Grand Theft Auto 4 has 50 music tracks removed & breaks the game severely for many.

[asus killer]

this happened to Alan Wake. But not like this. On the last days of the license expiring they sold the game dirt cheap, and anyone that has the game can play it because they also bought the license for the music.

In short what they couldn't do was keep selling the game with the music, but those that bought the game can still enjoy the music. The license deal affects sales not past purchases, that makes no sense, you paid for the game and the music license. 

[Master Disaster]

4 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

To be fair GTA:V is their latest one, and it gets updated weekly. 

 

I haven't actually moved on from GTA:SA :'( but that still has all its music and still looks great. 

No it doesn't, both Vice City & San Andreas were patched on PC to remove songs on their 10th anniversaries but only the Steam versions, disc versions & obviously console versions are unaffected.

 

There's a downgrade tool available for both games to revert back to previous versions and restore cut content (including hot coffee in SA).

[Master Disaster]

2 hours ago, i_got_laid_by_a_dragoness said:

You joke, but you don't at the same time.

 

If you already bought the game, patching it yourself would definitely help but may remove access to online services.

GTA 4 online required Games for Windows Live so it's been dead for a long time now.

[AskTJ]

You ran out of VRAM? Well why do I see 495 FPS in the bottom left corner!???

[Master Disaster]

33 minutes ago, asus killer said:

this happened to Alan Wake. But not like this. On the last days of the license expiring they sold the game dirt cheap, and anyone that has the game can play it because they also bought the license for the music.

In short what they couldn't do was keep selling the game with the music, but those that bought the game can still enjoy the music. The license deal affects sales not past purchases, that makes no sense, you paid for the game and the music license. 

No, it doesn't work like that unfortunately. As long as the game is still being sold the licensing contract still applies. If R* secured a 10 year license (as they did with multiple songs) then they only have 2 options, either remove the game from sale entirely or remove the songs from the game.

 

In the case of Alan Wake they chose to pull the game.

 

You paid R* to license their game, you did not pay for a license for the songs included in the game.

[Spotty]

28 minutes ago, asus killer said:

this happened to Alan Wake. But not like this. On the last days of the license expiring they sold the game dirt cheap, and anyone that has the game can play it because they also bought the license for the music.

In short what they couldn't do was keep selling the game with the music, but those that bought the game can still enjoy the music. The license deal affects sales not past purchases, that makes no sense, you paid for the game and the music license. 

There's been a few games where music rights have caused similar issues, so it's definitely not an issue that only Rockstar have had to deal with.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD was discounted 80% and then subsequently removed from the Steam store completely due to expiring music licences. Those who already owned the game are able to play the game with the original music, however new copies cannot be sold.

 

Just now, tj_420 said:

You ran out of VRAM? Well why do I see 495 FPS in the bottom left corner!???

There was a problem in GTA IV a long time ago where it couldn't correctly identify video cards with more than 2GB of VRAM. There was a patch that was released years ago that fixed the issue, however it seems that on the most recent version of the game that removed the music, this was overlooked and the old bug has resurfaced. You can see in the very top of the screen that it is using 277MB of 4096MB of VRAM.

[Sauron]

This is everything wrong with copyright law in a single piece of news

[Spotty]

6 minutes ago, Sauron said:

This is everything wrong with copyright law in a single piece of news

I disagree. The musicians/distributors licensed the music to be used within the game under an agreed upon use case, including that the music would only be licensed for a period of 10 years. It was likely agreed upon prior to the release of the game when the contracts were being made, that when the license expires, an update would be released that would remove the content from the game. Now that the agreement and license has expired, Rockstar has no right to use the music within its game and must either remove the product from sale and/or remove the offending content, or renegotiate a new license to use the music going forward.

It's possible that there was other music within the game that also had a 10 year license that was set to expire, however Rockstar was able to successfully renegotiate a new license for the music going forward and as a result were not required to be removed from the game. It's also possible that Rockstar did attempt to re-license the songs that were removed, but the rights holders either weren't interested in extending the license, or were asking too high of a price.

The issue is not with copyright laws or music licensing, but that Rockstar did not foresee the life of its product beyond 10 years. It would have been possible for Rockstar to purchase the license to use the music for a longer period of time or indefinitely at a higher cost, but instead they chose a 10 year period for the license which they must have considered [prior to launch] to be the shelf life of the product.

