I've been meaning to make this mock-up for a long time now and finally pulled the trigger... Please take a look and let me know what you think and what needs to be different.

1) The first addition is the box where you specify your ownership of the work. The thought here is that we could become more flexible with samples / covers / remixes if we have the data on the back-end. If you don't have 100% ownership of the work, we could simply not run ads on the page and include a notice to developers / animators that this work is not suitable for use in their projects, telling them why.

2) If you have 100% ownership, the next option to appear would be the Creative Commons license. If you check to Allow Commercial Uses, you are inherently giving permission for people to use your work in their games and movies, EVERYWHERE, including console, Steam, etc.

3) If you specify NO for allowing commercial uses, you may want to make an exception for your fellow web artists - this has always been the big grey area with NG because people are generally fine with their music being used in content here. You would be able to check one of three options - allow it to be freely used for web content, contact to discuss, or not interested in it being used.

One thing we may still want to address is an option to generate an actual license that could be turned over to sites like YouTube when they request one.

One final addition is the "Allow downloading" checkbox, which would allow artists to set their music for web streaming only and not allow downloading. This opens NG up to more artists who want to let people listen free but pay to download. And hey maybe we'll let them pay on NG one of these days.

Look it over and shower me with feedback please!

At 12/29/14 04:10 PM, vixuzar wrote: that`s awesome tom . great idea to give more details about the ownership since some people submit random third party music sometimes .

Maybe we should have a fifth radio button for "This is some song I didn't make" and when they click the submit button we just delete the project.

Oh this is exciting. I would definitely like to use the "you can use in on NG only (or general web content)" option.

Also just deleting stuff when people check that box, it would be a hilarious trap. Love it.

I'm not a hardcore user of the Audio Portal, but I do like what I'm seeing here. Having lots of very distinct options like this helps prevent any possible messes regarding legal use.

At 12/29/14 04:12 PM, TomFulp wrote: Maybe we should have a fifth radio button for "This is some song I didn't make" and when they click the submit button we just delete the project.

Haha, I love this. Sounds like a very Newgrounds thing to do.

Looking very good! My only argument against it would be that it's slightly against the original idea of the AP (which is providing music for Flash productions) but that idea is already long gone so I'm all for this!

All these things seem great!
Some people might be a bit sceptic at first, as Newgrounds has pretty much always been a place to share stuff for free. That said, I think it's better that a artist would upload a piece but not allow downloading, than for them to not submit the track at all :)
I think most people will continue doing as they're used to, but having more options is always better, as long as things don't get too complicated.

I think it's awesome that you're focusing on the "audio side" of Newgrounds, by speculating about giving more options for the content creators.
Thus, I say I like this proposal :D

At 12/29/14 04:07 PM, TomFulp wrote: Look it over and shower me with feedback please!

interesting, it all sounds like a good idea.

something i was wondering, but never got to ask, was how does copyrights work? i know on some websites like bandcamp they copyright the track uploaded for you, is there some kind of protection for the audio portal users?

EDIT:I read over the post again, and users can now select if they want their track to be a free download? One reason why i really liked uploading audio here, was because all downloads were free. I feel like this might be limiting the audio portal, i don't want it to become like a soundcloud.

As a person who makes a lot of games and uses a lot of AP audio it's good to know if people are okay with me using their music. I sort of assume if you have it on there that it's generally alright, as long as you're not adding to to a game like Super Holocaust Childporn Rape Adventures: Turbo Scat Furry Edition or something.

I like it! Does the commercial use part mean that people can't profit off of your song at all, or that they have to work out the details with you before doing so? Because the latter would be nice.

10/10 for the Contact notice and download/stream.

At 12/29/14 04:29 PM, WarmanSteve wrote: I like it! Does the commercial use part mean that people can't profit off of your song at all, or that they have to work out the details with you before doing so? Because the latter would be nice.

If you allow commercial use, it means they can profit off your work and don't have to give you anything. A lot of people would say NO to blanket commercial use but wouldn't mind a web animator or web game dev making money while using their music. With NG you can share revenue and we take care of the busywork, although revenue earned outside NG isn't very easy to track and share on an ongoing basis.

At 12/29/14 04:24 PM, w00tw00 wrote: something i was wondering, but never got to ask, was how does copyrights work? i know on some websites like bandcamp they copyright the track uploaded for you, is there some kind of protection for the audio portal users?

Publishing your original work ANYWHERE automatically grants you the copyright.

"In all countries where the Berne Convention standards apply, copyright is automatic, and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office. Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights."

At 12/29/14 04:44 PM, TomFulp wrote: Publishing your original work ANYWHERE automatically grants you the copyright.

cool, thanks for clearing this up!

I'm loving these extra options! I suddenly feel a whole lot more comfortable about sharing projects with samples taken from copyrighted whatevers :)

EDIT: I was thinking the list of genres could maybe expand into a wider arrangement, and maybe it should be possible to select an optional second genre as a way to cross-over styles?

