Do you need to own RS1 for the Disc Import tool to work on 2014?

[Sorrelity]

I have RS2014 and I want to get the original songs, do you need RS1 to get the original songs onto 2014?

Cause I have both versions on xbox, but only 2014 on PC.

[firekorn]

Yes you need RS1 to get the original songs and both RS1 and RS2014 need to be on the same platform to get the original RS1 song in RS2014 .

[Sorrelity]

Wow that is so stupid, they charge you for the songs and you have to have the game...

[Wepeel]

Wow that is so stupid, they charge you for the songs and you have to have the game...

 

You have to have the game to own the songs, and the import tool charge is for licensing the songs for the new game, as well as for the work put in to update the techniques to make them compatible with RS2014.

 

I don't know where you're located, but you can get the original Rocksmith used for pretty cheap from online classified sites such as Craigslist and Kijiji.

 

Direct from the horse's mouth (Ubisoft):

 

"Yes! If you still own the original Rocksmith, you will be able to import 52 of the original songs into the new Rocksmith 2014 Edition for a one-time music label relicensing fee of $9.99. As part of this process, all these songs will be updated with the new tunings, techniques, tones, and other enhancements new to 2014 Edition. These 52 songs include everything except Eric Clapton "Run Back To Your Side" and Cream "Sunshine of Your Love" from the main disc tracks, plus 3 of the 5 unlockable bonus songs. To do this process, you will be prompted inside the main menu the first time you launch, or you can access it from the SHOP as the "Song Import" pack."

[Attitude]

Wow that is so stupid, they charge you for the songs and you have to have the game...

not exactly. You'll be getting how ever many songs were on the disc for like $25. I think you can get the game for $15 now and then $10 for the import tool. 52 on disc songs, $25. 50 cents a song. Sounds like a bargain to me.

[Teinashu]

It all has to do with song licensing rights. The 10 dollar you pay is for licensing the Rocksmith 1 songs to Rocksmith 2014 

[TomSawyer2112]

That's where I don't follow, neither the Software nor the Music producers, who force me to look for alternatives.

 

Rocksmith 2012 was unfinished business, which Rocksmith 2014 corrected,

using buyers as free, no, paying testers (instead of getting paid).

Instead of a new release, they should get an update.

 

Rocksmith on PS3, Xbox, Mac may not be the same as the PC version.

My children prefer PS3 & Xbox. Do I have to pay RS three times?

 

If I buy a tool that's not really finished, do I have to rebuy finished version at full price?.

If I use the tool at home, do I have to rebuy the tool, if I use it somewhere else?

Of course not. Same with software.

It's legalized cheating and stealing people.

[Teinashu]

Well not really. As far as Ubisoft is concerned Rocksmith 1 was a full release and a finished product.

Rocksmith 2014 is a new and better version.

[firekorn]

You can't look at it this way. Ubi signed with music producer for the right to used the song on RS1 only, the contract wasn't made by including futur release of Rocksmith, so Ubi had to remake contract with music producer to allow the import of the song into RS2014.

 

Ubi had to pay for those new contracts, they also did reworked all the songs completely and that isn't free either.

 

So they did make you pay for those new contract and reworked on the songs and that perfectly understandable, note that they don't charge you for RS1 DLC as long as they were able to renew the contract and that's already pretty nice from a company which goal is to make money.

 

And as tein said, you can't consider RS1 as an unfinished product, it was finalized and sell as a finished product, nobody forced you to bought RS1 and play it anyway and yay sometimes even for tools you buy new version of them that have been reworked/rethinked later.

[Attitude]

The original Rocksmith was a compromise. The developers knew they COULD do more, but with a very small team and time constraints they released the best product they could. Ubisoft saw a success and gave the green light for RS2014. With a larger team, more money and more time RS2014 improved greatly with techniques, much improved lessons and more refined arcade games. Now they had to license the songs and,, oh shit,. New game, New license. I thought the way they did it was about as good as it gets. At least we got to keep our Dlc from RS1 as well, since I had almost all of it. $10 for all those songs, heck yes. Also please remember Ubisoft is like the bank for these games. They don't make them, the just out up the money and distribute them. Like MGM.

[TomSawyer2112]

It's all about Updates or New releases

About the question, is it a Game, or a Music Teaching Software.

Going the FIFAxx  way is probably more profitable than the Software way (Synthesia ie.)

 

If Rocksmith 2014 had an update version for RS 2012, it would not have to licence the users twice.

Why should a user pay Music Producers so many times for a same song, (Vinyl, CD, DVD, BR, GH, RB, RS12, RS14 ...) 

 

The update hasn't that much to offer, except for some extra features on notes.

RS2012 had an very bad interface, retuning every time and nevertheless an average recognition system. 

RS2014 has a better interface, not good, no search engine for songs, no forward stop reverse in Riffrepeator.

 

RS2014 is still too permissive in recognizing not only chords, but above all, its simply awful in recognizing rhythm errors..

And training games are worse than in RS2012, who had a career mode.

 

So we will have to go through the discussion for RS2016.

[firekorn]

Why should a user pay Music Producers so many times for a same song, (Vinyl, CD, DVD, BR, GH, RB, RS12, RS14 ...) 

