Freesound Forums

Hello. My name is Andy. I'm designing sounds for games for more than 10 years. I have large amount of created but never used sounds which I decided to upload for free use. I have found freesound the best place to do that until now. I received this rude message yesterday:

It's Sunday. My day off. And here I am workigon my wife's pioece of shit PC trying to replicate the file you stole from JimiMod. I have it done except for the final touches that will make the file you took and called your own, out of the file you stole it from.

The thing is, that will be an other hour or two of work and I just don't give a fuck about getting it perfect.

My name is Gary Chervin, I work for James at his studio. I am also the GLOBAL watchdog responsible for finding imposters. People like you that steal his work, alter it slightly, and call it theirs.

Thius file
http://www.freesound.org/people/JimiMod/sounds/321646/
is obviously the source of your space noise file which you uploaded one day after James uploaded the original.

I'm usually very gentle with newbies that think they can pull shit like this and get away with it, BUT NOT TONIGHT!
I got to work during the last few hours of my weekend, instead of playing with my 4 month old son and spending some quiet time with my wife.

You are on my last fucking nerve.

1. Remove the sound from your account
2. Credit James as the source IN GIANT BOLD LETTERs - USING HIS NAME IN THE TITLE
WITH an apology for taking it ------ say you didn't understand the rules.

OR

3. I will report you to Bram, the GOD and OWNER of FREESOUND
that LOVES to chew people up and spit them out. Plus I will start a forum piot exposing you to EVERYONE

Whoever you are, tonight is not the time to fuck with me.
Your choice: 1, 2, or 3.

Now I have to spend a bunch oif my time watching and waiting for you to comply. Thaks for becoming a huge pain in my ass.

DO THIS IMMEDIATELY --
If I do not see a change made by 12 noon New York time tomorrow, MONDAY I will announce your theft to all and alert Bram.

The fucking end.

The sound he's moaning about: http://freesound.org/people/rhodesmas/sounds/321723/
Original sound (made withg nord modular) I've uploaded 3 years ago (skip to the middle): https://soundcloud.com/rhodesmas/sets/sound-design-showreel-1

So is this behavior common here on freesound and why do people care too much about noise files even if it's free?

The language that has been used is quite poor.

Please send me a PM with the name of the user who has sent you this message.
Me or one of the other Mods or Admins will contact the user.

This kind of behaviour is not common here. If anyone had a suspicion that a file was being used without attribution we would expect them, especially on first contact, to be more civilized about it.

I have listened to the two files and, at this point, I am not convinced one is produced from the other.
Do you have additional files sounds from your Nord Modular made in the same session, which might be similar or related to this sound?
Or even better - have you saved it as a preset or have a record of how you created it?

rhodesmas wrote:
why do people care too much about noise files even if it's free?

The problem is that a lot of sounds on this website are "free" but with conditions, that's the nature of Creative Commons licenses i'm afraid so user's get very protective as if it's their own shop window you're taking from, and as a result some people get very uptight about their sounds being used without attribution when the license is published as CCBY/NC. With that said, the message you received was highly inappropriate and unnecessarily hostile, so i'm not surprised if this makes you want to pack up your things and leave; but that's not what we want to happen frankly, so we'll do our best to assist you in resolving this issue.

Personally, Im not that bothered as I've expressed before. I understand that people get very over-protective about their work to the point where they will assume two sound files are from the same origin when there is no correlation there at all. Its called paranoia.

Although on first impressions, I cannot hear any convincing correlation between the two audio files, I have nevertheless conducted an FFT conversion to analyse just for the record.

I extracted 26 seconds from JimiMod's sound file at a point in which the two files sound objectively similar. As you can see, the only similarity is in the fundamental frequency at the position of the yellow cursor line on each image (~70hz). Otherwise it's only the timbre that is similar when listening to both sounds; but this is entirely subjective.

This is one of those rare cases where two audio files coincidentally sound similar, but I can affirm that they are not from the same source after inspecting the FFT. Even hypothetically if JimiMod's sound was modified e.g pitched down or otherwise, then we would see some characteristics retained such as the partials in the spectrum being in the same order.

I hope this post has eased your mind a little.

Headphaze wrote:

This is one of those rare cases where two audio files coincidentally sound similar, but I can affirm that they are not from the same source after inspecting the FFT. Even hypothetically if JimiMod's sound was modified e.g pitched down or otherwise, then we would see some characteristics retained such as the partials in the spectrum being in the same order.

I am VERY convinced the two sounds are from distinct origins. JimiMod's file contains a lot of stochastic frequency contents which is non-harmonic and chaotic. You can hear it and you can also see it clearly on your analysis (it is the 'granular' looking areas of the file in between, especially visible between the stronger frequency lines).

rhodesmas file does not have this contents at all. Shows up on your analysis with almost to granular areas and much cleaner between the strong harmonic frequencies. Where you can find 'granules' you can see these are highly organized and not random like in JimiMod's file.

The point being: it is easy to add additional harmonic frequency lines (general all distortion types do this) and non-harmonic frequencies (frequency and amplitude modulation, sometimes bitcrushing).
But it is very difficult to remove contents from in between frequency bands. - i.e., to remove the granules that are seen on JimiMod's file and leave such gaps in between the strong frequency lines.

