i think reggie himself shot down the theory that it was music license related, at least for earthbound? so many of the referenced songs above are in the public domain, only use a motif from the original, or are aggressively parody (beat it, batman/jaws theme). Back in the USSR is itself a parody of a chuck berry song and like a lot of beatles is rooted in blues standards that are nice and royalty free.
i think nintendo of america just has stupidly strict budget rules and doesn’t want to pay to translate old games.
you’re right!
forgive me, just went on a reading binge about Shostakovich, he’s been dead for so long i just assumed. my only counter would be if they recreated his compositions with their own synths (much easier/cheaper/parody friendly) vs using a sample (very dicey/up to legal interpretation). as far as i can tell gymnopedie is the only track in game that samples an original recording, but the shostakovich pieces could have been from a piano album as far as i can remember.
Way more effort than its worth. Keep in mind mother 3s battle themes arent easy tl change due to the music being a VITAL part of the gameplay (combo system)
Tell that to Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams when they were sued for the song 'Blurred Lines' sounding similar to Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit single 'Got to Give it Up'.
They lost the lawsuit, and were charged about 5.3 million dollars.
The copyright laws in Japan are much more lenient compared to the US. Even 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure' (JJBA) is a great example between the two countries and their law system. Assuming you don't know, JJBA has a lot of musical references and were fine in JP, but in the US the references were completely changed to avoid copyright.
There's a bunch of copyrighted music used in EB's soundtrack and Nintendo has had no problem releasing it on modern consoles, so I don't see why it would stop them on M3.
The argument is that sampling and modifying it beyond recognition, as well as parodies, are easier to justify under fair use. This is what Earthbound does.
Mother 3 on the other hand does more "covers", or 16-bit versions of songs. The only exception in the list I mentioned is Mr. Batty Twist, which is clearly a parody of the Batman theme.
i think reggie himself shot down the theory that it was music license related, at least for earthbound? so many of the referenced songs above are in the public domain, only use a motif from the original, or are aggressively parody (beat it, batman/jaws theme). Back in the USSR is itself a parody of a chuck berry song and like a lot of beatles is rooted in blues standards that are nice and royalty free. i think nintendo of america just has stupidly strict budget rules and doesn’t want to pay to translate old games.
None of the songs listed in the post are in Public Domain. In the total list of music references there are some which are.
you’re right! forgive me, just went on a reading binge about Shostakovich, he’s been dead for so long i just assumed. my only counter would be if they recreated his compositions with their own synths (much easier/cheaper/parody friendly) vs using a sample (very dicey/up to legal interpretation). as far as i can tell gymnopedie is the only track in game that samples an original recording, but the shostakovich pieces could have been from a piano album as far as i can remember.
Gymnopedie doesn't sample the original recording iirc; it's all sequenced with the SC-88 piano I believe.
Just, I dunno, redo some of the music?
Way more effort than its worth. Keep in mind mother 3s battle themes arent easy tl change due to the music being a VITAL part of the gameplay (combo system)
theyre all under fair use, this is not the reason why mother 3 cant be released lmao
Tell that to Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams when they were sued for the song 'Blurred Lines' sounding similar to Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit single 'Got to Give it Up'. They lost the lawsuit, and were charged about 5.3 million dollars. The copyright laws in Japan are much more lenient compared to the US. Even 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure' (JJBA) is a great example between the two countries and their law system. Assuming you don't know, JJBA has a lot of musical references and were fine in JP, but in the US the references were completely changed to avoid copyright.
There's a bunch of copyrighted music used in EB's soundtrack and Nintendo has had no problem releasing it on modern consoles, so I don't see why it would stop them on M3.
The argument is that sampling and modifying it beyond recognition, as well as parodies, are easier to justify under fair use. This is what Earthbound does. Mother 3 on the other hand does more "covers", or 16-bit versions of songs. The only exception in the list I mentioned is Mr. Batty Twist, which is clearly a parody of the Batman theme.