10 ms·

Super Mario Bros. theme part of the 2023 Library of Congress registry

107 points by segasaturn 4y ago

autoexec 4y ago
It's pretty hard to get too excited about seeing our culture locked up in a slightly different way. If we had any kind of sanity to our copyright law the super mario bros theme, and for that matter the game itself, would already be in the public domain and just about anything deemed worthy of inclusion in the library of congress would be available as high quality digital downloads to anyone in the US at any time.
- echelon 4y ago
  In some short years I'm sure we'll just imagine the rules and the feeling of Mario and have it instantly transcribed into playable form and emotion. Copyright is a blip on the trajectory of information.
- Towaway69 4y ago
  Richard Misek talks about this in short documentary[0]. He describes the difference between public domain and public realm. The former being meaningless in terms of access to content, while the latter is what most us think public domain means. 0 = https://aeon.co/videos/who-owns-history-how-remarkable-historical-footage-is-hidden-and-monetised https://aeon.co/videos/who-owns-history-how-remarkable-histo...
- qtzfz 4y ago
  I could understand these arguments, in a way, when they are about IP that hasn't been used in decades. But Nintendo still exists and is still producing Mario games. Why should any other company be able to use the Mario theme?
  - DoctorOW 4y ago
    It makes for more creative challenges. If someone has a good idea for a Mario game, they could do it. If Nintendo wants to create something unique, they'd have to take more risks and create something new. We're talking one new character every few decades.
    - qtzfz 4y ago
      You know what makes for more creative challenges? Not being able to use someone else's character.
      - flangola7 4y ago
        Culturally, Mario doesn't belong to any one person or organization. The idea of ideas being property is strange and alien.
        bitwize 4y ago
        There are indigenous tribes who assign ownership of stories and songs to particular people/families. Retelling them without ownership or permission warrants punishment. The idea of ideas being property is as human as anything.
        earthling8118 4y ago
        The only thing that is human about corporations is the people that make them up. There's a several order of magnitude gap between a few people/families in tribes compared to them.
        bitwize 4y ago
        The original claim didn't mention anything about corporations. The idea of ideas being property is, itself, as old as the idea of property.
        4y ago
  - autoexec 4y ago
    Why should they still be able to keep old games locked up just because they're making new ones? Let them profit from their new ones, hell let them continue to repackage and sell the old ones over and over again if they want. Plenty of people will continue to pay for them on their new Nintendo devices, even after they are in the public domain. They've been widely available to play online and in emulation for years but that hasn't stopped Nintendo fans from pulling out their wallets so far. They've had more than enough time to profit on those old titles, and they certainly have. There's no reason to continue to prevent others from using those old assets, or enjoying the old games as they like. It certainly doesn't encourage the creation of new works to continue giving Nintendo copyright's special "limited" privileges for those titles, and removing them absolutely would encourage new works, as well as help to bring Nintendo's new mario titles new fans.
    - kstenerud 4y ago
      Quite true. I lost my original Diablo 2 CD key ages ago, then repeatedly pirated it from time to time until Blizzard released the remastered version, which I bought.
      - scns 4y ago
        Studies have shown, that people who "pirate" music, buy more than those whondon't.
        b1ue64 4y ago
        Source?
        autoexec 4y ago
        This I'm guessing: https://torrentfreak.com/pirates-spend-much-more-money-on-music-study-shows-160226/ https://torrentfreak.com/pirates-spend-much-more-money-on-mu... There's certainly truth in that for some pirates. Some folks are just supper passionate about things, and it's natural that they'd be hitting up the internet for early releases, versions only released overseas, demos, etc while also grabbing as much as they can available to them through retail channels. Speaking personally, in the early days of napster I found so much amazing music I'd never been exposed to from bands I'd never heard of or had given a chance to, that I found myself spending far more money on music than I ever had before. I wasn't obsessive about it like some fans, I just had so much more I wanted than I ever did previously. I had stacks of binders full of CDs, CDs slotted into tall plastic towers, and CDs stacked on bookshelves. Since then they've all been ripped into FLAC and MP3 and given to friends or stored away somewhere, or lost in moves and the RIAA became so deplorable to me that I vowed to never buy another CD from an RIAA affiliated label ever again and that was the last they ever saw a dime from me from retail sales, although I have imported a few CDs from Australia and Japan which I'm sure had their equivalents to the RIAA. Still, my first steps into music piracy (I don't count the MOD or MIDI files) coincided with the peak of my spending on music.