I believe the files are fundamentally different in origin, they just sound somewhat similar.

I agree with everything you just said AlienXXX, great dissection. I had no doubt anyway that they were completely different. I've been moderating a lot of rhodesmas' files lately and they are all original.

I would suggest that Headphazes' analytical description supports the assertions that jimimod's was edited from natural microphone recordings and rhodesmas' was created from synth sources, the first having some truly uncorrelated fractions and the second being essentially mathematically derived, even the "randomised" factors.

The similarity's are perhaps not surprising since both are aimed at serving the same aural effect, and both do it well.

Wibby

I have also experienced negativity, but have come to remember that this is the internet, wether its baking, chat rooms or audio discussion, people are more brave on the internet, especially those who are weak in real life.

For context's sake since it appears none of the upstanding citizens here care one way or another.

I just adore mob mentality, don't you?

...

Yeh, I crack me up.

I was so pissed about it, had it dead to rights using a single, slightly altered phrase from Jimi's file, I figured you would know you were busted and I threw the fucking thing away -- or I'd export it and show you. Sorry, not building it again ...

Fuck me. I apologize.

I don't tell Mister Modern about this stuff until it's all over -- he gets too freaked out (worse than me when my last few weekend hours are spent trying to expose an honest person). I feel like a dipshit.

I recently dispatched some clown that ONLY posted stolen files he'd taken from Jimi, and though you have many varied files, that one sure as fuck looked like it was Jimi's and sounded identical, particularly when considering the timing of the key changes. The last 22 seconds if I remember correctly were incredibly similar and about the right length. Just a couple of tweaks and I was there.

It's almost 3am, I have a baby in my lap and am going to bed now. Please don't treat Jimi like a jerk -- I'm the jerk in this equation. He doesn't even know.

Thx - GC

Thank you guys for detailed analysis. I see nice people here and you all just got my "faith" back

rhodesmas wrote:
Thank you guys for detailed analysis. I see nice people here and you all just got my "faith" back

That's really good to hear you've had a change of heart. That was our intention

We have had a few bad apples here over the years, some of them have gone, some of them have changed their ways, and i'm sure more with come in time; we have to try and keep a thick skin. As mega87 said, this is the internet, people say what they want without fear of repercussions.

@JimiMod

Thank you for your post clarifying the situation.
If I understood correctly:
- there was no copyright infringement.
- Your (ex)associate, Gary, jumped the gun and sent the accusatory messages with rude language.
- When he realized the mistake he tried to make a post to apologize. - he received a message that the post would need to be moderated.

Moderation of the first (or first few posts) from each user account is built in as an anti-spam measure.
Looks like JimiModRev1 had not made many or any posts before.
(Post is released now, by the way)

Investigation of the copyright infringement was taken seriously and acted upon. We appreciate any users warning other users and/or the site Admins about potential copyright violations.
We will do our best to investigate, and will remove material that is considered infringing.
If it turns out to be a false alarm, hopefully all ends well.

The reason for the complaint and for this thread was merely due to the language used in the message(s) to user rhodesmas.

Hopefully we can all agree the matter is resolved.

@toiletrolltube
Yes, I did notice.

Hey guys. Let me clarify some things for you and hopefully to close this case.
I thought that "James-Gary" is a moderator and I didn't want to be a part of such community.
Now I realized that freesound has good community with nice people and I just had bad fortune to meet "Gary-James" or whoever.

JimiMod and JimiModREV1 is the same person: both use the same "style" of language also JimiModREV1 named himself Gary Chervin who seems to be dead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkSKlK3XY-4

To see similarity here's one of the "kind" messages I received from JimiModREV1:

Yer a 12 year old sociopath liar that has to make others look bad in order to make themselves feel better.
Fuck you.
I was just let go. That means FIRED to those of you with nothing to do but ruin those around you.
New child, wife, mortgage, and my second job is now gone because you NEED to appear like yer right.
Got news for ya fuckface--nobody's right.

Keep calm, James, and make more noises

@rhodesmas

The copyright claim by JimiMod / JimiModREV1 has been resolved. - upon investigation, there was no copyright infringement.

JimiModREV1 has apologized (in his own style).

Please let that be the end of it and lets all move on.

Thank you.

toiletrolltube wrote:
@Alienxxx and headphaze (not typos), did you read his post @alienxyz* & @headface*? *wtf? Is there something I'm missing here, or not understanding?

ha! no, there's no inside joke there. It's just Jimi being his usual self.

I did see that yes just now (i've been working on site for the past 29 hours). It sounds just like 'butthurt' to me.
Anyone who actually looks through the forum knows I go out of my way to respond expansively to users who are seeking help or have queries on the boards. Also it doesn't take a genius to work out that I don't upload casual recordings, and sound design isn't a hobby per se, it's a job so I don't upload a vast array of sounds for free; I have given more than enough.

That's my response, really I was going to just ignore it, but as you thought I'd missed it I felt I had to say something in defence.

For the avoidance of doubt, to anyone following this thread or reading it later on.
You may notice that user JimiModREV1 no longer exists (appearing as "deleted user" on this thread).

As far as we (Admins and Mods) are concerned, the matters which originated this thread had been dealt with. No punitive action was taken against any user. JimiModREV1's account was deleted by the user himself, not by the site Admins.