize C3 has its own forum?

And do they really want to make not too much noise? I mean yeah they're not actively putting their name out there, but they don't avoid exposure as far as I know. But yeah, maybe someone from C3 can answer these questions better.

[farottone]

Everything has been answered here:

I'm gonna pen a complete answer to this because we don't hide in the shadows or anything like that, the way we operated has been clear since the beginning. In fact, we brought customs for Rock Band OUT of the shadows of pirate content forums into the light of the day to the point that we got a nod from as high up we could get in the Rock Band food chain. :) And of all the days to depict us of being "in the shadows", today is really the less appropriate...

When we started this we had the concern of legality, because obviously this is a grey area at best, but we wanted to minize the amount of hurt on any party involved (that's why we will stop weekly releases when RB4 hits the stores). We came to a conclusion: nobody would reasonably download a CON file, crack it open, open a MOGG file, extract the tracks and save them just to get an MP3 file they can easily rip off YouTube or download for free from some Web site. Now, that is a no brainer: you can find an MP3 for a Metallica song anywhere. Multitracks are another thing altogether: they are not easily available (otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation anyway) and in some cases are sold. Our policy has been clear since the beginning: the less amount of hurt possible. So, Nemo worked incredibly hard to provide an added level of protection to our files and we got encryption. Now, Phase Shift has clearly no encryption support, and we already had a tradeoff between our conscience and making the songs available to the PS community when we had to release PS versions with audio file plainly available. One thing is to extract files from a MOGG, another is to just download a ZIP archive. Still, PS archives are probably not the first stop for people looking for pirated music. Multitracks are another matter, to the point that Rock Band itself spurred a whole community of audiophile getting separated tracks specifically from the game. The tradeoff was clear to us: we do release the songs we have in multitrack format for the PS community, but we mix the tracks down.

I read about copyright and legality. Copyright is not the issue here: nobody has any rights on anything, so the entire customs community should be shut down using that logic. The issue is of who gets hurt. With encrypted customs, basically nobody: not the labels, not Harmonix (as a general rule), not anybody trading in studio tracks. And we like it that way. And you should like it too because the less people we hurt, the less noise we make, the longer we go. How many times have you clicked on a FoF link and found it gone? Now, how many times did you click on a C3 link and found it gone? We want to do things right but we need to do them the way we set them up to be.

I have to say I honestly don't understand the anger: we (actually, Nemo and Nemo alone) worked hard to have a tool to export to PS. Nobody in our team, and I mean nobody, plays on Phase Shift. The only reason we did is because we could let more people play the songs. We never expected thanks or anything but neither we expected people being unhappy that we provide them with more songs.

There isn't a question in the OP that isn't answered there. The only thing not addressed is the presence of multitracks on YouTube. Comparing the quality of a YouTube video to our releases makes little sense honestly. Plus, you want to download multitracks from YouTube? Go ahead, but you didn't get them from our files. And if you did and somehow broke the encryption, there's only so much we can do to prevent tampering. Even if there are burglars who can break into any safe you still buy a good safe.

Finally, there isn't a single thing that can be said that will make us change the policy: it's up to disgruntled users to either accept that and play the mixdown version or not play it at all. Not understanding what we say and arguing will not produce great results. Of course anyone is welcome to ask questions on our forums but it won't go farther than what I've said because that is the extent of our policy.

[wolferacing]

I am not affiliated with C3. However I want to address a few of the questions from a different standpoint. I have worked many years within the music industry and the rhythm game industry. I know firsthand the importance of multitrack protection.

2. I don't get why labels, Harmonix or whatever can get hurt by isolated instruments, but they don't care/don't get hurt about the millions of sites that has the entire mixed copyrighted song. If it's because money, and it's always about money, I would care more about what I sell. You buy CD's, entire songs, not multitracks. So it does more hurt an entire song that only part of it, cause you can buy or download for free the entire song, but you can only download for free from internet that isolated instrument of the song (and then you are not competing with any label cause you're not sharing for free anything they are selling). To sum up, if you upload an entire song, you are competing them, but if you upload part of it or an isolated instrument, then you're not competing with anyone, cause no one here is selling multitracks in the market like that.

