So I noticed there are quite a few releases where the original game music was simply ripped.

First of all, I think that's a BIG deal and should be warned about on the store page in red letters at the top or something, because it's not the complete product you are selling, so you have to make that sufficiently clear. Personally, I wouldn't buy a game without music again.

I also don't understand how there can be legal issues at all. Can someone explain this? How can the rights of a single game be split among multiple parties? I've never heard about a movie being shown on tv without the score because of legal problems. You wouldn't just rip a movie apart and act like the music wasn't an integral part of it... Why can you do it with games? And even if you can, what kind of person would refuse to have their 20 year old music released with its original game? What will be next? Ripped textures, voice acting, written dialogues, code sections?

I know gog probably can't do much about it, if negotiations don't work out, but they CAN and have to label titles as incomplete in a way that it can't be overlooked.

The music is often not created by employees of the game studio, but made by an external artist. If the contract between the artist and studio says that the artist owns the music, and the studio/publisher is only allowed to sell it for a set amonut of time, then the contract needs to be re-negotiated - if the musician(s) do no agree with the publisher, for a re-licensing, the music cannot continue to be included in the game.

And yes, this would be the case for any assets. Thankfully, for us as gamers, such contracts aren't all too common, at least for non-audio assets. For example, original text is owned by the publisher, but translations are often owned by the translator (and sometimes licensed in such a way that it can only be sold in a certain region).

Oh, THAT is absolutely virulent, sadly.

https://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2012/01/03/144624329/the-big-bad-swap-the-problem-with-replaced-music

I've stumbled upon several shows that made it to DVD with mutilated soundtracks. The Muppet Show comes to mind, the first DVD release of Quantum Leap, and I believe, the Highlander series (I might be wrong about that though). Apparently the licensing rights that were originally given didn't extend to such re-releases, and couldn't all be re-aquired, hence the butchering.

And it's worse than that.

The rights to the same track could lie with different rights holders in different countries. So you may attempt the maddeningly difficult quest to aquire those rights from all rights holders in all the target countries, swap music for certain target countries or just effing make a new version with new music altogether.

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/TV-Shows-on-DVD-ruined-by-music-replacement-or-cuts-edits-Restoring-them-back-to-original-state-a-project-Update-The-Andy-Griffith-Show-Season-3-DONE/id/13476
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20031019/2327220.shtml

https://www.gog.com/game/quake_the_offering

Top-most review states there is no music *in the game*. Is he making it up? Quake was definitely on my wishlist. It's what made me post this topic. But I have seen similar user reviews before for other games.

Ohhhh also.

In the GOG and Steam versions of "Oceanhorn", all tracks that were composed by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu and Kenji Ito, contained in the ioS version, were REMOVED and replaced by new compositions by Kalle Ylitalo (which were really good, but I mean. Someone could have told prospective buyers. I still see the PC version of this game advertised with Uematsu-san).

So, absolutely, yeah. Legal crap fucks up game soundtracks just as well.

Right, I didn't read correctly. Sorry about that. I replaced my post already.

That is just sick. If copyright laws don't adjust, I guess piracy will be the thing of the future again.

When big money is involved, I'm not actually surprised though. But who would sit on 20+ year old game soundtracks?...

Like for most people, the nostalgia factor is the main reason I still buy these old games. And the music is absolutely essential :(

He's partially correct. Quake comes in two versions; DOS and Windows. The Windows version used to have MP3 files for the soundtrack, but thanks to legal issues, it was completely removed from there and instead, a CD image with the game's soundtrack was added to the DOS version. More info below:
https://www.gog.com/forum/quake_series/quake_the_offering_music/page1

So, out of the box, you either have the choice of a mute Windows version, or the DOS version with the soundtrack. If you don't mind some effort, you can extract the CD image and play the game with music in a source port:
https://www.gog.com/forum/quake_series/quake_the_offering_tweak_guide_video_quakespasm_extracting_audio_deemphasising

With TV series that seems to have happened at least, e.g. "Married with Children". When they were airing the umpteenth reruns here at some point, I started noticing it doesn't have the original song anymore, but replaced with a similar (but not the same) theme music without vocals.

The original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661arAAlqwY

The alternate "DVD-version": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xad-StH-7BY

EDIT: Someone apparently listed some other TV series examples too...

@Grargar thanks for the info. Maybe I will get it at a discount after all.


About "altered" series/movies I can only say it's a fricking shame how "cultural goods", "pieces of art" or whatever you want to call them can get butchered like that and it only shows that copyright laws should also protect the product in the interest of the public, not ONLY the creators.

GTA doesn't have any original music. :P

Unless you count Love Fist.

Actually, many movies and TV shows have altered music. For instance, House, MD has an alternate theme that plays when people pay less for the license (Netflix and some TV stations in syndication do not use the Teardrop theme by Massive Attack). The edits are often small and thematically similar, but the original music was licensed separately and therefore isn't used in rebroadcasts. WWE Network does the same with a lot of older theme songs and sponsored music on older events. The music is replaced with another thematically similar theme.

Hey OP thanks for the question, it's an area most gamers make assumptions on which is usually very far from the truth but i can give you my personal experience.

I am a musician and have been writing for developers for over 30 years, i do things a little differently to most other video game musicians. As i am not directly involved with a developer as a paid employee for instance i merely sell my soundtracks to them for their completed game which mostly entitles them to use it inclusively for said game and with a named publisher.

This means there is no licence or any kind as long as the publisher and developer remains the same then the soundtrack is tied to that game, but many game soundtracks today are indeed licenced which causes many headaches as the musician may revoke the developer or publisher from using it for many reasons but essentially this licence just runs out and remains the work and copyright of the original creator the musician and not the developer at all.

For me it's just a case of here's my finished work, you pay me for that work and you can use it for the condition of use but if that changes in any way then you can't use that work without informing me or just resell the product under a different name and/or developer or publisher.

If you see a soundtrack pulled from a game such as homeworld for instance then it's because of licencing reasons, many developers have resorted to using remixes or soundalike versions of the originals where the original soundtrack has been removed.

Sometimes when old games get rereleased or repackaged the original musician cannot be traced so to avoid getting into legal troubles they are simply removed. Feel free to ask if want to know anything further.

hey, that's great, but can you do the future a favor and put in your will that after you die, should a game you sold your music to change publishers or something they have the permission to use your music because there's no getting your consent after you're dead

I'm sure that i will put something in place when i retire which hopefully won't be for some time yet, i can't imagine though that in 25 years some of my oldest work would still be in demand as it would be 50 years or even older at that point. I'm more than happy to accomodate people if they just ask nicely and sometimes i do gives exclusives or freebies as i'm that kinda person but i do realise that soundtracks are becoming more important once again to gamers.