Re: I have a very emportant question for the forum
Having purchased multiple sound effects libraries myself, I can definitely concur with Camlorn on the expense point. Most libraries are sold with a royalty-free license. This means you are not required to pay any attributions or royalties to the original publisher. To compensate for this lack of perpetual income, royalty-free libraries are usually high in price, since they want to recoop the expenses in the making of the library, as well as for any potential profits they would've otherwise made were the product under an attribution license.
Sound effects are never redistributable in their original form. A person is free to distribute an effect irrespective of any income they may or may not receive. However, and here is the catch, they cannot redistribute the effect in its original form. You cannot just grab a sound out of your library and give it to someone. You can only give a sound to someone to use in a project if the effect you give them is modified in such a way th at it is no longer recognizable or deconstructible into the original product.
I'm not going to lie or sugarcoat. People in the audio gaming community steal sounds without any shame. I design sounds for Alter Aeon. I was once told by players there that my desire to find a way to encrypt my sounds was ridiculous because, and I paraphrase, they had every right to take those files and use them wherever they wished. Nowadays, I've taken to lacing reverb onto files I release for free projects, or else release them in low quality forms, so that even if someone wants to steal my work, they won't be able to use them as readily as possible. This was a mistake of mine in Swamp. In my naivety, I release sounds in high quality format because I wanted the game to sound better, as did other players. Had I known that most of those players only wanted the game to sound better because that facilitated their ability to reappropriate those sounds for other purposes, I would've kept the files at a low quality rating.
It's for these and other reasons that I've lost interest in designing sounds for audio games. Until I can design for a well encrypted game, I'm tired of giving people free material. I don't do what I do as a job, I do it as a hobby. I scrimp and save to buy my libraries because I actually have other bills and expenses to consider. I'm perfectly fine making sounds for a game without compensation, assuming the game inspires my creativity, but I am not ok with releasing my sounds for leeches to steal.
In summary, a sound effect may only be redistributed once its been modified and/or mixed enough so that it does not resemble the original sound effect. Even when a sound is distributed in this fashion, you do not have a right to reappropriate these sounds for your own purposes.
Kai
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