Master tracks are not the same as a mixed down song by any means. Think of it like this; You go to the store and buy a coke. Look in that same store to see if you can buy a coke creation kit. You won't find one. Master tracks are "ingredients and recipes" of a song. Rights holders want these to remain out of the hands of the public. There is a market for multitracks. It is called master track licensing and it costs thousands.

3. They are so available. Just search in YouTube. Almost any song I searched for using "name of the song + multitrack/stem/isolated" was uploaded to YouTube. Or even better, you google Metallica + stems/multitrack/isolated, and you get tons of sites that share plenty of them. So the point is, if anyone want a multitrack, they can get it for sure using the first page of Google.

They are available to a point. The only songs you will find are the ones poorly "ripped" from a game. You will not find raw true master tracks on google. Guitar Hero masters are the most commonly found and the mixing quality on those was, less just say not up to par with what I would consider good. There is a difference between finding a youtube master track and finding a decent quality master track worth keeping.

4. Phase Shift or C3 are definitely not the first sites that somebody looking for a download link of an album would look at, but anyways, they both are dealing with copyrighted material, so there are plenty of reasons to put on the table to close both sites if any company wants to. I don't know, I see it like... it's like an assassin that has killed a lot of people tries to be less "assassin-ness" by not killing kids. I mean, the police has plenty of reasons to arrest him, it doesn't matter if the assassin doesn't kill kids no more.

This part comes down to rarity. Master tracks are easily traceable to their original source.

[FrOoGle]

Also, if you really, desperately want multitracks, you can pay for them on jammit.com. iirc each stem (guitar, bass, drums, vocals etc) are $5.00 Canadian.

[rambomhtri]

Farottone, that was a very poor answer there, there's a lot to talk about in my questions, and I typed these questions after reading what you're calling an answer.

The Froogster, I'm not starting this thread so I can hopefully get their multitracks. If you had just read the first sentence of the thread, you'd have known it.

Werewolfe, I can't agree with you:
Product: Coke can / mp3 (this is what you buy, what companies sell, what really matters here, cause it's what people wants in the market)
Ingredients: Water, carbon dioxide, can , colorants... / master tracks
Creation kit: the giant tanks where the water gets warm, the recipe itself, how you do mix all the ingredients to achieve that flavor / basically, the studio setup, guitar tone, sound engineers, etc.

In that very same example you gave, coke is the final product (can+liquid), and the final product here is a mixed mp3 you can find in amazon, iTunes or in a CD. The ingredients are water, colorants, carbon dioxide, can... If you mix all the ingredients, you get coke, the product. If you mix all the master tracks, you get the mp3, the product. Nevertheless, I'm noticing that comparing this to a Coke example is not a good idea, cause they are too different things. If you get the product (coke), you can start competing them. If you get the mixed mp3, you can't sell a Metallica song in the market.
I'd love to agree with you, but can't. Master tracks are not available in the market, and by that I mean there's no market to the public for them, like CD's.

So if you share master tracks, you are not making Harmonix, labels or studios earn less money. That's basically my point. You make them earn less money if you upload an album, cause may be a 10% of the people that downloaded the album would have bought it in iTunes if they wouldn't have found it for free. But here, none of us that download content from C3 or bluzer's thread would go to harmonix and ask for multitracks. Basically because they are not for sale (which also intrigues me).

Also, what's the difference between a "poorly" ripped master track and a loss-less master track? For me, it makes no difference at all, you're listening to the isolated instruments anyway, with more than enough quality. So, what's your point about that idea?