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    I think OP is specifically talking about the array of bits that make up “the Super Mario Brothers ROM image” and music, and not the trademarked characters, level designs, and so on in the game. There is no way in hell Nintendo still makes significant revenue from selling, say, the Super Mario Brothers NES cartridge, or its software image. It is effectively “locked away” in a vault until freed from the bonds of copyright. This happens to so many old works, because copyright is so ridiculously long. I would love to see a histogram of how much profit all copyright holders make from all artistic products, year by year. I would guess that, for the vast, vast number of works, 99.99 or more percent, they make all their money in less than 10 years and for the remaining 100 or whatever years the work makes $0 and just sits there, wastefully and needlessly kept from the public.
    - tinus_hn 4y ago
      > There is no way in hell Nintendo still makes significant revenue from selling, say, the Super Mario Brothers NES cartridge, or its software image Why not? Nintendo has been quite successful in selling emulated versions of these games in their ds store and released the wildly popular Nintendo Classic Edition which included this rom and sold over 2 million.
      - wizzwizz4 4y ago
        Because of the convenience of playing them on the new consoles. The only people I know who have bought Super Mario Bros Virtual Console releases are the sorts of people who'll buy additional ports of Portal to Nintendo consoles. They're buying the port (the emulator), not the ROM; the availability of the ROM image is not cutting into Nintendo's sales.
        cowsup 4y ago
        I'm not so sure that's true. I simultaneously see people say: > Nintendo needs to stop hurting ROM sites for games older than 20 years. There's little profit to be made from such old titles. As well as: > Why did Nintendo create the NES Classic? You can do the same for far cheaper with a Raspberry Pi. And why are there NES games locked away behind an online subscription? I can play them on my phone for free. There are definitely many, many reasons to be unhappy with current copyright law. But claiming that Nintendo stands to gain nothing from retaining rights to their ROMs is not a valid critique, and does not pave the way for honest discourse.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    > But Nintendo still exists and is still producing Mario games. Good for them. Let them sell this new stuff then. If they want to keep making money, they should have to make new stuff, all the time. Anything 10+ years old belongs in the public domain.
- andai 4y ago
  Why should the US get to decide what to do with other countries' IP? China has the same attitude and it is generally frowned upon.
- shp0ngle 4y ago
  Eh, I am fine to hold copyright as long as the author is still alive.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    How does that work for companies or things made by multiple people? Today it's life plus 70 years. My guess is they imagine someone creating a hit work then getting killed or dying in an accident, leaving their would-be-rich family destitute instead.
    - Taywee 4y ago
      It's so stupid. I have a 10 year old son. If I died today, why should he have the right to try to profit from all my creative output until he's 80 years old? I get leaving the fruits of creative work for your progeny so they can have a buffer after you die, but I strongly disagree that the period should be the length of three human generations. My work should belong to my culture and my world after a decade or so, and really, a decade after publication, not after I die. It is not natural to treat ideas like regular property. Some degree of ownership and control is needed in a market economy, but even for the life of the creator is excessive and stupid. I can create a cultural phenomenon, but unilaterally decide that it doesn't belong to the culture until 150 years after it was popular? Total bullshit.
      - shp0ngle 4y ago
        If you build a house, or buy land, that one will go to your kids and their grandkids. So the fruit of your head should too. 70 years is a bit too much though
        Taywee 4y ago
        I disagree. Information is not property, and should not be treated like it is. If food could be copied as trivially as ideas and data, it would be immoral to let people go hungry. If homes could be copied so trivially, it would be immoral to let people remain homeless. Treating ideas as property to be restricted and horded is necessary to some degree in the present world to make it possible to survive from a creative pursuit, but I reject the notion that ideas naturally should be a personal possession, rather than a cultural artifact. Even so, the terms of the system should be tuned to encourage the most and best creativity possible, and allow people to support their families, with some safeguard for death so the family can get back on their feet. Anything more than 10 years is ridiculous. If I die, 10 years living on my creative output is more than enough time for my family to find stability. The idea that a company could just own and horde that work for generations is absolutely disgusting, and completely against the spirit of the system.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  Yeah. This Mario game is like 50 years old now. Nintendo has already been properly rewarded for their efforts: they've turned a profit many times over. This stuff belongs in the public domain. Instead we have Nintendo DMCAing sites out of existence and selling people the exact same Mario game from the 80s over and over again with every single console they create. It's the epitome of rent seeking.
