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Radio station mods, copyrighted music and moderation

  • @HarleyQuinnSquad Honestly could make this a thing I'm down to do this
    also send me the mod my guy keen to hear them :)

  • @SLY95ZER I don't see why you couldn't post your mods to Youtube and link the download to some other external site. I have been doing that this entire time on my Youtube channel. I have never gotten a copyright strike for it. Because it is covered under my fair use rights for Youtube. Just make sure to post a link to your Youtube channel here so that we can download your mods. If you want my mod that was taken down, its back up now. Just go to this link to download it: https://www.gta5-mods.com/misc/gta-vice-city-wave103-radio-station-replaces-vinewood-boulevard-radio#description_tab

  • @futurestoryteller People do this all the time on Youtube. The worst thing that could happen is that your video gets demonetized. I don't worry about that since I don't care about making money on my videos. I just want to get mod content out to the public so that they can enjoy the mods I make as much as I do. They can't give you a copyright strike because it is within your fair use rights to share content that you have created yourself.


    They definitely can and do send us DMCA takedown requests, which we are required, by law, to take action on and respond to. "Copyright strikes" are a YouTube thing, specific to YouTube.

    You should look up what "Fair use" covers because it most definitely does not cover taking commercial music from copyright holders and putting it in mods. Do your own research, but over the past 18 years I've discussed this topic in my own time (and with my own money) with numerous solicitors from numerous firms and they have all confirmed what I am telling you here -- "Fair use" does not and will not cover these sorts of mods. I've yet to find a single solicitor who disagrees.

    Your argument seems to be against copyrights in general. It's an argument you're simply not going to win and by the letter of the law of most countries in the world, you would be considered wrong.

    If you use someone else's music/sounds/videos/pictures/textures/meshes/animations/ANYTHING then it is their property, not yours. Simply the fact you have someone's music on your computer, or the fact it's available on the internet, does not somehow make that music yours or make it free to use and share with others. Even if you've bought it.

    Unless the copyright holder specifically (or generally) says you can publicly share their work within the medium you're wanting to share it (e.g. mods) then you do not have permission to use that work.

    It doesn't matter if you think it's unfair, unjust or wrong. The law is the law. And sharing music that you do not own, and do not have the right to redistribute, is against the law. If you would like to fight that law and take it up in the courts then that is your right and your prerogative. This rule change has been made because we don't want to fight the law in court because we (1) haven't got enough money and (2) haven't got enough time and (3) do not think the law is wrong in this.

    To note; just because you can find something on the internet and download it does NOT mean it isn't copyrighted and it does NOT mean you can do anything you want with it. That is not how copyright works. That content might (also) be up illegally or the copyright owners might have been provided a special license for hosting it at that one location, but not elsewhere.

    I see a few people mentioning (actual) creative commons/free to use music. As I mentioned in the OP, this content is fine and free to be hosted on 5Mods. However, you must ensure the licenses are valid and correct for any and all music you wish to use in your mods.

  • Whatever dude. I'm going to keep uploading my mods. So if you won't host them on GTA 5 mods, I will host them elsewhere. I am not making money off of these mods and I don't intend to stop modding a game that I like to mod just because of some bullshit copyright law. I have spent my hard earned money and time, and I have been doing this for years without any backlash on multiple games in the past. DMCAs are just to scare people into changing and I don't fall for that crap. I find it very unfortunate that you won't defend the modding community, because many other modding sites have and their mods are still online. If their modding site gets shut down, they make another one without using .com. They usually use .me or .io or even .co. Copyright or not, the content will usually be re-uploaded somewhere else. It is physically impossible to control the internet, SOPA tried and failed multiple times. I don't think we have too much to worry about. It's just a radio station mod, not a music album, movie, or a video game that is sold to the public. The only copyright infringement that happens is if someone uses OpenIV to extract the Mp3s contained within the compressed rpf file for a particular radio station mod. Then it is on that users head, not the modder that made the rpf file. The user has made the choice of piracy by extracting the music, that isn't our fault.


    I couldn't care less if you're breaking the law on other services or sites. Whatever you do on other sites is your prerogative and not what we're talking about here.

    All I care about is 5Mods, and ensuring we don't get sued for hosting illegal content.

