Question about licensing for NES covers

[Fear2Stop]

I use Soundrop as my distribution company for my band , and I’m running into an issue. We’ve released several video game covers through them, and the catch is the song has to be released in the US in order to do so . That hasn’t been an issue for some of them, (stuff like the Life Force is on Apple Music ) but some games like Blaster Master and Journey to Silius aren’t on any streaming services in their original configuration, meaning they’re not eligible. How are folks such as Vomitron able to secure licenses?

Any help is greatly appreciated

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Does it have to be streaming? Journey to Silius had a vinyl release.

[Fear2Stop]

Originally Posted by Jedi QuestMaster

Does it have to be streaming? Journey to Silius had a vinyl release.

Just that it had to be released in the US… I saw the vinyl listing and I’m hoping like hell that qualifies! Unfortunately I found nothing at all for Blaster Master .

I also found out that many of the covers in streaming platforms had the artist list *themselves* as the composer/original artist to get around the licensing … not good, and I won’t be doing that .

[rpbtz]

Not a lawyer (or even American lol), but from my understanding any physical US release should qualify as well including the vinyl soundtrack.

In theory artists could negotiate these things directly with the game companies to get around the requirement of a US release, but realistically I doubt that many of them do that.

I suspect there's quite a lot of unlicensed VGM covers around, but it's nigh impossible to keep track of whether stuff is licensed or not.

You can look some titles up via IDBLM (https://www.idblm.org/), but it's my understanding that it's entirely voluntary, so something not being in there doesn't mean it's not licensed.

[Fear2Stop]

Originally Posted by rpbtz

Not a lawyer (or even American lol), but from my understanding any physical US release should qualify as well including the vinyl soundtrack.

In theory artists could negotiate these things directly with the game companies to get around the requirement of a US release, but realistically I doubt that many of them do that.

I suspect there's quite a lot of unlicensed VGM covers around, but it's nigh impossible to keep track of whether stuff is licensed or not.

You can look some titles up via IDBLM (https://www.idblm.org/), but it's my understanding that it's entirely voluntary, so something not being in there doesn't mean it's not licensed.

I submitted the Stage 1 and 5 music for Journey to Silius and included the link for the vinyl release to Soundrop yesterday… we shall see if the vinyl release qualifies!

On a side note I may have an issue with Silver Surfer …. What’s listed as Stage 1 on streaming platforms isn’t actually the stage 1 music…it’s the title screen music !

[Fear2Stop]

Got a rejection email..guess the vinyl doesn’t count 🫩

[Fear2Stop]

Resubmitted and mentioned the Vinyl was official, and it got approved!

[Jedi QuestMaster]

They thought it was a Moonshake album at first?

Anyway, glad to hear it worked out! Hopefully someone picks up Blaster Master soon. You'd think with Blaster Master Zero it would have happened sooner.