VGMdb
Go Back   VGMdb Forums > VGMdb Site Related > Questions and Comments
Register FAQ Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

View Poll Results: Merge "Independent" and "Doujin/Fanmade" back into "Doujin/Indie"?
Merge 6 50.00%
Don't Merge 6 50.00%
Voters: 12. You may not vote on this poll

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #1  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 03:18 AM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default Merge "Independent" and "Doujin/Fanmade" publisher types back into "Doujin/Indie"?

Is a separate publisher type necessary for professional artists who self-publish? Or shall we group them together with doujin publishers to avoid confusion?

I'll leave the voting open for a week or more, depending on the response.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 03:29 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Tokyo
Posts: 2,026
Default

Perhaps could you tell me what albums in the database should be classified as Independent? As I'm still confused, and not sure how many they are...

http://vgmdb.net/album/8140
http://vgmdb.net/album/11373
http://vgmdb.net/album/16334

Like them?
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 03:43 AM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

Yes, those are the types of albums I had in mind.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 03:54 AM
PsychoZeke's Avatar
PsychoZeke PsychoZeke is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Sector 2814
Posts: 459
Default

I understand the distinction between the two, so a "merge" is quite unnecessary.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 04:02 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Tokyo
Posts: 2,026
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gigablah View Post
Yes, those are the types of albums I had in mind.
Okay, thanks for clarification.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 04:55 AM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

The initial splitting of these publisher types was prompted by the question: "What if Nobuo Uematsu released an album of original works through his personal website?" Having the doujin/indie type and color-code wouldn't seem appropriate for this.

On the other hand, you could potentially have an artist who alternates between releasing (unauthorized) fan arranges and original soundtracks through his personal netlabel. One would have to be listed as doujin/fanmade and the other as independent, which suggests the field (inappropriately) depends on the content of the release rather than the publisher.

A potential solution is to merge the publisher types back together AND make the blue color-coding for Works releases (i.e. no category) to have higher priority than the orange coding for Doujin/indie publisher type, which achieves a closer result to our old system.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 05:26 AM
PsychoZeke's Avatar
PsychoZeke PsychoZeke is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Sector 2814
Posts: 459
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gigablah View Post
[...]

A potential solution is to merge the publisher types back together AND make the blue color-coding for Works releases (i.e. no category) to have higher priority than the orange coding for Doujin/indie publisher type, which achieves a closer result to our old system.
Which translates to the "Release Type" options when submitting an album; the two drop down menus? I actually find that format to be quite good, as it helps keeping things organized (as far as I see it, of course).

The descriptions given at the side explaining what is what should be enough; I don't see what's all the hoopla about, really (pardon my bluntness).
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 05:34 AM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

Yeah, the old system had publisher type + distribution type merged as a single "release type", which caused some overlaps.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 05:34 AM
Ira Ira is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 208
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gigablah View Post
A potential solution is to merge the publisher types back together AND make the blue color-coding for Works releases (i.e. no category) to have higher priority than the orange coding for Doujin/indie publisher type, which achieves a closer result to our old system.
Works already has higher priority as far as I can see, initially after the change doujin had higher priority, but that got changed back quickly. see REDALiCE for instance, the vast majority of his stuff is doujin, but the works are blue. Or did I just miss the point completely?

Quote:
Originally Posted by PsychoZeke View Post
The descriptions given at the side explaining what is what should be enough; I don't see what's all the hoopla about, really (pardon my bluntness).
The 'hoopla' is that it's semantics. An independent release is an independent release regardless of whether it's published by Nobuo Uematsu, ZUN, an independent label, or some really obscure doujin artist.
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 05:41 AM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by IRA View Post
Works already has higher priority as far as I can see, initially after the change doujin had higher priority, but that got changed back quickly. see REDALiCE for instance, the vast majority of his stuff is doujin, but the works are blue. Or did I just miss the point completely?
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that. Made the color-coding change anyway after splitting up publisher type. Disregard my earlier suggestion.
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 11:03 AM
Datschge's Avatar
Datschge Datschge is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 745
Default

"Independent" is a irritating misnomer to most people as it refers to releases done independently from music labels. The focus on vgmdb however is not the music labels but the (original) music creators (as persons, groups or companies) so "Self-Published" fits way better. So I'd suggest renaming to that.

