The "Sonic The Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles" Quest for Music Composer Research

I still don't get how are they evading these supposed royalties while still selling the game on Steam though. When it comes to music royalties they usually patch the tracks out, e.g. various GTA games, Mafia 1 etc. If this was indeed the issue they could've just switched to the PC/beta tracks.

 

Two reasons:

1: As mentioned previously, the Steam version was out before any legal issues hit the forefront, and I don't think is effected by them, unless something changes.
2: Since it's an emulated port of S3K, patching the music out is easier said than done, nor do they wanna go through the effort for an old game.

 

Not to mention they're also selling it on Xbox One via Xbox 360 backwards compatibility (the 360 version came out in '08 iirc). It seems like pre-2012 releases are safe, as 2012 was when it came to light that there were potential legal problems and official rereleases dried up.

 

Xbox One re-releases legally count as separate releases - it's why SEGA can't add games like OutRun 2006 - and it definitely postdated 2012.

 

Wait, really? Huh. I looked and BC was quietly added in 2015; maybe they found some loophole.

EDIT: Actually OutRun 2006 is an OG Xbox game, not a 360 game (I know some OG Xbox games are BC, but they're few and far between). I looked into it more and I'm not really sure if BC would classify as a legal rerelease since it's just updating the already-released game to work on newer hardware.

 

BTW, I feel like it might be useful to look at how the channels are used in different songs. In Sonic 3D there's a clear distinction where the Maeda tracks use channel 1 for bass, while Senoue's use channel 0. Sure, this might just mean that the different programmers did things differently, but still, clues are clues. I won't claim to have come up with this, Lucas Sosa on Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsbpC0R26PwxNpSWH5ht0og] did, I'm just passing this on

Also, I'm sorry for messing up with the copyright stuff. In hindsight, I shouldn't have said anything and I promise I won't try do give advice on things I don't know much about from now on.

 

This has nothing to do with the music, but I was just wandering around on Twitter and saw that the official SEGA Forever Twitter page was promoting Sonic 3 & Knuckles as part of a special Steam sale back on July 6th.

I highly doubt this means anything, but I think that is the first time in a long time that SEGA officially acknowledged Sonic 3. Again, I don’t think it will lead to anything, but just an interesting tidbit.

 

Backwards Compatibility as general thing has never been added to the Xbox One; instead, certain games are re-released as compatibility is added, but it's something original copyright holders also need to be involved in. They appear in the store as a separate (albeit linked) release.

 

From my somewhat limited knowledge of licensing I would bet money that it boils down to that releasing a straight rom of the old game (ie the steam release) falls within Sega's right but literally any kind of re-packaging or rebranding or modification makes it a new product and then using the old music would fall outside of the original use. So we might be able to see it in some kind of collection, but it can't get any updates like the Whitehead versions because then it technically becomes something new. That is my vague postulation.

 

But the game hasn't been featured in any compilations for years now. It was absent from the Switch compilation, the 3ds compilation, the Genesis mini...
Sega just straight up stopped releasing it, with the only exception being the Xbox 360 version being made retrocompatible.

 

There's a chance the original contract may have specified paying royalties per cartridge sold , written up in the pre-digital download era. One of the composers recently complained about SEGA owing them something like $60k in royalties for digital downloads.

 

I was the one who posted a response from Cirocco Jones back in May.. he alleged that SEGA still owes the team money “for retro sales and downloads” and that 60K number was mentioned as number of downloads, not money owed

 

Has this ever been brought up? I found this brief little paragraph about Sonic 3’s soundtrack from the “History of Sonic” book that was made by Pix’n Love. It doesn’t really mention anything that we don’t know already regarding who was on the sound team, but just the interesting wordplay when describing Brad Buxer made me say “Seriously??”(page 126)

“The King of the Popular Sound Team” lmao as if no one will get that hint But regarding the book it’s a really good read about Sonic’s history for his first 20 years

 

Well.....here's a thing:

https://www.hellomerch.com/products/the-jetzons-hard-times-7

 

Is that really official?

 

I have several questions.

 

Hahahaha, oh man, not only is it legit, it's on Fervor Records' storefront. They ain't giving any fucks, and milking the connection for all it's worth lmao.

 

How is this not sold out yet?

 

I don't think it's being actively promoted that much, probably because Sega would very likely not let this slide.

 

Bought. Better get it now before Sega's lawyers come knocking at their door.