DJ Delnquent's Audio

[cjsnow1]

Just tried to listen to one of the best, (if not the best) hip hop producers tracks (DJ Delnquent) Delinquent Phantom Asassin and found out that ALL his audio is gone. What the hell happened?

WadeFulp said:
"I'm trying to find out the reason for its removal. We removed a lot of tracks over the weekend that were stolen, or contained too much copyrighted material. Can you explain your track? Did you use a lot of copyrighted material in it?" & "Don't post other people's work that you simply sped up and added some stuff to. Eureka 187's Original Sample This is a violation of our terms."

Does this mean that I'll eventually get raided by the NG staff? I sample tons of shit and I haven't been taken down. Same with a whole lot of other producers. Sampling is an art form. Turning something someone else did into something better. (Or worse depending on how others see it.)

[Back-From-Purgatory]

Well, thanks for saving someone else from reporting you. Sampling is against the sites terms of service.

Also, his "Eureka###" was nothing more than someone elses song sped up and pitched. That's hardly an art form.

Regardless, sampling copyrighted material has never been acceptable on Newgrounds, the only reason some people get away with it is because the mods haven't found out about it yet... DJ-Delinquent was found out... and now you've just admitted to it as well.

[BrokenDeck]

Also, YES, we do know the difference between legally sampling CC material in the audio portal, and illegal sampling from COPYRIGHTED SOURCES.

In short, please realize that Newgrounds is NOT anti-sampling!

[Knoxius]

At 12/15/11 04:11 AM, Back-From-Purgatory wrote: Also, his "Eureka###" was nothing more than someone elses song sped up and pitched. That's hardly an art form.

I have no clue if this guy rapped over his "work" or just created hip-hop beats, but if the former happens to be the case, then he's still producing art.

Unfortunately, today's world is filled with a bunch of greedy assholes who sue everyone over even the slightest hint of something they have copyrighted, and this becomes the responsibility of media distributors (such as NG) to remove such content.

@op - Don't think that the NG staff are out to fuck everyone over because they can; they are held responsible to control the content coming in to their servers and make sure the content, whatever it may be, does not conflict with existing copyrights and blah blah blah.

It really is a bunch of bullshit, but what can you do when psychopathy and paper currency exist?

I'll just leave this here: http://www.everythingisaremix.info/

[cjsnow1]

At 12/15/11 07:46 AM, Knoxius wrote:

At 12/15/11 04:11 AM, Back-From-Purgatory wrote: Also, his "Eureka###" was nothing more than someone elses song sped up and pitched. That's hardly an art form.

I have no clue if this guy rapped over his "work" or just created hip-hop beats, but if the former happens to be the case, then he's still producing art.

Unfortunately, today's world is filled with a bunch of greedy assholes who sue everyone over even the slightest hint of something they have copyrighted, and this becomes the responsibility of media distributors (such as NG) to remove such content.

@op - Don't think that the NG staff are out to fuck everyone over because they can; they are held responsible to control the content coming in to their servers and make sure the content, whatever it may be, does not conflict with existing copyrights and blah blah blah.

It really is a bunch of bullshit, but what can you do when psychopathy and paper currency exist?

I'll just leave this here: http://www.everythingisaremix.info/

True. He (DJ Delinquent) employed the help of Rappers (Mostly members of KOA like Gasmasq for example) but most of his stuff was instrumental. I'm gonna check out that link when I get home later today. School. UGH....

[HungarianSupermarket]

Remember, when you post copyrighted stuff you don't own you make the whole site look shitty.

[ThisIsAnEmergency]

I'm sorry, but isn't just a newer version of the Rucklo - YunVeroz issue awhile back? They reinstated him..

[ThisIsAnEmergency]

I apologize for double posting... but eventually, NG will removed the Audio part as it will become too much of a headache.

I'm not sure if NG realizes this, or the artists stealing programs, but if FL Studio, Reason 4.0, etc. had proof of a lot of these NG producers creating work from their programs being stolen.. they could sue the artist, as well as NG. Ain't that a (beep)?

Also, there's a new bill in Congress that does have a chance of being passed. I don't know if you've hear, but basically its a bill that states if copyrighted material is posted/used on any website. If there is even an accusation of a website hosting copyrighted material, that website can and will be immediately shutdown until further notice. Aint that even more of a (beep)?

