So where to begin... Several years ago, @RobTop created a mobile app called Geometry Dash, where you play as a box that jumps over obstacles to the rhythm of music. He partnered with artists from the NG Audio Portal and the game was well received by fans. My kids and I even play it!

Soon after, GD updated to include a level editor where players could create and share their own levels. As part of this, players could also specify music from the NG Audio Portal to play in their levels.

The big unintended consequence is that Geometry Dash players began uploading music they didn't create, in the hope of using it in their Geometry Dash levels. To drastically reduce their chances of success, we made it so Audio Portal uploads couldn't be downloaded unless your account had been scouted - since the download setting is what enabled / disabled songs to be used in GD.

This helped keep stolen music out of GD but a lot of players would still upload stolen music and attempt to get scouted. As the popularity of Geometry Dash grew, the problem became a massive headache for NG's volunteer audio mods.

As the displeasure with Geometry Dash became more vocal, the complaint also arose that you shouldn't need to disable downloads of your music in order to remove yourself from GD; there should be a specific option to block use in GD.

The whole thing came to a head this week when Geometry Dash was pulled from Steam, as a result of complaints from artists on NG. Geometry Dash is really popular on Steam, so players were notably displeased.

Both NG and RobTop are working to address various issues and concerns.

On our end, we just launched a specific permissions checkbox, allowing you to grant external API use of your music. You'll find it on the Project Details page, under the "Advanced" options.

Your external API permissions have been defaulted to whatever your download permissions were. Please allow up to 24 hours for your changes to take effect, due to GD caching.

We will ultimately introduce a universal rights management form, so that audio artists can manage their Creative Commons licensing, Download and API permissions in one place and deploy the changes across all of their projects with one click.

On @RobTop's end, Geometry Dash is introducing a whitelist of approved artists. This includes all artists currently in use, as well as any new artists added manually by RobTop. This means you can no longer create an NG account, upload a song, get scouted and use your song in Geometry Dash. Instead, popular, verified artists may be granted the opportunity over time. There is no one you can ask on NG who can add you to that list.

The most important step is communicating this to the GD audience, something both sides are working to improve as well. Solving the communication gap should put this problem to rest once and for all.

Summary for Geometry Dash Users Specifically

You can no longer create an NG account, upload a song, get scouted and use your song in Geometry Dash.

Existing artists are still ok to use. Moving forward, only the occasional popular & verified artist will be added to the mix.

Please do not upload music you did not create to Newgrounds. There is no one here who can help you get it into GD.

Audio Portal Artists

Here's a screenshot of that new form field:

Basically considering the same topic: When i take songs from NG to be in my games. How can i be sure
that the song is original? I mean i dont know every piece of art out there. Also when somebody on NG is copying (or recreating) the music of a game or classical piece (lets say mozart or sth) is it allowed for him to do such a thing or rather, will i get any problems using something like that?

OFFTOPIC: Is there some kind of bug with the "unpaid earnings" display? Because to me it feels like it never updates correctly ( and that the money i made in a month never gets fully transfered correctly to the unpaid earnings at the end of that month)

all the drama is ****ing retarded

At 2/1/17 03:17 PM, Blobzone wrote: Basically considering the same topic: When i take songs from NG to be in my games. How can i be sure
that the song is original? I mean i dont know every piece of art out there. Also when somebody on NG is copying (or recreating) the music of a game or classical piece (lets say mozart or sth) is it allowed for him to do such a thing or rather, will i get any problems using something like that?

We plan to add "Verified" accounts to help solve this problem. Until then, the popularity of the artist is at least a helpful barometer - it's hard to be popular and not get caught.

If it is an original performance of a composition that is in the public domain, it is ok to use. This is a good time to note that people can't just use any Mozart song they find on the internet - a lot of those are by professional orchestras who have licensing representatives. You have to find someone who performed the piece AND gave you permission to use it.

OFFTOPIC: Is there some kind of bug with the "unpaid earnings" display? Because to me it feels like it never updates correctly ( and that the money i made in a month never gets fully transferred correctly to the unpaid earnings at the end of that month)

There are two possibilities there... One is that CPMStar's final audit at the end of the month resulted in a different number than the real-time tracking showed during the month.

The other more likely case is that you are expecting to see January's ad revenue listed under unpaid earnings, when payments are NET 30, meaning 30 days after the end of the month. So on February 1st, ad revenue from December became part of your unpaid earnings and revenue from January won't show there until March 1st. If your unpaid earnings cross the minimum payment threshold, they become a payment.

This IS confusing and we should clarify that better.

At 2/1/17 03:38 PM, BasicallyTomFulp wrote: Tom I was randomly demodded for no reason. Can I be demodded? BBS, games and movies, and throw in art and review while we're at it

I think you meant remodded but sure, you can be demodded.