  • That's my point. It shouldn't be considered breaking the law if I make a mod that is compressed as a rpf file. But whatever, at least you guys allow old GTA radio stations to be converted over to GTA V. I will make sure not to post any copyrighted music in my mods that is not GTA related. I didn't plan to in the first place anyways. Just thought having my opinion be heard was beneficial. But seriously, making DMCA requests against mods is pretty petty. I think we have just seen the tip of the iceberg. But thanks nonetheless for allowing us to post GTA radio stations at least. :P

  • @HarleyQuinnSquad said in Radio station mods, copyrighted music and moderation:


    Ap-bap-bap! Some of those copyright laws are there for a reason and in the cases of music or movies it makes sense, time and effort is put into them and to have someone else take it and put the full thing somewhere where it can be enjoyed not only for free but that same person is also making their own money off it is plain wrong. You wouldn't like it if you made a movie, music, game, video, image, or even a mod and then have someone else take it and profit off it despite that you don't profit off it, or what if they call it theirs like some people already have with most songs, mods, and videos?

    You as a creator wouldn't stand it and would do everything possible to put it to a complete end. There are some copyrights that are pathetic (your own music getting a random copyright strike because it was used in a YouTube video or something and then some random bullshit ransom company like TMG Ltd. comes and makes a benign claim that it's theirs when it was clearly and easily provable that it was done by you.

    I don't agree with most copyright laws but some of them are in place for a reason. Try getting permissions and see how far that gets you, that's what most game companies and movie companies do when they want to use a certain song made by a certain person for something.

  • To be totally honest with you, I wouldn't care if someone downloaded my movie, music, or video game. Because sooner than later someone will eventually buy it if it is good. I am not losing much money anyways, as I have already made a decent profit margin from something I created. Plus it also doesn't bother me because that just means that my creations are so popular that people want to download and try them out first, then maybe buy them when they go on sale. Also I am not a greedy little miser that wants to ruin the creativity of others by putting DMCA claims on mods, because that is just plain greed. The difference here is that we actually have to compile these mods to be compatible with the radio stations in GTA V. My point was that a normal user wouldn't know how to extract the mod, they would be more interested in getting it installed so that they can listen to it in GTA V. If a user willingly extracts the mp3s out of the compressed rpf file they are committing piracy.

    I believe copyright laws should exist, but there should be a limit to their power. They shouldn't be able to touch media that the copyright wasn't designed to govern in the first place. Mods seem a bit out of place in my opinion to be placing DMCA claims on. Because you need the actual GTA V game to be able to use these mods. You need to buy an actual licensed video game in order to use them. Unless your overall goal is piracy which places the blame on the user not the modder because then all they need is OpenIV and they can extract the mp3s. I would see the issue if people were blatantly uploading plain mp3s, but that is not what is going on here. It takes a lot of work to get some of these radio station mods to work. I don't see why stupid DMCAs should stop our creativity and waste our time.

  • This is total bullshit. Thanks DMCA :worried:

  • The acceptance of the truth is the way of understanding the issue.

    Yes, I'm doing a copyright infringement with my mods because I'm not supposed to modify the game's content without permission. But I'm allowed as long as I don't start making money with it.

    So...this is how important is NOT to sell or ask money for a copyright content on 5MODS.

    Modifications should be only a matter of skills, creativity and personal entertainment.

    Hope Rockstar consider ours mods a hobby of creativity and some people stop sell attempt or ask for money.

  • @dionys19 Exactly! I enjoy making mods for the community. The DMCAs are totally overstepping their boundaries here, mods should be left alone. I think part of this is because GTA Online is trying to kill off the singleplayer part of GTA. They keep adding updates to the online portion of GTA but not adding content to singleplayer, which is total shit. This is why people make mods for GTA V, to add more content to the game.

    @TrickyJawa Thanks for the upvotes! :) I am glad I am not the only one that thinks these DMCA claims are full of shit.


    @dionys19 said in Radio station mods, copyrighted music and moderation:


    That's untrue, unfortunately. Money has absolutely no bearing on this issue. It's copyright infringement whether you sell the mod/make money off of it or not.

  • @Dark0ne Actually money does have something to do with it. Because the ones enforcing the DMCAs are the ones that are greedy with money. It hurts innocent modders from making their creative mods, this is why people have a problem with it. This is the main problem with copyrights, even if you are not making money off of the content it is still considered copyright infringement. It shouldn't be classified as such as long as you credit the original creators in my opinion. Because what is the big issue, we are not making money off of it and we are distributing their content, they should be happy that their content is spreading and is being used at all.

  • @HarleyQuinnSquad for an example with a charged mod take a look at julionb he has no free stuff anymore

  • @SLY95ZER JulioNIB creates his scripting stuff from scratch and offers his work for anyone who want to support his development, is not same case like others modders who uses stuff like music, intelectual property is the true copyright reclamations by authors.

  • @MetaGTA ahh true but the DMCA is quite a pain as we should be able to have our own stuff in game like music and things alike

  • @Dark0ne said in Radio station mods, copyrighted music and moderation:




    To be fair he was talking about his own mods, which are exclusively alterations of copyrighted character models, but I especially may have contributed to a misunderstanding of the issue, for some of the users who don't speak perfect English.

