Former Bungie audio director asks fans to delete music shared without legal permission

[Jimmy2x]

Recap: An ex-Bungie composer was found in contempt of court for continuing to publish Destiny audio assets without permission. This action violated the terms of a previous lawsuit, stating that Marty O'Donnell did not comply with instruction to return all audio material in his possession to Bungie. In September, O'Donnell was ordered to pay $100,000 to Bungie as well as create a video asking fans to delete any wrongfully obtained audio.

The composer responsible for Halo's infamous theme music and the Destiny's franchise's soundtrack has posted a court-ordered video to his fans. The video includes a court-approved message urging fans stop sharing and delete any non-commercially available material, including any music related to his previously unreleased musical score, Music of the Spheres.

The eight-part score, which was created with composer Michael Salvatori and former Beatle Paul McCartney, was shelved in 2013 when Activision decided not to use the previously-agreed upon composition for Destiny's E3 trailer.

O'Donnell was later fired by Bungie and went on to ignite a years-long legal feud. Following one legal battle regarding unpaid wages, the former composer was ordered to return all Destiny-related material, including any related to the Music of the Spheres.

In 2019, O'Donnell found himself in trouble once again for posting Bungie's protected content. These actions directly violated the court's previous injunction, and in May 2021 this led to an updated ruling in Bungie's favor. That ruling required O'Donnell to pay Bungie upwards of $100,000 and release a video statement (above) to anyone that has the audio in their possession.

In the video, O'Donnell freely admits he has not and does not have the legal authority to own or distribute non-commercially available material related to Destiny or Music of the Spheres.

The music, which is owned by Bungie, has since been released and made available through official channels. In the video O'Donnell clearly states that the request does not apply to any Destiny or Music of the Spheres material that was lawfully obtained from commercially available sources.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92320-former-bungie-audio-director-asks-fans-delete-music.html

 

[R00sT3R]

Pointless exercise in legal box ticking.

..and the only people getting richer in all of this are the parasitic, blood sucking corporate lawyers.

 

[Dimitriid]

What a great P.S.A. for any musician out there: Never work for a gaming company, no matter how good the money is, they're just as pathetic as signing for a record label in 2021. Just promote yourself and never surrender ownership of your music.

 

[Danny101]

The lesson here is to only license your scores so that publishers can't come back and screw you in the end.

 

[Shadowboxer]

He signed a deal with a corporation where they gave him money and he produced music for them to own. He is absolutely in the wrong and the humiliating video he’s had to record along with having to pay the fine is all on him for being stupid.

If you pay a builder to build you a house, he doesn’t have the right to access it after the job is done. If you pay a chef to Cook you food it’s not ok for that chef to come along and start eating from your plate. You get the picture.

 

[tellmewhy]

You can find that soundtrack here (

). Three quarters of the pieces are general atmospheres and the other quarter are monotonous repetitive motifs (loops).

This "work" (and all the like) does NOT contain any artistic value and should not be endorsed to be copyrighted as it is very common.

It can not be tolerated to copyright any kind of “noise” just because it comes out of the speakers and is not speech.
To comparison here is some real ost (

)

 

[tellmewhy]

He signed a deal with a corporation where they gave him money and he produced music for them to own. He is absolutely in the wrong and the humiliating video he’s had to record along with having to pay the fine is all on him for being stupid.

If you pay a builder to build you a house, he doesn’t have the right to access it after the job is done. If you pay a chef to Cook you food it’s not ok for that chef to come along and start eating from your plate. You get the picture.

If you have a “good soup” and someone put a spoon in it you will have less soup after that. But if it’s about music and someone share it, it will increase it’s value due to the free advertising.

It’s an ost they don’t expect to make money from the streams but they except to make money from the sales of the game. Every time the name of the game (in the context of it’s ost) appears somewhere it’s a free advertisement for the game, and now days there are are thousand of games so advertisement is something which it’s very needed.

So they have no damages instead they have a profit from his actions.

The law exist to make the social life easier and more efficient. If someone gives you a gift and you give him a punch it's not make the social life easier and more efficient. It’s not make the social life easier and more efficient if people start fight over the ownership of simple, basic and generic things too.

 

[Shadowboxer]

If you have a “good soup” and someone put a spoon in it you will have less soup after that. But if it’s about music and someone share it, it will increase it’s value due to the free advertising.

It’s an ost they don’t expect to make money from the streams but they except to make money from the sales of the game. Every time the name of the game (in the context of it’s ost) appears somewhere it’s a free advertisement for the game, and now days there are are thousand of games so advertisement is something which it’s very needed.

So they have no damages instead they have a profit from his actions.

I mean just because it’s infinitely replicable doesn’t mean you have the right to copy. This is the problem today, people seem to think it’s ok to copy or distribute other peoples work because the owner isn’t losing a piece of that work when they do.This is not the law.