Thanks, that clarified a couple of things.

One last question. Is there any possibility to see when the last time was when a user was online? Although music on the portal always says whether one can use it or not, i tend to rather ask the creator whether i can use it. A lot of times though people dont bother to answer or dont seem to be active on ng anymore. Waiting in these cases can somehow be a nuisance. (Also sharing revenue with someone who isnt active anymore seems also kind of unnecessary and wasteful *yes. i am beeing greedy* )

At 2/1/17 03:30 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 2/1/17 03:17 PM, Blobzone wrote: Basically considering the same topic: When i take songs from NG to be in my games. How can i be sure
that the song is original? I mean i dont know every piece of art out there. Also when somebody on NG is copying (or recreating) the music of a game or classical piece (lets say mozart or sth) is it allowed for him to do such a thing or rather, will i get any problems using something like that?

We plan to add "Verified" accounts to help solve this problem. Until then, the popularity of the artist is at least a helpful barometer - it's hard to be popular and not get caught.

If it is an original performance of a composition that is in the public domain, it is ok to use. This is a good time to note that people can't just use any Mozart song they find on the internet - a lot of those are by professional orchestras who have licensing representatives. You have to find someone who performed the piece AND gave you permission to use it.

OFFTOPIC: Is there some kind of bug with the "unpaid earnings" display? Because to me it feels like it never updates correctly ( and that the money i made in a month never gets fully transferred correctly to the unpaid earnings at the end of that month)

There are two possibilities there... One is that CPMStar's final audit at the end of the month resulted in a different number than the real-time tracking showed during the month.

The other more likely case is that you are expecting to see January's ad revenue listed under unpaid earnings, when payments are NET 30, meaning 30 days after the end of the month. So on February 1st, ad revenue from December became part of your unpaid earnings and revenue from January won't show there until March 1st. If your unpaid earnings cross the minimum payment threshold, they become a payment.

This IS confusing and we should clarify that better.

thanks Tom 'I only ever try to help and it always pisses someone off' Fulp

At 2/1/17 03:40 PM, Blobzone wrote: Thanks, that clarified a couple of things.

One last question. Is there any possibility to see when the last time was when a user was online? Although music on the portal always says whether one can use it or not, i tend to rather ask the creator whether i can use it. A lot of times though people dont bother to answer or dont seem to be active on ng anymore. Waiting in these cases can somehow be a nuisance. (Also sharing revenue with someone who isnt active anymore seems also kind of unnecessary and wasteful *yes. i am beeing greedy* )

Hmmm a "Last online" tag on user pages would be pretty handy. Could include a privacy setting for people who want to disable it... Making note. Other than that, all you have to go by is their public data like forum posts / new uploads. A lot of people still lurk, though.

Being a GD player and song user myself I completely agree with this, and in fact, I think this should have been implemented sooner, but hey-ho. Good to see someone make a change to the whole "I'm going to pretend I'm this artist and upload my favourite dubstep song to Newgrounds" issue.

At 2/1/17 03:49 PM, gdalkali wrote: Being a GD player and song user myself I completely agree with this, and in fact, I think this should have been implemented sooner, but hey-ho. Good to see someone make a change to the whole "I'm going to pretend I'm this artist and upload my favourite dubstep song to Newgrounds" issue.

In general i dont get the issue either. I mean, i have seen whole profils (not only here) but on other sites, where people claimed that they made these songs or games. But why? I mean, if it was about money i would get it. But nobody earns "shit" posting songs on ng, so why claim that it is your song? For what?

Once i saw someone uploading a song with the commentary "worked so hard on this, but after i finished it, it felt so good" blablabla..........kind of ridiculous for stealing a song from a japanese kawai game :D

At 2/1/17 03:55 PM, Blobzone wrote: In general i dont get the issue either. I mean, i have seen whole profils (not only here) but on other sites, where people claimed that they made these songs or games. But why? I mean, if it was about money i would get it. But nobody earns "shit" posting songs on ng, so why claim that it is your song? For what?

Once i saw someone uploading a song with the commentary "worked so hard on this, but after i finished it, it felt so good" blablabla..........kind of ridiculous for stealing a song from a japanese kawai game :D

From what I can tell it's a psychological thing - people get satisfaction from basically role playing as someone who makes cool stuff. They enjoy receiving and responding to the positive feedback that results from it.

So since I was scouted before this rule was set... people are able to use my songs?

At 2/1/17 03:40 PM, BasicallyTomFulp wrote:

At 2/1/17 03:39 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 2/1/17 03:38 PM, BasicallyTomFulp wrote: Tom I was randomly demodded for no reason. Can I be demodded? BBS, games and movies, and throw in art and review while we're at it

I think you meant remodded but sure, you can be demodded.