Considering GTA IV is still for sale and attracting a premium price of $50USD on steam, I'd say Rockstar is trying to have their cake and eat it too.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Spotty said:

I disagree. The musicians/distributors licensed the music to be used within the game under an agreed upon use case, including that the music would only be licensed for a period of 10 years. It was likely agreed upon prior to the release of the game when the contracts were being made, that when the license expires, an update would be released that would remove the content from the game. Now that the agreement and license has expired, Rockstar has no right to use the music within its game and must either remove the product from sale and/or remove the offending content, or renegotiate a new license to use the music going forward.

Yes, and that sounds like an incredibly stupid contract. It's especially egregious when rockstar's customers also paid to get a copy of the full game and are now being stripped of content on the basis of an arbitrary agreement that does absolutely nothing for the authors.

3 minutes ago, Spotty said:

It's possible that there was other music within the game that also had a 10 year license that was set to expire, however Rockstar was able to successfully renegotiate a new license for the music going forward and as a result were not required to be removed from the game. It's also possible that Rockstar did attempt to re-license the songs that were removed, but the rights holders either weren't interested in extending the license, or were asking too high of a price.

Which again, is pretty ludicrous - even worse if they were actually willing to pay and couldn't. As others said, imagine if this were a movie and someone knocked on your door to burn your newly infringing blu ray that you paid for.

5 minutes ago, Spotty said:

The issue is not with copyright laws or music licensing, but that Rockstar did not foresee the life of its product beyond 10 years. It would have been possible for Rockstar to purchase the license to use the music for a longer period of time or indefinitely at a higher cost, but instead they chose a 10 year period for the license which they must have considered [prior to launch] to be the shelf life of the product.

Considering GTA IV is still for sale and attracting a premium price of $50USD on steam, I'd say Rockstar is trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Or maybe the record label didn't want to license their music indefinitely so they might extract periodic payments from rockstar. Other games (even within the gta series) don't seem to have this problem, so why would rockstar suddenly change their practices?

[Spotty]

10 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Other games (even within the gta series) don't seem to have this problem, so why would rockstar suddenly change their practices?

Rockstar had the same problem with GTA SA and GTA VC. Presumably with other games in their series that feature licensed music as well.

Quote

The seventeen tracks missing are the same as those removed in the recent pocket telephone version, so presumably it’s a music licensing issue.
When music rights expired for some songs in GTA: Vice City, Rockstar left them in for folks who already owned it then made a separate version without them for new purchasers.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/11/10/gta-san-andreas-steam-removes-songs/

There's been a number of examples already given in this thread where this exact problem has occurred. Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD and Alan Wake are some of the games that this issue has affected. In those cases the games were removed from sale completely. Rockstar faced the decision of removing the unlicensed music, or removing the game from sale. They chose to remove the music.

 

16 minutes ago, Sauron said:

As others said, imagine if this were a movie and someone knocked on your door to burn your newly infringing blu ray that you paid for.

When it comes to movies it's quite often that the music rights expire or do not extend to new media types. In the case of licenses expiring, it may mean that something that was previously available on DVD/Bluray/VHS may no longer be available for sale.
It's quite common for an older movie with licensed music to run in to music rights issues when they are attempting to re-release the movie on a new media, such as DVD, Bluray, or digital streaming. In those cases the music rights need to be renegotiated or extended to include the new distributions, or the offending content needs to be removed or replaced.
The same issue is also faced by TV shows that are later redistributed on DVDs/Blurays as box sets, or distributed digitally through streaming services.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Spotty said:

When it comes to movies it's quite often that the music rights expire or do not extend to new media types. In the case of licenses expiring, it may mean that something that was previously available on DVD/Bluray/VHS may no longer be available for sale.
It's quite common for an older movie with licensed music to run in to music rights issues when they are attempting to re-release the movie on a new media, such as DVD, Bluray, or digital streaming. In those cases the music rights need to be renegotiated or extended to include the new distributions, or the offending content needs to be removed or replaced.
The same issue is also faced by TV shows that are later redistributed on DVDs/Blurays as box sets, or distributed digitally through streaming services.

But in this case they're retoactively gimping people's copies. If it is entirely rockstar's fault I think they should at least partially refund their customers.

[asus killer]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

No, it doesn't work like that unfortunately. As long as the game is still being sold the licensing contract still applies. If R* secured a 10 year license (as they did with multiple songs) then they only have 2 options, either remove the game from sale entirely or remove the songs from the game.