If NG caught on to the Hip-Hop Olskool portal.. god help all of us Hip-Hop addicts that love the music created on here.

Also, I have a question myself.. technically, if I rapped over Dr. Dre - Kush instrumental, couldn't NG be sued for that? Twankstar rapped over it, and mediafire took his file off of their site because of the copyrighted instrumental. Just a thought I had there.

[midimachine]

guys guys guys

Also, his "Eureka###" was nothing more than someone elses song sped up and pitched.

^ anyone who does stuff like this on NG gets banned. there's no debate to be had here.

[FuckSandwich]

At 12/15/11 09:35 AM, HungarianSupermarket wrote: Remember, when you post copyrighted stuff you don't own you make the whole site look shitty.

Not when sampling.

[ThisIsAnEmergency]

At 12/15/11 11:02 AM, midimachine wrote:

Also, his "Eureka###" was nothing more than someone elses song sped up and pitched.

^ anyone who does stuff like this on NG gets banned. there's no debate to be had here.

This is different. If someone of more importance to the site did this, his song would have been deleted, he would not have been banned.

The problem here is, you all either don't seem to know the importance of Delinquent or just don't care about the Hip-Hop portal in general. Not only is he arguably the best Hip-Hop producer on New Grounds.. but Delinquent's music alone brought a lot of people to the Hip-Hop part of the portal and to New Grounds in general. (such as me) He's always been a contributor in BigRed's competitions, such as last year he made a custom beat for the last battle between MaDFLeX and Gasmasq. A great beat, at that.

I'm just not sure you all seem to understand his importance to US as a NG Hip-Hop community..

[Rampant]

At 12/15/11 11:36 AM, ThisIsAnEmergency wrote:

At 12/15/11 11:02 AM, midimachine wrote:

Also, his "Eureka###" was nothing more than someone elses song sped up and pitched.

^ anyone who does stuff like this on NG gets banned. there's no debate to be had here.

This is different. If someone of more importance to the site did this, his song would have been deleted, he would not have been banned.

I'm just not sure you all seem to understand his importance to US as a NG Hip-Hop community..

I can't speak for the other mods, but I tend to be a little more lenient with the Hip-Hop genre when it comes to sampling because it's an engrained part of the Hip-Hop culture.

However, rules are rules, and in the case of the example posted above -- where the submission is literally just someone else's song sped up -- then there is no argument. "How important" DJ Delinquent is to the site is irrelevant -- stolen audio is stolen audio is stolen audio.

You might think it's petty, you might want to debate it, but I can guarantee you that the people who own the copyright to the original song, or indeed anything that's been sampled, do not care 'how important' he is to Newgrounds: they will want their content removed from the site.

That's it, end of story.

[ThisIsAnEmergency]

At 12/15/11 12:35 PM, RampantMusik wrote: I can't speak for the other mods, but I tend to be a little more lenient with the Hip-Hop genre when it comes to sampling because it's an engrained part of the Hip-Hop culture.

However, rules are rules, and in the case of the example posted above -- where the submission is literally just someone else's song sped up -- then there is no argument. "How important" DJ Delinquent is to the site is irrelevant -- stolen audio is stolen audio is stolen audio.

You might think it's petty, you might want to debate it, but I can guarantee you that the people who own the copyright to the original song, or indeed anything that's been sampled, do not care 'how important' he is to Newgrounds: they will want their content removed from the site.

That's it, end of story.

I don't wanna sound disrespectful or risk myself getting banned or anything.. but I understand its against the rules. However as I said above, had Delinquent been a moderator, the song probably wouldn't have even been removed, and if the mod was caught, he wouldn't have been banned. We've seen clear MIDI rips from moderators before and nothing be done about it..

I just kind of wish their was a clear line drawn about all of this.

[ThisIsAnEmergency]

Yea, sorry for the double post again, I just wanted to say that I would've done it different, just removed that track, explained to him why, and moved on with it.

However, I'm not a moderator, and I can do nothing but respect your decisions.

Now I fly.

[Step]

At 12/15/11 01:11 PM, ThisIsAnEmergency wrote: I don't wanna sound disrespectful or risk myself getting banned or anything.. but I understand its against the rules. However as I said above, had Delinquent been a moderator, the song probably wouldn't have even been removed, and if the mod was caught, he wouldn't have been banned.