Again, still don't understand why labels don't want us to listen to isolated master tracks. They don't lose any dollar at all. If I were a label, I would be worried about someone that spies how I produce the music, all the gear and stuff, what software I use... Cause that's when they can compete with me, another labels appear, offering musicians the very same quality sound I can offer them. So, what harm listening to a master track can do? If it does any harm, I can only see that in any way, the mixed final mp3 should do quite more harm, nevertheless, C3 is OK providing mixed copyrighted material.

[raynebc]

Short answer: Regardless of whether you think record labels are justified in protecting their property, they can hold it against C3 if C3 becomes the largest point of distribution for stems. And that can mean legal action, just because people would abuse what was intended solely for use in Rock Band. C3 is protecting its interests in making sure that what they release stays in-game where it's meant to be.

[rambomhtri]

"just because people would abuse"

But what kind of abuse, lol. That's basically what I don't understand, why master tracks are considered like x999 times more harmful than mixed songs. I see just the opposite, that a mixed song you can actually buy is x999 times more harmful if it's shared for free.

[farottone]

That's basically what I don't understand.

It needs to be said that you're the only one though. Every single person who replied understands exactly the issue, you probably need to take a better look at the problem.

[rambomhtri]

And that's why I created the thread, so you guys can explain me why a master track is way more dangerous than a mixed song. As I said, I can only see it the opposite way, so let me understand your point of view. I can clearly see what uploading an album can mean: less people buying it. But talking about master tracks, I just can't find any solid reason. I've read that there are people that sell them, but that is just ridiculous. I think it is almost impossible to find someone on the internet ready to pay for multitracks, cause if he want multitracks, it's easy as pie to find them using google. But even if it were the hardest thing to find, still is a lower case problem, the last thing that makes you work in the encryption of the tracks. And still, even considering that, for label it would make no difference.

[Gefolo]

Great topic, only commented to praise and "Firstar" on the first page :D

[TrojanNemo]

That's basically what I don't understand

And that's why I created the thread

You seem to have this delusion that you have to understand things for them to be right. I don't know why farottone continues to entertain your questions, maybe because he's so nice. But my point stands, C3 doesn't have to explain its actions to you. As I said before, things are the way they are. They're not going to change. We all understand that you don't understand. Now move on, continue your life. That's it.

[rambomhtri]

You seem to have this delusion that you have to understand things for them to be right. I don't know why farottone continues to entertain your questions, maybe because he's so nice. But my point stands, C3 doesn't have to explain its actions to you. As I said before, things are the way they are. They're not going to change. We all understand that you don't understand. Now move on, continue your life. That's it.

Well, I started this thread cause I have so many questions about this topic, as you can see. You, as another user up there, has misunderstood this thread's point, which is just ask questions, as clearly the title says. I don't want you to change anything, I just ask questions, nicely numbered, about things I don't understand. I've never said C3 agents must be here, representing their web and replying to this tribunal. Indeed, I think there are just 2 or 3 questions that are C3 related.

[TrojanNemo]

Indeed, I think there are just 2 or 3 questions that are C3 related.

C3's question thread

Well, which one is it?
And nobody else can answer C3 questions other than C3 people, unless you want to call this the "C3 speculation thread."

Like I said before, I'm done replying to your questions, so I won't answer any of them myself.

[rambomhtri]

Indeed, I think there are just 2 or 3 questions that are C3 related.

C3's question thread

Well, which one is it?
And nobody else can answer C3 questions other than C3 people, unless you want to call this the "C3 speculation thread."

Like I said before, I'm done replying to your questions, so I won't answer any of them myself.

Number 1 and 6 are the only ones that are much more C3 specific. Almost all the rest are about how master tracks can do any harm, but with different twists. And the title is named like that because it was targeted to your C3 mate. Was not pretending to open the official and only one thread about C3. And it has quite sense to target this thread to C3 people cause C3 are encrypting master tracks, thing I don't know why is done. It's like trying to find out what's so scary about that black house over the mountain, and go ask to those people that are running away screaming. If they are acting scared, it's because of something. Ive already seen the black house and found nothing scary, so I got to ask people running away what's going on. That's also why I typed C3 in the title.