 

In the case of Alan Wake they chose to pull the game.

 

You paid R* to license their game, you did not pay for a license for the songs included in the game.

I don't think we are on the same issue. The OP as i understand had the game and now lost the songs. That is not at all what happened with Alan Wake, Remedy did not remove the songs from the games it had already sold, they didn't had to do it, they did what they had to do, they stop selling the game.

 

When the OP bought the game he bought the game including images and sounds, not a x number of years of the songs and y number of years for the rest, that's a commercial deal with Rockstar and the owners of the songs. When a record label publishes a cd they also have a license that they can lose to another label but they don't remove the authorization for whoever bought it to stop using. It just means they can't sell more and someone else will be selling it from now on.

[Doobeedoo]

Very lame thing though. 

[KoganeNoKenshi]

8 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

To be fair GTA:V is their latest one, and it gets updated weekly. 

No, it doen't get weekly updates. There are big updates every few months.

 

The just (until recently) released a new car/plane/boat/etc. every week.

[Master Disaster]

3 hours ago, asus killer said:

I don't think we are on the same issue. The OP as i understand had the game and now lost the songs. That is not at all what happened with Alan Wake, Remedy did not remove the songs from the games it had already sold, they didn't had to do it, they did what they had to do, they stop selling the game.

 

When the OP bought the game he bought the game including images and sounds, not a x number of years of the songs and y number of years for the rest, that's a commercial deal with Rockstar and the owners of the songs. When a record label publishes a cd they also have a license that they can lose to another label but they don't remove the authorization for whoever bought it to stop using. It just means they can't sell more and someone else will be selling it from now on.

It is the same issue...

 

When music rights on a game expire the devs or publishers have 3 options

1) Renew the licenses (not gonna happen on a 10 year old game)

2) Stop selling the game entirely (not gonna happen on a GTA Game)

3) Remove the songs

 

Remedy chose option 2, R* chose option 3.

 

Again you didn't license the songs, you licensed the game. A similar scenario is if your TV network loses its license to broadcast some channels, you still pay the network your license fee regardless of the fact they lost some channels. Ultimately you paid R* for a license to play GTA IV and you can still play GTA IV.

 

It's a non issue anyway as in a few months there will be a GTA IV Downgrade tool to restore all the lost content. I pretty much guarantee it's already being worked on as we speak.

[asus killer]

26 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

It is the same issue...

 

When music rights on a game expire the devs or publishers have 3 options

1) Renew the licenses (not gonna happen on a 10 year old game)

2) Stop selling the game entirely (not gonna happen on a GTA Game)

3) Remove the songs

 

Remedy chose option 2, R* chose option 3.

 

Again you didn't license the songs, you licensed the game. A similar scenario is if your TV network loses its license to broadcast some channels, you still pay the network your license fee regardless of the fact they lost some channels. Ultimately you paid R* for a license to play GTA IV and you can still play GTA IV.

 

It's a non issue anyway as in a few months there will be a GTA IV Downgrade tool to restore all the lost content. I pretty much guarantee it's already being worked on as we speak.

ok i get your point. We only diverge because i believe Rockstar didn't had to do it to the copies already sold, like Remedy didn't do it and you can still play Alan Wake with the original songs. For what happens to the new copies sold we agree. But i understand it's a bit of a conundrum if they release a new update

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, KoganeNoKenshi said:

No, it doen't get weekly updates. There are big updates every few months.

 

The just (until recently) released a new car/plane/boat/etc. every week.

Actually bi-weekly now but yes it does: It's a sneaky tactic of withholding cars from DLC add-ons to be released one at the time over several weeks, but every week (Again every 2 weeks now but this is a very recent change as of this past month in fact) they release a new vehicle or plane along with a small event with a featured race, game mode or business and such.

 

So it's not an "update" because the content is already in the game files and the servers but nobody has access to it officially until it is released on Tuesdays. This have even been highly desired vehicles like the Hunter helicopter that wasn't released with Smuggler's run initially but several weeks later as one of the weekly unlocks.