If you own the rights to music it’s up to you to let it be shared or not. And in this case Bungie own the music and they are free to do with it what they like. Just because you personally believe Bungie profit from its sharing doesn’t mean that they have no choice but to allow other people to share it.

We have to respect copyright laws, these same laws protect small artists and content creators from corporations and individuals just ripping their creations off.

 

[kapital98]

I mean just because it’s infinitely replicable doesn’t mean you have the right to copy. This is the problem today, people seem to think it’s ok to copy or distribute other peoples work because the owner isn’t losing a piece of that work when they do.This is not the law.

If you own the rights to music it’s up to you to let it be shared or not. And in this case Bungie own the music and they are free to do with it what they like. Just because you personally believe Bungie profit from its sharing doesn’t mean that they have no choice but to allow other people to share it.

We have to respect copyright laws, these same laws protect small artists and content creators from corporations and individuals just ripping their creations off.

Why did you shift stances from "it's wrong" to "it's not the law"? At the very least, I think we can agree the original analogies you used were logically inconsistent with this IP case? "Infinitely replicable" =/= a meal or a house?

TellMeWhy's name is right on this one: Why is the IP law so rigid and why is all the power in the hands of major corporations (like IMG)? At least on Youtube and similar services, this *hurts* small artists because they don't have the ability to fight the companies that benefit from bad IP laws that effectively let them control who "wins" and who "loses" from distribution.

"It's the law" would work if the law made sense. TellMeWhy does a pretty good job at tell me why it doesn't.

 

[umbala]

I mean just because it’s infinitely replicable doesn’t mean you have the right to copy. This is the problem today, people seem to think it’s ok to copy or distribute other peoples work because the owner isn’t losing a piece of that work when they do.This is not the law.

If you own the rights to music it’s up to you to let it be shared or not. And in this case Bungie own the music and they are free to do with it what they like. Just because you personally believe Bungie profit from its sharing doesn’t mean that they have no choice but to allow other people to share it.

We have to respect copyright laws, these same laws protect small artists and content creators from corporations and individuals just ripping their creations off.

Just because something is "the law" doesn't necessarily mean it's a law that makes sense. When someone creates a piece of music they do it because they want others to hear it. In this instance, the piece of music was created to advertise a game and the studio decided last minute not to use it.

Obviously the creator of the music wants people to hear it, but has no legal standing due to his contract with the studio and some bogus laws. He did not distribute the music to profit from it and distributing it did not cause any financial damages to the studio. How many musicians are there out there who want to create a piece of music only to have some studio decide it will never be heard by anyone just because they bought the rights? Allowing the creator of the music to freely distribute it in a case like this should fall under the fair use doctrine as far as I'm concerned.


fair use

 

[Shadowboxer]

Just because something is "the law" doesn't necessarily mean it's a law that makes sense. When someone creates a piece of music they do it because they want others to hear it. In this instance, the piece of music was created to advertise a game and the studio decided last minute not to use it.

Obviously the creator of the music wants people to hear it, but has no legal standing due to his contract with the studio and some bogus laws. He did not distribute the music to profit from it and distributing it did not cause any financial damages to the studio. How many musicians are there out there who want to create a piece of music only to have some studio decide it will never be heard by anyone just because they bought the rights? Allowing the creator of the music to freely distribute it in a case like this should fall under the fair use doctrine as far as I'm concerned.


fair use

No it’s not “fair use” just because you don’t like the law. That law protects the rights holders of any music from being copied. This includes small creators, if you get rid of this “bogus” law you will see corporations making millions out of independently created music and the creators would receive nothing. You have to be a pretty disgusting human being to be happy with that.

This piece of music was created because Bungie paid this man to make it and the deal was they kept the rights. He should have licenced its use rather than sold it if he wanted the rights to be able to share it. It’s really not that difficult.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Why did you shift stances from "it's wrong" to "it's not the law"? At the very least, I think we can agree the original analogies you used were logically inconsistent with this IP case? "Infinitely replicable" =/= a meal or a house?

TellMeWhy's name is right on this one: Why is the IP law so rigid and why is all the power in the hands of major corporations (like IMG)? At least on Youtube and similar services, this *hurts* small artists because they don't have the ability to fight the companies that benefit from bad IP laws that effectively let them control who "wins" and who "loses" from distribution.

"It's the law" would work if the law made sense. TellMeWhy does a pretty good job at tell me why it doesn't.

Is copying and sharing other peoples music without immoral to you? I think so, If you don’t think so then you believe it’s ok for any music creator to have their music used by anyone, without a penny being paid back?

This isnt a grey area. It’s quite straightforward, either you agree that music can be copyrighted and the holder of those rights should get the money and control or you don’t feel the rights holders should get anything. You can’t bend the rules because in this case a musician signed a contract to give up the rights to the music which he later broke.

If this was the other way around and a corporation sold music rights to an individual person who denied them permission to use it and then that corporation broke copyright and started using and sharing that music, you’d be calling for that corporations blood.