Where'd you get this from? I think that if a moderator did something like that he'd get banned like anyone else, and/or probably demodded too.

We've seen clear MIDI rips from moderators before and nothing be done about it..

Such as?

I just kind of wish their was a clear line drawn about all of this.

Generally, if you break any of the rules you will always risk being banned. Sometimes mods are lenient (I'm one of them) and arrange for just the track to be deleted if the offence isn't too large, but the risk of a ban is still there. Rules are rules.

In this case, his submission blatantly broke one of the main rules of the Audio Portal; everything must be your own original work. Speeding up a track which isn't yours certainly isn't your own original work. If the track he sped up is copyrighted, then that's even worse.

[ThisIsAnEmergency]

Honestly, I've seen people get wrongfully banned (this isn't one of those situations), and nothing be done to the moderator who did it. Maybe he was given a warning or something stupid, but I don't know. That's where I figure they wouldn't be banned or de-modded.

At 12/15/11 01:53 PM, Supersteph54 wrote: Such as?

I couldn't get you the link/mod right off the top of my head, but I'll work on that and show you later. It was from awhile back, I believe around 2009 or so, he essentially just took a melody from Final Fantasy, might've added some drums or something and called it his. People reviewed it and pointed it out, blatantly it was right there, clearly hardly his work at all.

[Step]

At 12/15/11 02:03 PM, ThisIsAnEmergency wrote: Honestly, I've seen people get wrongfully banned (this isn't one of those situations), and nothing be done to the moderator who did it. Maybe he was given a warning or something stupid, but I don't know. That's where I figure they wouldn't be banned or de-modded.

Stuff like this happens. There are loads and loads of new artists waiting for an approval and sometimes mods make mistakes. It's never much of a problem though because the artist can always be unbanned if he was wrongfully banned.

If someone was wrongfully banned because the mod just wanted to wrongfully ban him then that's a different story, but from all the time I've been an audio mod that has never happened, or at least not that I know of.

I couldn't get you the link/mod right off the top of my head, but I'll work on that and show you later. It was from awhile back, I believe around 2009 or so, he essentially just took a melody from Final Fantasy, might've added some drums or something and called it his. People reviewed it and pointed it out, blatantly it was right there, clearly hardly his work at all.

Alright, hit me up once you find it!

[Back-From-Purgatory]

At 12/15/11 01:11 PM, ThisIsAnEmergency wrote: had Delinquent been a moderator, the song probably wouldn't have even been removed

Bullshit. The last time a mod was caught breaking the rules, they were demodded and banned as well as the offending song removed from the site.

At 12/15/11 01:28 PM, ThisIsAnEmergency wrote: I just wanted to say that I would've done it different, just removed that track, explained to him why, and moved on with it.

We had the offending song removed... Delinquent put up a stink over it, which led to more investigation into his profile... which led to us (I'm not giving names of who was involved, for obvious reasons, so I'm using the "royal we/us" instead) finding a crap ton more copyrighted material all over his profile, which led to an account wipe and ban.

If he hadn't of put up a stink over us removing one song, we probably wouldn't have noticed that his profile was full of copyrighted material, and he would still be breaking the audio portal rules... But we did find out, and we don't care "how important he is to the site"... If he breaks the rules, he gets banned.

Simple as that.

[cjsnow1]

At 12/15/11 09:46 AM, ThisIsAnEmergency wrote: I'm sorry, but isn't just a newer version of the Rucklo - YunVeroz issue awhile back? They reinstated him..

I hope DJD gets reinstated. I don't have anything DLed after Delinquent Phantom Assassin on my PC or Zune. I also can't remember a few of the samples he used in some of his songs, but thanks to NG Mods I can't find out. :>(

[jpbear]

Could you say he was banned for mostly "normal" hip-hop sampling. (mostly drum loops), or was it more severe?

on top of the pitched song of course

[cjsnow1]

At 12/15/11 05:11 PM, jpbear wrote: Could you say he was banned for mostly "normal" hip-hop sampling. (mostly drum loops), or was it more severe?

on top of the pitched song of course

A lot of the time he used music samples. With a few famous drum loops in (2?) of his songs.