[Spotty]

19 minutes ago, asus killer said:

ok i get your point. We only diverge because i believe Rockstar didn't had to do it to the copies already sold, like Remedy didn't do it and you can still play Alan Wake with the original songs. For what happens to the new copies sold we agree. But i understand it's a bit of a conundrum if they release a new update

There could be 3 reasons why Rockstar made the decision to remove it from existing copies as well as new copies. I have no information either way, this is just what I'm speculating
 

1. Rockstar's original licensing agreements included stipulations that upon expiration of the licence, the content would be removed from all versions of the game via update. I'm sure at some point when making the contracts for the licences, the topic of "What happens after the licences expire" came up. This may have been the guarantee Rockstar gave to the licence holders when it came to what would happen when the licence expires.
2. Rockstar don't want to maintain 2 versions of the game. Doing this means that they would also have to change the physical retail copies available in stores, pulling old copies off the shelves and produce a new version of the physical copy and distribute it.
   Also, having a separate version for those who purchased the game before X date and another version for those who purchased the game after X date would also mean that they would need to support two versions of the game in regards to support and patches/updates. On a 10 year old game that Rockstar are not interested in supporting and updating further, they may have decided it was easier to maintain only a single version of the game going forward, and decided to make the changes apply to all versions of the game. _{(Though, I'm not really buying this second part personally as it's not like the two versions would be drastically different from each other and require much more work when it comes to supporting them, but it's a possibility worth considering)}
3. [Point 2.5?] It's possible (and likely) that there will be more music removed in the future as more licences expire. They won't want to have to re-release new physical versions every time a licence expires, along with supporting each new version for patches, so instead of re-releasing physical copies and pulling old versions off the shelves, they just plan to remove any expired licence content through patches so that they can keep their existing physical copies and don't have any disruption to their production and distribution chain.

 

 

Edit: To be clear I'm not happy about what Rockstar have done, but I'm just speculating on reasons for why they might have done it the way they did. In an ideal world we would all get the music forever, however that may not have been an option Rockstar had available to them.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

8 hours ago, Spotty said:

There's been a number of examples already given in this thread where this exact problem has occurred. Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD and Alan Wake are some of the games that this issue has affected. In those cases the games were removed from sale completely. Rockstar faced the decision of

removing the unlicensed music, or removing the game from sale. They chose to remove the music.

 

No, actually those are not examples of the same thing, because in both cases what expired was the right to sell the game with the music. Consumers who had already bought the game saw no change

 

So, yes, the idea that the seller of a product retains the right to come back at a future date and destroy part of it is a large part of what's wrong with copyright law and "software licensing" (an euphemism for "even if you pay, you still don't own shit").

 

8 hours ago, Spotty said:

When it comes to movies it's quite often that the music rights expire or do not extend to new media types. In the case of licenses expiring, it may mean that something that was previously available on DVD/Bluray/VHS may no longer be available for sale.

Exactly. And in no case someone comes to your house and deletes the music tracks from the DVD or VHS you bought before that date.

We are not talking about future copies of GTA IV shipping with different music, we are talking about people who bought it all the way back at release date seeing their product altered.

 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, KoganeNoKenshi said:

No, it doen't get weekly updates. There are big updates every few months.

 

The just (until recently) released a new car/plane/boat/etc. every week.

well there you go

[pas008]

did rockstar ever state to consumers about the music license expiration?

 

why do other media get to continue to use the music like tv shows and movies?

[Ithanul]

22 minutes ago, pas008 said:

did rockstar ever state to consumers about the music license expiration?

 

why do other media get to continue to use the music like tv shows and movies?

Could be different license agreements for TV shows and movies.  I can just see it now though.  Down the road with no physical discs for TV shows and movies, once the license is up, bam, music is taken out.

 

Rockstar probably did not.  The idea of now being able to take content out or update games on the fly is still new.  So, it looks like the copyright holders are taking full advantage of the tech as usual.

 

Just an another reason now for me to dislike digital products even more.  Yeah, the things are convenient, but like usual, one has to give up something for convenience.

[Princess Luna]

On 4/26/2018 at 10:28 PM, Ryujin2003 said:

meanwhile: still listening to STP from original Gran Turismo.

The most meaningful ones are fine though [:

 

[suicidalfranco]

i would understand if they removed from future copies being purchased but taking them away to current users, that's a dick anti-consumer move.

People should sue them.

[LAwLz]

8 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

i would understand if they removed from future copies being purchased but taking them away to current users, that's a dick anti-consumer move.

People should sue them.

Chanses are that it's in the TOS so you can't sue them. 

Remember, you generally don't pay to own media these days. You pay to get a license which they can change at any time. 

 

It sure are shitty times we live in...