Copyrights

SoBe_DragonSoBe_Dragon Join Date: 2002-12-04 Member: 10465Members
in NS General Discussion
<div class="IPBDescription">hmmm..i just installed starcraft....</div> Well, I got bored and I decided to dig out starcraft and play again. Now this post isnt about the similar themes... hives, resources for buildings, being called the "commander", the Queen's parasite ability, whatever. We all know those were all done in starcraft, but thats not what I am posting about...

No, this post is about some of the <i>sounds</i> that I heard while I was playing. I happened to download the starcraft sound utility from www.battle.net and started checking out the various Zerg and Terran sounds. Well, what I heard astonished me...

There are 2 sounds in NS that are directly from Starcraft. The first one is the Offensive chamber fire sound. That is the <b>identical</b> sound to the Ultralisk death sound. The second sound is the "egg idle" sound, which are used appropriatly in both games. In NS you hear the little creeping/cracking organic noise when you are gestating into something, and in SC you hear it when you select an egg near a Hive.

Does this matter? No. Does this change anything? No. But here is my question...

I know that everything is copyrighted. Songs, sounds, images, pictures, paintings, ideas, inventions, movies, URL's....everything. If someone made it, its copyrighted. Flayra & Co. (wether purposly or not) are using the exact same sounds in their game as blizzard has in theirs. They did not give credit to blizzard for their sounds, so is that copyright infringment?

If you dont belive me about the sounds, install starcraft and play...or just download the sound utility. And if you dont want to, I can give you the file names from both games, and I can post the sounds here. Lemme know =)
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Comments

  • FlayraFlayra Game Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment San Francisco Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 3Super Administrators, NS2 Developer, Subnautica Developer
    If someone can show me any sound files that <b>actually are identical</b>, I'd love to know. It's possible that a placeholder slipped through to the final version. However, keep in mind what everyone else is saying: we used the Sound Ideas General 6000 library, which is a very popular (one could say, "industry-standard") sound effects library as a basis for creating the sounds effects. You will often hear bits and pieces in other games and movies.
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  • foolfool Join Date: 2003-01-18 Member: 12447Members
    first, the utility uses all the beta sounds and names. so they may be different.

    second, the ultralisk deaht is different i think, just sounds the same.

    but the egg seems the same. so i dont know. if blizzard puts all thier sounds out for free then they probably wont care if it is used. if they do, thye put the sounds out, its thier fault.
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  • TikiTorchBobTikiTorchBob Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8527Members
    I remember reading once that the NS team had a professional sound team do their effects. I also remember them mentioning it was some of the same people who did a few of the sounds for StarCraft. May have just been a rumor though, or I may have been hallucinating.
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  • SoBe_DragonSoBe_Dragon Join Date: 2002-12-04 Member: 10465Members
    ooo no no, I was wrong.

    You cant just download the sound utility. The game MUST be installed. What the utility does is it extracts the sounds from starcraft somehow. So you have to have SC installed to use the sound utility. So no, it doesnt use the beta sounds.

    Also its not similiar, its identical. Go kill an ultralisk, you'll be like "dude, wuut TF?"
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  • foolfool Join Date: 2003-01-18 Member: 12447Members
    edited February 2003
    well if the people who made starcraft sounds, like you said, worked on the ns sounds, then there is no problem of copy right. They would know not to do it, and they did. And, the sound was professionally done, like you said, and if you do it professionally, then there shouldnt be any copy right infringes. The sounds may be like starcraft, but hey, its two little sounds and blizzrd doesnt get money from stacraft so i dont think they really would care.
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  • SoBe_DragonSoBe_Dragon Join Date: 2002-12-04 Member: 10465Members
    edit that... I dont know what the hell you just said
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  • Silver_FoxSilver_Fox Spammer Join Date: 2002-01-24 Member: 34Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    They may have been public domain or something.

    I've also noticed a few sounds on TV are also in multiple games I play.

    I think theres a 'pool' of sounds people can buy from to use for what ever purpose they wish.

    However, I obviously dont know for sure.
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  • GreedoGreedo Bounty Hunter Join Date: 2002-01-24 Member: 37Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    How many times does this need to be brought up? Flayra paid for the right to use the sounds in a certain sound library. Blizzard also paid for the right to use the sounds in the same sound library. This is a very common practice among sound effect engineers/whatever. Whoever owns that sound library owns the copyright to the sounds, and gave permission to Flayra.

    SoBe.Dragon, this is not the first time you've brought this up. Please do not bring it up again in the future.
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