[Gasmasq]

I certainly understand the mods and NG's position on this situation. The rules on NG do not allow for the use of material that was not originally created by the author, period, end of story. Well... on the Audio Portal at least. Those who submit to the Flash Portal are allowed to blatantly use copyrighted material (audio) without the permission of the owner without risking a ban or deletion of their work, simply by crediting the artist and song title.
I understand and support the use of original AP creations in Flash, but why allow for the use of content that was "not found in the Audio Portal" at all? I'm sure this would be just as difficult to regulate as samplers in the AP, but why is there the option for Flash creators to use someone else's material and not the Audio portal?

In the case in question, Delinquent ALWAYS credited the original artist.

Secondly, there's always the argument / fear of NG getting shut down or sued for distributing copyrighted material, especially with the advent of the PROTECT IP Act. I must show the case above (Flash Portal) as proof that NG isn't worried about getting shut down or sued for using copyrighted audio in other submissions, or perhaps they haven't considered this yet.

In the case of DJ Delinquent, I believe the samples that he used, edited, credited and re-distributed non-commercially under the Creative Commons license fits nicely under the "Fair Use" sections (Title 17 U.S. Code, Sections 107 - 118) of American copyright law.

I bring this to ye majestic Audio mods for your deliberation on behalf of my friend. Can we please have reciprocity between the Portals? It certainly would eliminate some confusion.

Cheers

KOA GasmasQ

[midimachine]

He uploaded what was essentially a stolen track, and where any less established people would just be banned on the spot perhaps without notice he was just warned and had the song removed. And apparently had the audacity to complain about it.

I don't care how important he is to NG hip-hop, the AP as a whole can do without this kind of behavior.

[cjsnow1]

What's done is done. I guess I'm done with this thread. :|

[Gasmasq]

I didn't get to hear Eureka 187, but I don't believe that all he did was "speed it up and pitch it". He always adds drums, a bit of piano, perhaps some scratching, etc. Speeding up a theme song does not a Deli beat make.

If the AP can do without using a theme song as the basis for a beat, then the FP can do without using audio from non-NG sources. The Flash submissions have the potential to make money, and when that include someone else's material, that's obvious copyright infringement on someone's intellectual property.

As far as breaking the rules goes:

midimachine, have you recently read the guidelines for posting on the BBS? Bullet three states "Lurk first, post second. Read the entirety of every thread you post in before you post." Bullet five continues with "If you can't make a positive contribution to a topic, don't post."
What positive contribution did you make to the topic that you or someone else didn't already state?

We're trying to get a clear understanding of the rules here so some of us don't get banned in the future and you're really not helping with:

At 12/15/11 05:35 PM, midimachine wrote: He uploaded what was essentially a stolen track, and where any less established people would just be banned on the spot perhaps without notice he was just warned and had the song removed. And apparently had the audacity to complain about it.

I don't care how important he is to NG hip-hop, the AP as a whole can do without this kind of behavior.

[Knoxius]

At 12/15/11 05:35 PM, midimachine wrote: I don't care how important he is to NG hip-hop, the AP as a whole can do without this kind of behavior.

Not so much the AP as a whole, but rather a couple of mods. You're speaking for a whole community, be careful what you say...I for one do not agree with that statement, and I'd love to see what other contributors would have to say.

Of course, I really don't know the story in-depth. I take "he complained about it" as "he defended his work with reasonable arguments". Hard for me to give 2 cents if I've only been given 1 :\

On another note, I found this to be humorous [Rucklo-Yunveroz]:

[Rampant]

At 12/15/11 06:05 PM, Gasmasq wrote: In the case in question, Delinquent ALWAYS credited the original artist.

Whether he 'gave credit or not' is completely irrelevant. I could post a song by 50 Cent and give credit -- that doesn't suddenly make it okay.

Secondly, there's always the argument / fear of NG getting shut down or sued for distributing copyrighted material, especially with the advent of the PROTECT IP Act. I must show the case above (Flash Portal) as proof that NG isn't worried about getting shut down or sued for using copyrighted audio in other submissions, or perhaps they haven't considered this yet.