"Doujin/Fanmade" is yet another different thing not related to the above, so merging them does nothing to clarify.
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 11:22 AM
Revoc's Avatar
Revoc Revoc is offline
VGMdb Advisor
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 801
Default

Very interesting topic. For instance, some albums that can be discussed:

Denshi no Umi: arranged free album by the one of the original composers himself. Doujin or/and Independent?
We Express Ourselves With T-Shirts: original work by Another Soundscape. He made arrangements on OCRemix albums and he also composed original soundtracks.

I agree with everything IRA said, but I don't know if the merge of the two categories would be ideal in my opinion. Besides, I don't know if the solution could be a change of the "Independent" name (since Doujin are also Independent), like "Self-Published" as Datschge suggested.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gigablah View Post
"What if Nobuo Uematsu released an album of original works through his personal website?" Having the doujin/indie type and color-code wouldn't seem appropriate for this.
Allow me give an example that really happened. Some time ago, Yuzo Koshiro shared for free on Ancient website a track called "Bare Knuckle All Mix", a non-stop mix with arranged tracks from Streets of Rage trilogy. This track was never officialy released on CD. I don't made an entry for this, but in this case a Doujin/Indie doesn't seem to be the most accurate release type choice.
http://web.archive.org/web/200409092....co.jp/bk.html

Last edited by Revoc; Feb 15, 2010 at 07:36 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old Jan 18, 2010, 12:40 PM
Ira Ira is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 208
Default

To clarify my stance on this, I believe there should be three publisher types: Commercial, Not Commercial (name tentative), and Bootleg.
Doujin music is a subset of independent music, it's silly to keep the two separate. If putting them under another name like 'self-published' would make people happier then that works as well.
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old Jan 19, 2010, 06:15 AM
UnkleFunK's Avatar
UnkleFunK UnkleFunK is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 2
Default

In my opinion, differentiating between an independent release from an artist who has previously been published on a commercial label and a release from an artist who hasn't seems unnecessary, even counter-intuitive.
Surely there is a reason why they have chosen not to release through a label?
Reply With Quote
  #15  
Old Jan 19, 2010, 01:10 PM
Kaleb.G's Avatar
Kaleb.G Kaleb.G is offline
VGMdb Advisor
VGM Artist
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: USA
Posts: 1,038
Default

I voted to keep them separate but after reading about this more, I think I need to know more about this.

We need to first look at what exactly we're trying to describe with the publisher type. It currently seems to actually boil down to a few elements:
- Copy rights
- Intellectual property rights
- Whether the publisher operates to publish only for their own artist or group, or publishes various artists.

Here's my current understanding of the new types. Correct me where I'm wrong.
- A Commercial album's publisher owns all copy rights and is licensed for IP rights for the album. They publish for various artists.
- An Independant album's publisher owns all copy rights and is licensed for IP right for the album. They only publish their own work.
- A Doujin/fanmade album's publisher owns the copy rights for the album, but they probably are not licensed for the IP rights of the original compositions. They likely only publish their own work.
- A Bootleg album's publisher does not own copy rights nor IP rights for the album. There is no original work added by the publisher of the album, so the question of whose work they publish is irrelevant.

By the way, we'll run into an issue with Self-Published vs. Commercial for this type of thing:
http://vgmdb.net/album/16078
Music by Shinji Hosoe. Published by SuperSweep, Shinji Hosoe's label.
__________________
hi~

Last edited by Kaleb.G; Jan 19, 2010 at 01:21 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #16  
Old Jan 19, 2010, 05:04 PM
Ira Ira is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 208
Default

You bring up good points.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaleb.G View Post
- A Doujin/fanmade album's publisher owns the copy rights for the album, but they probably are not licensed for the IP rights of the original compositions. They likely only publish their own work.
You're correct in this, the albums in the database reflect this. Searching for albums under Doujin/Fanmade gives 3092, Doujin/Fanmade+Arrange gives 2903 results, Doujin/Fanmade+Original Work gives 348 results, and Doujin/Fanmade+Original Soundtrack gives 80 results.