Since it's the only thing that really concern the subject and i don't want to launch on a debate on the other point in here i'll answer only to what i've quoted.

 

This is the way copyright is actually working in our world, that's not really a secret, and the way Ubisoft might not have been the best way looking to the past of the game but i'm pretty sure it was the right decision back then not knowing if the game would be followed up especially considering some of the trouble at the start (only North America didn't had to wait one full year for the game due to legal matter). If you want to requestioned the way copyright work, sure be my guest, i'm pretty sure there's a lot of things to change to it but that's not the question here.

 

And keep in mind that you didn't have to repay for RS1 DLC that you bought even though they have been reworked.

[Wepeel]

It doesn't have anything to do with copyright.  It has to do with the commercial licenses for the songs.  When Ubisoft created RS1, they signed a commercial license to use the in-game songs in RS1 only.  In order to use them in RS2014, you have to pay a new licensing fee.  

 

This deal is arranged by the companies that hold the rights to the music, not Ubisoft.  It's done this way so that game developers (or whoever buys a license, for many different purposes) cannot use that music in any other way except what was intended in the original agreement without paying extra for it.  So if Ubisoft buys a license for a song, they cannot use that song in another game they make.  Whether it be another music game, or any other kind of game.

 

So even though we all consider RS2014 to be a sequel to RS1, in a legal sense it is not.  It is a completely different game, and has a completely different license.

 

The Rock Band titles all worked the exact same way.  Any on-disc songs had to be re-licensed to be playable in future "editions" of the game.

 

DLC can be carried over because it falls under a different type of licensing agreement and the royalties are paid out differently.

[firekorn]

No copyright = no licensing needed so yeah it's because of copyright that they signed contract to obtain a partial right over the song. but you're absolutely right about the way it work and that's what i kinda said before.

 

Though i'm not sure if they didn't have to reworked the contract on DLC songs since i'm not sure what was the exact condition of those contract.

[Wepeel]

No copyright = no licensing needed so yeah it's because of copyright that they signed contract to obtain a partial right over the song. but you're absolutely right about the way it work and that's what i kinda said before.

 

Though i'm not sure if they didn't have to reworked the contract on DLC songs since i'm not sure what was the exact condition of those contract.

 

In the gaming industry DLC falls under a different type of licensing agreement because of the way it's purchased and the way the royalties are paid out.  As it pertains to Rocksmith, the song licenses can be negotiated as a one-time fee, or as a per-download royalty.

 

DLC can be carried forward because the licensing agreements are structured differently and can be extended beyond the original game and time frame they were created for.  Essentially, the game developer just has to pay more money to the people who hold the rights.

 

So in essence, rather than recreating all of the RS1 on-disc songs as DLC (and re-negotiating new licensing agreements), then making you purchase each one for $2.99, you get a better deal by paying $10 to get them all.  Ubisoft had to pay a smaller fee to extend the licenses to RS2014 and they pass that "savings" on to the end user.

 

In Rock Band, some Metallica songs were pulled off of the RB store because their licensing agreements had expired and Metallica (or more specifically their representatives) chose not to extend the agreements.  If you already owned that DLC it had no affect on you, but it could no longer be purchased by new users.

[TomSawyer2112]

Let's not forget the artists.

 

And I'm not talking about those who get pushed forward in the medias by the Music Industry, because they fit a trend, and there's a lot of cash to be made of. In fact, there are so many commercial "artists", that it's hard to find real talents behind the scene. So if the Music Industry goes down the drain, it's profitable to give space to the many weak - sponsored musicians. 

 

Let's not forget also that Rocksmith gives the Music Industry a great publicity for some artist you would never have heard or cared about.

The Music Industry should pay a contribution to Ubisoft. Let's not forget that Tabbing songs is also under copyright. So yes, there is still something deeply wrong in the copyright licensing system. And legally, I'm not concerned by contracts Ubisoft has with the Music Industry.

 

It's not about 10$, it's about history, freedom, autonomy of artists and the accessibility to their music, either to listen or to play.

We could have so much better music, and those who limit their music style to modern fast repeating 3 chords in a uniform rhythm don't know what they are missing. My fingers were enough to count interesting songs on the two RS DVD Covers, and it took me a long time to buy it and pay for the rest which makes me sponsor a level of music I don't support.

 

I'm always glad to find musicians who offer their music for a small fee on the web, bypassing the intermediate merchants.

[firekorn]

@@TomSawyer2112 That's a great view but not the subject here.

[TomSawyer2112]

I took a wider view to point out that everybody has a choice to how far he accepts a business model 

which could develop because so many people choose the easy way, which is to pay even if they think it's wrong. 

 

And the companies don't care if the users feel cheated, so why would the user care for their expenses.

 

It's well shown in Carpenters "They Live" : buy, consume, obey, stay asleep, submit, don't question authority, money is your god

 

Everybody has a responsibility to say stop, that's not right.

And then if you follow my reflexion, the first question if you need RS1 becomes "sans objet".

 

Thus returning to the subject my answer  would be "No, you don't need RS1"

[firekorn]

Well you need to have RS1 and pay the import tool to have RS1 ondisc songs on RS2014 that's a fact and that was the question here, it may seems wrong to you or whatever but that's not the subject here. Note that i'mnot saying you're wrong.