In these cases, there is a fair amount of effort that goes into the work. Were NewGrounds to be taken to court, "Transformative Fair Use" might work as a defense, because it radically alters the perception or meaning of the original work. However:

In the case of DJ Delinquent, I believe the samples that he used, edited, credited and re-distributed non-commercially under the Creative Commons license fits nicely under the "Fair Use" sections (Title 17 U.S. Code, Sections 107 - 118) of American copyright law.

Fair Use is, and take this from someone who is studying entertainment law, a defense you can use if taken to court. That's its sole use. You can't just claim 'Fair Use' and pretend everything's peachy.

Additionally, it sounds like very little was changed. You said yourself, "he usually added piano or drums." Well, that's not really changing the original very much.

If you look at GirlTalk, on the other hand, that's a good example of where you could claim Transformative Fair Use in a lawsuit situation. Most of those songs are so radically altered beyond recognition, it's certainly using the original audio in a (paraphrasing the legalese here a little bit) "creative and original way that the original artist would have never intended or thought of."

[DJ-Delinquent]

At 12/15/11 05:35 PM, midimachine wrote: He uploaded what was essentially a stolen track, and where any less established people would just be banned on the spot perhaps without notice he was just warned and had the song removed. And apparently had the audacity to complain about it.

I don't care how important he is to NG hip-hop, the AP as a whole can do without this kind of behavior.

I wasn't warned. I didn't recive a single notice.

Literally i woke up one day...checked my submissions...one was missing...so i investigated politely

[Gasmasq]

At 12/15/11 06:35 PM, RampantMusik wrote:

At 12/15/11 06:05 PM, Gasmasq wrote: In the case in question, Delinquent ALWAYS credited the original artist.

Whether he 'gave credit or not' is completely irrelevant. I could post a song by 50 Cent and give credit -- that doesn't suddenly make it okay.

So it's not against the rules or illegal to post a 50 cent song in a flash animation, yet using one for an audio submission would result in deletion/ban? If giving credit is irrelevant why does NG ask to have the audio credited in flash submissions?
This being the case, the AP was created to amass an archive of audio for Flash creators to use in their work. If the animator had used the original theme from Eureka 187 they would have gotten in just as much trouble as if they had used Delinquent's remix of the same song: none.
Using his remix would promote the work of BOTH artists (Deli: "Yo check out my song in this guy's flash!"; Animator: "Thanks to DJ Delinquent for the awesome remix!"), which is what, I believe, is a fundamental basis for Newgrounds having both portals in the first place.

In these cases, there is a fair amount of effort that goes into the work. Were NewGrounds to be taken to court, "Transformative Fair Use" might work as a defense, because it radically alters the perception or meaning of the original work.

I'm certain that Delinquent similarly puts a fair amount of effort into his work.

Additionally, it sounds like very little was changed. You said yourself, "he usually added piano or drums." Well, that's not really changing the original very much.

In this case, one might not think so. Of course I failed to mention, (forgive me for assuming) that any sampler must also cut, re-arrange, change tempo, pitch and modulation and add external elements to take an original work and make it their own. Thank you for providing an example of what you deem to be proper sampling. However, I believe Delinquent's "WTF Anime" submissions mean to stay true to the original. He always cites their awesomeness and even promotes the original product.

The fact that he may not have changed very much in this case does not account for ALL of his submissions being removed from the site. That was a spiteful, vindictive move by a seemingly police-state-esque moderator for questioning the reasoning behind a decision.

Please consider my questions from the first and second paragraphs before replying, as they will set a precedence for the future. Talk to other moderators, consult with the Fulps, figure this out. As the policy currently stands, the Audio Portal gets NONE of the rights that the Flash Portal does. By shunning our creations, banning our favorite artists and deleting our favorite submissions, we are being systematically alienated.

I mean, if you only want Industrial, Classical and Techno in your Flash submissions, keep doing what you're doing. This is not an ultimatum, but many of us won't stand for this.

Be well.

[midimachine]

At 12/15/11 06:50 PM, DJ-Delinquent wrote: I wasn't warned. I didn't recive a single notice.

Literally i woke up one day...checked my submissions...one was missing...so i investigated politely

Okay, fair call. But from what I've read on both sides of the story it sounds more like you tried, politely as you may have, to argue against it. And like I said, anyone less established would've just been banned right off the bat so the best move would've been to just cut your losses and call it a day.