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Old 10th July 2019
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Originally Posted by Etch-A-Sketch View Post
Please read the thread and follow the links posted throughout... you are incorrect in this assumption.

Read the thread and you will understand what I'm talking about. A lot of the lawsuits regarding splice IS from sample packs from Splice Sounds, not Splice Community.

Splice approaches people directly to make packs for their Splice Sounds. But their agreement with those creators is almost identical to their agreement with Splice community creators. Even though Splice puts their "name" on Splice sounds, it's all superficial. Under the hood it is really no different than Splice Community. Splice does not claim any ownership or responsibility for any of the sounds you get from Splice Sounds OR Splice community... they pass any and all responsibility through to the original creator. Because of that Splice doesn't do any in-depth copyright infringement checking. Some of the issues that have come up lately are that a creator made sounds FOR Splice Sounds were he was just taking stock Damage presets and calling them his own... and one guy chopped up the soundtrack to a really popular game and released them as loops, saying they were 100% his own creations. This was not from the Splice Community... this was from Splice Sounds... splice threw their hands up and said they are only middle men...they are only a store front... and the copyright holders have to go after the infringers directly... which is complete BS.

From a library standpoint... If you used one of those game loops as the basis for a cue that you then sold to a music library thinking you had 100% of the rights... you now just [email protected]#$ed the music library and yourself... When the game company sees your track in a high profile ad or film/TV placement and the composer for the game and the people at the game company go "wait a minute, that is from our game!!!?!?!!?" And they sue the publishing company... the publishing company is still going to have to pay $10,000 to $50,000 to prove they did nothing wrong... then the game company is going to come after you... and you will have to pay $10,000 in legal fees to prove you thought you have the rights to use it... and then the game company will go after Splice... who then throws their hands up and says "not responsible... talk to the creator"... and then they have to go after the creator who lifted the stuff illegally...

All the while the library and you are out $10's of thousands of dollar... why??? Because both YOU and the library said that you own 100% of the copyright of that work and that it is 100% original. But you have an illegally used sample of another copywriter work in your work... that is illegal and you are liable because you said you owned it 100%. Even though the fraud came from the splice creator... you are still screwed because YOU are now saying it was yours 100% and now you'll have to show, through lawyers, that you had a "royalty free, in-perpetuity license to use this sample in musical compositions...blah, blah, blah..."

You will kill your chances of ever working with that music library again... and if that library knows people at other libraries... most likely word will spread... or when people from that library switch companies and go work elsewhere, that stigma attached to your name will follow. When you cost people 10's of thousands of dollars... they (and their employees involved) tend not to forget it.

So while you are sitting here saying "hey, it's ok... it's 'Splice Sounds', not the "Splice Community'... it's all good..." I am warning you that under the hood it is not. Take my advice worth the grain of salt that it is. Go ahead and write your next magnum opus using all Splice Sounds packs... more power to you. Roll the dice... maybe nothing will happen to you... maybe something will... there is a higher degree of likelihood that you will run into problems using splice at this current time. That is all I'm saying...

Also... just an FYI... squeaky wheel gets the grease. I wouldn't be surprised if after Ehren called them an all these other composers started emailing them right at the same time about this very issue... they finally did something to change it... which is most likely why they changed their EULA. We'll never know for sure... But as we continue to point out the "chinks in the armor" of their agreements, they will hopefully patch them and fix them...

Who knows...maybe in another 3 to 6 months from now Splice will change it's policies and procedures to ensure that no illegally copied material makes it into Splice Sounds... and once they do that, maybe they'll be able to apply that same technique or technology to Splice Community, and then this all becomes moot and is one for the archives.

For the record... I think Splice is a great concept and could be an invaluable tool for music creators. But they kind of jumped into the deep end without thoroughly looking first and have created some problems by doing so. I'm sure they hired an attorney to draft their first agreements... but it didn't seem like they got an attorney that had a lot of experience specifically with music copyright law, it looked more like the type of thing you'd see from a software/dot com IP attorney.

which goes back to one of Donald Passman's golden rules in his book... always hire an entertainment attorney that specifically specializes in what you are looking to do and already has years of experience doing it at a firm and on their own.

anyway... I'm starting to go off on tangents...

You can agree with me or disagree with me. But I am err'ing on the side of caution here. Splice is really trying to fix the holes so that their products work for music creators... most likely in a few years these issues will all be resolved. But I for one, would rather not take the chance right now. Some people out there would... others wouldn't. But just know if you are placing your tracks with music libraries you now have a much bigger legal responsibility for the music you are turning in whether you realize it or not.

Very well said. That was also the point I was trying to make. The letter I received from the attourneys regarding WA brought it all into perspective for me. In fact, I have to go back and check which library or sample it was, as it's possible that I had even purchased it through Splice. I now have to go back and check a couple of recent tracks that did use some vocal samples, and make sure none of those were used.

It's a pain in the ass to have to go back and unravel things, possibly revisiting a mix or composition, removing samples, remixing, and if it's already been released, dealing with those legal implications. Moving forward, I'll be very selective about any samples used, and doing as much research as possible. More likely, I'll just make my own samples to use.