Terms and Conditions: Lyrics Removal · 1:30pm Nov 5th, 2013
Well, after looking over the site rules, and the recent posts by the mods, I've decided, with very heavy heart, to remove the lyrics where they appear in the story. The mods decision is... well, I don't agree with it, but I agreed to follow their terms and conditions when I signed up for this site, so I have moved to comply. I want to stress that at no point has a moderator told me to remove the copyrighted song lyric material from the story... this was a move I made so that no warning or action is necessary on the mods when they enforce this rule.
It... really hurts to do it though. Lyrics to start a chapter have been a tradition for me since I started writing fanfiction, waaay back in 2001.
So as a compromise of sorts, I have left links to offsite music videos on youtube, since there doesn't appear to be any rule against that. Further, in some places, parts of the lyrics absolutely couldn't be removed and maintain the integrity of the story, but I cut it down to the bare minimum. I believe a line or two in this behemoth of a story isn't beyond the pale, but if I am told to take them all out by a mod, I will comply.
I just... well... I'm not happy, but rules are rules.
In the future, might I suggest leaving the lyrics in the first comment on the chapter before you post it? I agree that they added a little something, and I'd hate to see them go entirely. I'm also a bit miffed by this whole thing. Every single chapter in my story is named after a song title. Hell, the STORY is named after a song!
1483869 Well... you should be Ok, Jake. Song titles as chapter titles are pretty safe. But the kind of full song lyric posts that I did? Yeah, I figured I'd get the jump on this before it was an issue. Like I said, I'm not happy about it, since I ALSO felt that it added something to the story, but I'm not going to throw a hissy fit and get myself banned and my story removed because I can't play nice, and I'm not going to pack up my toys and go home. I agreed to the rules, and I will abide by them, but nothing says I have to be HAPPY about it, damn it.
So no more full renditions of Thunderstruck or A Horse With No Name, or Marshall's duets with Twilight? Damn it, that makes me sad
1483880 Nope. You're just going to have to open the link, and imagine the lyrics are there. It makes me sad as well, since I was rather proud of my multimedia approach, but... see former comments. Sigh. Sorry guys, I know it detracts from the story, but having the story banned for noncompliance or something would make it a lot harder to read.
1483887 Don't feel too bad, mate, you gotta do what you gotta do. I'm certainly not turning back from the story just because of one aspect turned sour, immersive as it may have been; Quantum Castaways has way too much meat on its bones for that.
Any parody - song lirics included - falls under fair use.
So the parts you are making fun of song lyrics are covered ;)
http://www.writing-world.com/rights/fair.shtml
6. an especiaylly 8.
The fast that some try to IGNORE that fact doesn't change that fair use for lyrics in nonprofit use that doesn't harm "market" FALS under such claim.
And any fair ruling should be on your side.
And if you give proper credit
At most they could then TRY to charge you for lack of permission, not copyright infringement.
Eh, that sucks. I get the why of the situation and all, and I think the story is going to easily survive the changes, but the lyrics did add a certain atmosphere.
It's not even so much the ones in the start of the chapters, as the ones later on, when the characters are actually singing. Hopefully at least bits of those can still be used, even if not the actual full songs.
The video links don't help me as much, as I do most reading on an e-reader device, so it's not online, and I can't click video links in it, but eh, small price to pay.
I agree that the song lyrics added a lot to parts of the story, and it's unfortunate that they have to go. But it's better than the potential alternatives, at least.
1483887
That sucks... The part where Marshall sings the A Horse With No Name lyrics is one of my favorite scenes of the story, and has actually led to the song itself being one of my favorites
I have never understood why "Copyrights" in these contexts are an issue for anyone. If anything, it's just free advertisement.
Heh, good that I managed to save the story on my hdd before the lyrics-wipe took place--the "Iyrics removed to conform to site rules." looks really ugly
Maybe you could put a link to the non-eviscerated version of the story somewhere, though?
True, it is sad that the words will no longer be in the fic, although it may be necessary. However, that doesn't stop you from putting the words up on fanfiction.net...
And then people say copyright protects creativity,
To those people I say, fuck you with a cactus.
You could always put a link to the google docs version of the chapter inside the affected chapter, where you didn't censure yourself.