No!!!

Don't do it Tom. His sig is offensive!

Great update tom, i appreciate the game but overall i passex that stage some time ago and using artists music illigally and begging people to scout you can be very frustrating.... Im glad you addressed this due to the fact that i was wondering where the geometry dash thing came from :)

I think that's the best solution possible, I don't think a level editor has ever caused so many problems before though.

But my name is LunacyOfficial! After I had been registered for a few weeks, I began to hate that name! So I changed it to Zophar. I'm not stealing! I just only changed my name. Does that mean I get banned from the portal and my music will not be in GD?

I hope there's a better system soon. Mainly because there are tons of good artist who've disappeared in all of the spam, and won't get to gain too many more fans, even if a good GD user finds it.

Is this just temporary?

Finally :)

At 2/1/17 04:36 PM, The-Eternal-Abyss wrote: so there's really no more need for the scouting process in the audio portal , then.

The scouting system has been around since the start of the Audio Portal - it just wasn't initially a requirement to be used in Geometry Dash.

At 2/1/17 04:05 PM, Nicfart646 wrote: So since I was scouted before this rule was set... people are able to use my songs?

Theoretically, yes.

Great to hear this is (being) resolved, and in such a respectful manner too. Hopefully it'll leave no ill will drifting around! Appreciate the new option, and that batch edit feature's sounding pretty awesome. Nice blog @RobTop too.

At 2/1/17 03:55 PM, Blobzone wrote: Once i saw someone uploading a song with the commentary "worked so hard on this, but after i finished it, it felt so good" blablabla..........kind of ridiculous for stealing a song from a japanese kawai game :D

I assume they just want the recognition without doing the work. Tis the easy way, though not very future-proof...

Awesome!
but he's my question now since I've created a song from my soundcloud (the song's shit anyways imo but for the future) could we still get our songs added to Geometry Dash itself?
For even IF we get verified?

Thanks for working to fix this Tom, I have a question that kinda relates more to NG then GD though. I've been working on some new songs with this app I just bought and was thinking about uploading them to NG soon. I'm not intentionally using them for my levels on GD but if that were the case where I make the music for my own level, would that be "legal" to use in GD? There's a couple of artists such as @sirhadoken who do both parts making songs and levels which is amazing someone puts that much time into the game and for songs. Would I have to be "Scouted" by this new system to be allowed to use my songs in GD? I like this new idea with the whole security process, but it seems that its going to be harder for newer artists to get scouted to allow their music to be in GD! It be awesome to hear a responce so I can explain this issue with other people who are like me about making your own songs for your own levels from either one of you @RobTop @TomFulp thanks for working together to help fix this issue for all of us :)

At 2/1/17 05:03 PM, NuclearNacho67 wrote: Thanks for working to fix this Tom, I have a question that kinda relates more to NG then GD though. I've been working on some new songs with this app I just bought and was thinking about uploading them to NG soon. I'm not intentionally using them for my levels on GD but if that were the case where I make the music for my own level, would that be "legal" to use in GD? There's a couple of artists such as @sirhadoken who do both parts making songs and levels which is amazing someone puts that much time into the game and for songs. Would I have to be "Scouted" by this new system to be allowed to use my songs in GD? I like this new idea with the whole security process, but it seems that its going to be harder for newer artists to get scouted to allow their music to be in GD! It be awesome to hear a responce so I can explain this issue with other people who are like me about making your own songs for your own levels from either one of you @RobTop @TomFulp thanks for working together to help fix this issue for all of us :)

There is nothing on NG that will be able to get you access to be used in Geometry Dash. My impression it will be pretty rare for future artists to get brought in - will likely be reserved for popular artists who have a lot of demand.

So glad this is finally being resolved. People can stop celebrating and other people can stop complaining.

Heeeeeey! We actually got change to happen! That's AWESOME!

RobTop wrote:

Edit: I also noticed that Waterflame and some other GD artists were accused of being against Geometry Dash in some discussions. I don’t know how this rumor started, but it is completely untrue. They have all been super supportive, they are the best. GD artists are love, GD artists are life

Dawwww :')

Thank you for this update! I was wondering what the most recent status update was.

Newgrounds quisiera ayudarles a criticar las canciones dirigidas a Geometry dash, asi saber si es copyright o es original.
Y respecto a los acontecimientos sucedidos que perjudican tanto a la comunidad como a Newgrounds a sido algo debastante :(

At 2/1/17 06:13 PM, 1f1n1ty wrote: Heeeeeey! We actually got change to happen! That's AWESOME!

I know right?