At 12/29/14 04:07 PM, TomFulp wrote: 1) If you don't have 100% ownership of the work, we could simply not run ads on the page and include a notice to developers / animators that this work is not suitable for use in their projects, telling them why.

Would this same logic work for animations and games that use non-original work, or is that more of a grey area (aka are there too many pokemon parodies uploaded daily, and NG revenue would take a hit)?

Ooooooh finally giving the Audio Portal some love huh? Good to hear!

At 12/29/14 05:28 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 12/29/14 04:07 PM, TomFulp wrote: 1) If you don't have 100% ownership of the work, we could simply not run ads on the page and include a notice to developers / animators that this work is not suitable for use in their projects, telling them why.

Would this same logic work for animations and games that use non-original work, or is that more of a grey area (aka are there too many pokemon parodies uploaded daily, and NG revenue would take a hit)?

The big concern with music has always been that someone would integrate a song into a game or movie, only to find out the song creator didn't have the full rights to materials used in the song.

Pokemon movies are more forgiving because of Fair Use laws but ultimately we could be more particular about cases where a game or movie shouldn't be running ads, for example when they are using unlicensed music, which is why it has always been a good idea to use the Audio Portal to find music vs something off your iTunes library.

At 12/29/14 04:12 PM, TomFulp wrote: Maybe we should have a fifth radio button for "This is some song I didn't make" and when they click the submit button we just delete the project.

That would kill about a million birds with one stone

(Just gonna throw it out here: Maybe a 'Work in progress' sub-genre for each of the standard Genre's i.e 'Dubstep - WIP')

At 12/29/14 04:07 PM, TomFulp wrote: One final addition is the "Allow downloading" checkbox, which would allow artists to set their music for web streaming only and not allow downloading. This opens NG up to more artists who want to let people listen free but pay to download. And hey maybe we'll let them pay on NG one of these days.

YES! Finally I can actually upload my album to newgrounds instead of all my fans wondering where my music went.

Beautiful. I await its implementation.

Wow Tom, what a FANTASTIC leap forward in progression!

This right there might actually make it so that the portal rises from the ashes. As it stands, the current license setup had been outdated for years and was so restrictive that it essentially prevented anything commercial OR non-commercial from being posted, essentially only offering decent options to a VERY slim portion of composers.

Keep it up with the forward-thinking-ness, this has been an amazing year in terms of progress for NG! :)

10/10. I honestly have no negative feedback.

This solves so many issues with the AP.

Gets rid of a lot of questions regarding use of music on other sites such as Youtube and helps prevent unnecessary drama regarding copyright/ legal use.

Opens up a door for more serious/professional artists to submit their music without giving it away for free and also gives them more control over the license. Also makes the AP a place that can be used for more promotional reasons. I know multiple former NG artists who stopped submitting simply because it no longer made business sense.

Opens a door for DJ type people to do DJ type things without having their work removed.

Seriously excited to see this added. Nice to see the audio portal evolve to help make it more comparable to other sites like it.

Thanks Tom!

OOH.
This is going to be a good thing. I really hope it will be implemented soon. (:
The 'allow downloads' box is the feature I have waited for.

Thanks for the big work Tom!

Sounds awesome, I'd like to put some of my work under a license stating that it can be used for commercial purposes.

i feel like choosing "contains samples i do not own the rights to" should void the creative commons and open project license options. they seem mutually exclusive, i suppose?

this is cool but i guess the main concern is that everyone using it needs to understand exactly what all the options mean and how they relate to thier work, and i think there's still a lot of AP users who either don't get it or don't give a shit. in the end it's still up to the rest of the world to respect the licenses provided, but this could be very empowering to the majority of people who want to do the right thing.

At 12/29/14 05:50 PM, Chozz wrote: (Just gonna throw it out here: Maybe a 'Work in progress' sub-genre for each of the standard Genre's i.e 'Dubstep - WIP'

messy. just put WIP in the title and/or tags

Will this actually protect someone who makes original music as a proof of ownership ? Like if someone sells my music without permission can I proof the original source here?

I never really bother with protecting my music although its something important to think about .

Seems like a good idea overall Tom . This might actually turn into something similar to soundcloud with these features

Sounds pretty good, makes the Audio Portal more professional.

Cool, I still sense there will be people who will tick 100% original, there's always a few rotten eggs uploading music they didn't make or have rights to sadly.

Also are there any plans to add ID3 and metadata tags with song uploads? So when people download our music it will display album artwork / different artist name if we don't go by our NG username / genre etc?

At 12/29/14 04:07 PM, TomFulp wrote: This audio contains samples I do not have the rights to.

Does this mean that we would be officially allowing sampling of copyrighted content like for example, Lady Gaga vocals?

@TomFulp

At 12/29/14 08:11 PM, BrokenDeck wrote:

At 12/29/14 04:07 PM, TomFulp wrote: This audio contains samples I do not have the rights to.

Does this mean that we would be officially allowing sampling of copyrighted content like for example, Lady Gaga vocals?

I believe it would mean we would clarify officially allowing everything that falls under Fair Use, but that being said I'm just pulling that statement out of my ass because it sounds right.