So out of all albums with the publisher type Doujin/Fanmade in the database...
  • 93.89% have at least 1 arrangement.
  • 6.11% Have no arrangements.
  • 11.25% have at least 1 original work.
  • 88.75% have no original work.
  • 2.59% are original soundtracks.
  • 97.41% are not original soundtracks.
We however can't assume that all the information is correct, but it gives us a good idea.

So, with all that said, it's correct to say they probably don't own or have the right to use the IP. However, I still feel it's a poor assumption to make. People usually think of doujin work as being based off other material, and while it is quite common (as the above shows) it is not part of the definition. An album being doujin does not mean that the artist does not own the IP.
And as for it being self-published, there are those who do, but many release their work as a collective.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaleb.G View Post
By the way, we'll run into an issue with Self-Published vs. Commercial for this type of thing:
http://vgmdb.net/album/16078
Music by Shinji Hosoe. Published by SuperSweep, Shinji Hosoe's label.
I guess that would be an issue if it's called 'self-published', yeah. Still pretty clear cut though, SuperSweep is a commercial label, therefore it's a commercial release.
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Old Feb 1, 2010, 04:07 PM
Kaleb.G's Avatar
Kaleb.G Kaleb.G is offline
VGMdb Advisor
VGM Artist
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: USA
Posts: 1,038
Default

Does anything have anything else to contribute? I think I'm trying to figure out 1) why the distinction is relevant and 2) if the distinction should be made specifically in this manner.
__________________
hi~
Reply With Quote
  #18  
Old Feb 7, 2010, 06:01 AM
Secret Squirrel's Avatar
Secret Squirrel Secret Squirrel is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Cleveland, OH
Posts: 8,240
Default

I still haven't contributed. My main problem is that I still can't clearly articulate what 'Independent' means. Even after all of the explanations and discussions, it requires judgment of who is professional, and what is a non-professional capacity.

However, I've been thinking that we could use another publication type (or some other indication as appropriate) for free releases -- ones where the public has been granted the right to redistribute the music.
Reply With Quote
  #19  
Old Feb 7, 2010, 06:47 AM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

There's another simple argument in favor of merging -- there aren't actually that many albums that fit the "independent" publisher type in the database anyway. Here's all of them:

http://vgmdb.net/album/3494
http://vgmdb.net/album/5259
http://vgmdb.net/album/5460
http://vgmdb.net/album/8140
http://vgmdb.net/album/8404
http://vgmdb.net/album/9278
http://vgmdb.net/album/16440
http://vgmdb.net/album/17501
http://vgmdb.net/album/17623
Reply With Quote
  #20  
Old Feb 15, 2010, 07:24 PM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

Opinion seems to be evenly divided, but I'm going to go ahead and merge the two publisher types. The albums listed above can serve as reference if we revisit this topic.
Reply With Quote
  #21  
Old Feb 15, 2010, 07:34 PM
Revoc's Avatar
Revoc Revoc is offline
VGMdb Advisor
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 801
Default

This album was also added as Independent.

http://vgmdb.net/album/17965
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Should officially-licensed indie albums be classified as "Doujin/Indie"? Rrolack Questions and Comments 7 May 14, 2018 04:43 PM
HSB-0297: "PSO" Series 15th Anniversary Concert "Sympathy 2015" Live... NightsB Album Discussions 0 Feb 28, 2016 06:23 AM
VICL-60677: Kohei Tanaka 20-shuunen na Yoru "Top wo Nerae!" kara "Yuushaou... Zhane Masaki Album Discussions 0 Jan 25, 2015 01:00 AM
FVCG-1173: Science Adventure Dance Remix "CHAOS;HEAD" "STEINS;GATE" kami68k Album Discussions 0 Sep 29, 2011 12:47 PM
COCX-36021~2: COBRA THE ANIMATION "THE PSYCHOGUN" & "TIME DRIVE" COMPLETE SOUNDTRACK Phonograph Album Discussions 1 Feb 18, 2011 10:06 PM