    It's notable that the issue is not with personal mods, and in this sense should not be that difficult to understand. Someone mentioned that you can already put your own music in the game. That's right, you can - if you have it. The fact that you can pack it into an RPF file demonstrates that the files themselves can be easily altered. Saying "I should be able to put my own music (from my iPhone) into the game." Is not the same as saying "I should be able to put my own music (from my iPhone) into somebody else's game." One is personal use, the other is a distribution platform. There is no guarantee that the music you've (bought... presumably :rolling_eyes: - who are we kidding - and) collected is already held by any one of the anonymous users you've distributed it to, let alone all of them; who have the capacity, just as you do, to do whatever they want with it.... Like...convert the RPF into an MP3 and keep it on their iPhone forever...

    I talked about the uploading of playlists to YouTube as hypothetically "more" ethical solution because it generates some revenue, but when you remove it from that sphere, of YouTube, you've taken their ability to control the content - that is theirs, btw - away. @HarleyQuinnSquad keeps mentioning YouTube, but YouTube's policies regarding music, of taking them down, blocking them, or demonetizing them based on what the license holder wants is a compromise. Since they can't take every little infraction to court they instead ensure the content is regulated automatically. When it stays up they don't just "demonetize" your video, they take the money it would generate, even if you were savvy enough not to monetize it to begin with. However, they can't force a commercial to play every time someone uses your radio mod, so that kind of automation is not available to them, even if they'd choose to use it, and the ones who have have chosen. So because 5-mods doesn't have the kind of pull, or resources, money, or clout as YouTube (FUCKING GOOGLE), if you're saying to yourself right now "If they can't police every little infraction then we can post whatever we want" you're missing that if 5-mods doesn't demonstrate an effort to curb illegal content then they are liable. The jackboots may or may not come after you, but they will come after the site, and those like it, and then there'd be no halfway legitimate place to find mods, small or large. More than ever you'd be risking a virus with every download. I know this is a borderline controversial stance, because it sucks either way, but the whole community should not be penalized because some users have liberal feelings about copyrights. As I've said, the moderators and site owners have no choice.

    The idea that this kills creativity is honestly a little silly too, nothing is stopping any one of you from posting your idea as a hypothetical playlist on the boards, that any halfway decent Open IV user could assemble themselves with a tutorial, and links to the right free (open source) software. You could even call it exactly what it is, just so long as you aren't providing them with the means to illegally download the music. You simply assume they have it (or can get it - legally) and that they'll put it together themselves, like a DIY project.... you know... for personal use.

  • Topic unlocked and arguments/rants moved to separate topic. This topic is for asking questions about the situtation, not ranting or arguing about it.

    This is what the topic looked like:

    And just in case someone reads the post above and thinks it's political, here is a now-moved post regarding it:

    @futurestoryteller said in Radio station mods, copyrighted music and moderation:

    @Jitnaught said in Radio station mods, copyrighted music and moderation:

    He may have started it, but you pushed it more than he did.

    :rolling_eyes: I can't believe I have to do this... I avoided it out of a misplaced faith in humanity in general.


    Definition of "liberal" for Students

    1 : not stingy : generous

    • She made a liberal donation.

    2 : not strict

    • That's a liberal interpretation of the rule.


    Continue arguing about whether DMCAs have right to exist here.

    This thread will continue for questions if you have any such mods on the website or plan to release such a thing.

    I'm gonna hand out bans if the arguing continues.

  • @ikt Thank you for unlocking our discussion thread. If you want to hand out bans, give one to Jitnaught, he deserves it for not knowing how to moderate and unlock a thread and harassing me and 8541ss for everything we say. Anyways I do have a question. How long are GTA themed radio stations going to be allowed on GTA 5 mods? Because I only plan on releasing radio stations that port over previous GTA stations to GTA V.



    See Dark0ne's statement:

    we are no longer going to accept Radio Station mods that include any copyrighted music unless you can prove, outright, that the copyright holder has provided an open license to either you, or the general public, for their work to be used.

    New uploads will not be approved unless you have permission from the copyright holder. This includes music used in prior iterations of the Grand Theft Auto series.

    Edit - See Rennie's.

  • @ikt I was told by Rennie that any radio station mods that convert older GTA radio station are allowed as long as all of the songs are indeed from an older GTA game.


    Correct and let's hope we can keep it at that

  • So as long as I am keeping my radio station mods with GTA related songs I can still share them on GTA 5 mods right? If so then I don't have a problem, we have nothing to discuss since I will be only uploading GTA themed radio stations.

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