I wasn't too peeved about this rule at first. I figured I could just as easily read the lyrics on some other site as I could at the start of the chapter, seeing as they were completely separate from the story itself.
Then I was reminded of the parts in the story where the characters actually sing entire songs... Damn, man, really sucks to see that go.
I'll tell you the truth, even though Quantum Castaway is one of my top five favorites, the music has been my least favorite part. I've never liked reading lyrics or verse in prose, because my reading is nonverbal; it mixes the mode in which I read the story. Some of Spider Robinson's stories rub me the wrong way for the same reason, and in many cases, I'll simply skip such stories, whether the song is original to the story or copied from elsewhere.
That said, I'm not glad this has happened to you; as a creative person myself I hate to see anyone's creative control wrested from them. I'm glad I got to see the story in its original form, and I still look forward to the next stage of the story.
(On nonverbal reading: Literary English is a different language from spoken English, at least in how my brain processes it. That's why dialogue is so hard for me to write; I shouldn't be writing it at all, I should be transcribing it. It's ironic that writing was originally recorded speech, but has become its own language; that's the kind of geekery I'd love to discuss with Twilight.)
Ehhhh, fuck da police.
Just don't get arrested.
Do what you have to do.
Carry On
*silent crying in the distance*
This is a sad day indeed. Music and storytelling have gone together hand-in-hand since the dawn of the spoken word, and do just as well when properly placed in a written story. To see all that lost for something as petty as a copyright law, that itself is being overemphasized in order to maintain some pop singers over-stuffed bank account.
Well, that makes me feel sad, that's all I care to say.
From the second I saw that rule, I knew this was coming.
Will you be keeping an original format for your stories in another location?
Not a problem, actually. I've been enjoying your story, but simply scrolling past the song lyrics each time. They don't add anything. At least not in my isolated case. Maybe they mean something to a throng of other readers.
1485022 At one point in time, I kept two regularly updated archives of the story, one of Fimfiction.net, and one on fanfiction.net. However, I kinda stopped updating the one on fanfiction.net, because no one was really reading it or commenting on it there. I think I updated it up to chapter 10, then stopped because it had like... 36 reviews. Fimfiction presents the story to a much wider audience, and the tools I have on this site to upload corrections and updates just completely blow fanfiction.net out of the water. Fanfiction.net was never a very user friendly site, but lately it seems like I have to fight the site to do anything with it. With that frustration in mind, I eventually gave up updating the story on that website, as it just didn't seem to be worth the effort.
I don't like this policy of fimfiction's, but frankly, despite that, it's STILL the better site for pony fiction, and the community is much more responsive.
I was worried you will have to do this.
I am just filled with boiling anger over the fact that we can not put Lyrics in the story. Well, they can be put if they are changed but it is not specified how much. Music was a common ground between ponies and humans in stories that contained a Human on this site. It is important part of our culture and it was good to show it in a fanfic.
And now? My own motivation to writing got... lower.
1486487
Thirty-six reviews. . . compared to the over fifteen hundred comments you have, and thirty-one favs compared to seventeen hundred and eighty likes you have on here.
Das 43.25 times as much feedback as before. Das a biiiiig number. As well as 57.42 (rounded up) times as many likes. I think. Still, huge difference.
While I don't think it's right that you CAN'T have song lyrics in your story, I do think your story is VASTLY improved without them. I always found the lyrics at the beginning of each chapter annoying at best and significantly distracting at worst. I've even updated my copy of this story in my E reader to reflect the changes.
So I snarfed your story weeks ago, loaded it onto my iDevice, and read it (and reread it), sniffling occasionally, and went to another iPlace, and bought all the music that I didn't have already, and learned Dan Costello's version of If I had words by heart... and came back here not long ago looking for updates, having missed all the drama, and started reading the thing again... and hit the places where the lyrics were ripped out.
Ow.
You created something amazing, and the music was part of it, as it's part of you. I'm glad I have an uncut copy.
Thank you.
1588815 Believe me friend, I am quite depressed about it myself. It was physically painful to remove them to comply with the site rules. As you can see, there are some places where I literally COULDN'T do it. I know the lyrics were a mixed bag for some people, some were indifferent, some hated them, some loved them to death, but each and every instance MEANT something to me, something that I loved and MEANT something to me, something I wanted to share, and I feel as though I can no longer do that.
Sigh.