  - dbg31415 4y ago
    1985 is 50 years ago! Wait... =P
    - matheusmoreira 4y ago
      38 years ago. Almost 40 years ago. Almost half a century ago. An eternity ago. It's such a bygone era that it's foggy in my mind. People who grew up playing this stuff are middle aged already, probably already parents. They'll probably die and the culture that they literally grew up with will still be owned by corporations. This is screwed up.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >the library of congress would be available as high quality digital downloads to anyone in the US at any time. It should be noted that the primary function of the Library of Congress is, as the name suggests, to facilitate research by members of Congress and the government. The Library of Congress is not a public library.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    How do you see this as relevant to the discussion? It's true that that is the Library of Congress's official purpose. We don't have a true "National Library" like other countries have. (Whose purposes aren't actually those of what we think of as "public libraries" either). The Library of Congress ends up fulfilling many of those purposes, despite it's official mission being facilitating Congressional research. Which is kind of a messy situation. I don't think the "National Recording Registry" has anything to do with facilitating Congressional research at all, does it? According to wikipedia: > The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000,[1] which created the National Recording Preservation Board, whose members are appointed by the Librarian of Congress. The recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry form a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress. > The National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 established a national program to guard America's sound recording heritage. The Act created the National Recording Registry, The National Recording Preservation Board and a fund-raising foundation.[2] The purpose of the Registry is to maintain and preserve sound recordings and collections of sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant... So, these purposes were in fact created by Congress.... but they are different purposes than the original primary function of facilitating congressional research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Recording_Registry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Recording_Registry
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  How does listing the song lock up our culture?
  - autoexec 4y ago
    That song is a part of our shared culture and it's already locked up by copyright law. Adding it to the library of congress is nice, since works included there are preserved and are freely available to some people, but ultimately while those works are recognized as being culturally important, access to those works is still artificially restricted and so the vast majority of Americans will not benefit in any way from it's inclusion.
- LocalH 4y ago
  There are people who ultimately liberate works and ensure that they are forever preserved, regardless of the wishes of the copyright holders (some of which would like to think that they have the moral right to withhold copyrighted works from public access). Unfortunately, those people are labeled "pirates" and demonized by the proponents of lengthy IP protection. The fact of the matter is, regardless of an individual "pirate's" motivations, piracy is preservation. The most widely preserved libraries of media and software are the ones that are the most widely pirated.
anshumankmr 4y ago
I wish they add Mario Kart Wii next.
otaku59 4y ago
what does this mean? As I don't live in America I don't understand. Does this mean the theme is now in Publc Domain?
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  No, it means it's on a list of recordings that the Library of Congress calls important. You'd think it means they also now archive a copy of the song, but that doesn't seem to be the case Kinda neat, but completely meaningless.
havblue 4y ago
"Perhaps the most recognizable video game theme in history, Koji Kondo's main motif for the 1985 Nintendo classic, “Super Mario Bros.,” helped establish the game's legendary status and proved that the five-channel Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) sound chip was capable of vast musical complexity and creativity. The game's main theme, or “Ground Theme,” is a jaunty, Latin-influenced melody that provides the perfect accompaniment to Mario and Luigi's side scrolling hijinks. Kondo's score laid the groundwork for an entire generation of chiptune musicians and has been performed by orchestras around the globe, befitting its status as one of the most beloved musical compositions of the last 40 years." Also added: Stairway to Heaven, What a Feeling, All I Want For Christmas and Imagine.
- dwighttk 4y ago
  Which all I want for Christmas? Two front teeth? Or You?
  - turtleyacht 4y ago
    The You one, sung by Mariah Carey: https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/recording-registry/registry-by-induction-years/2023/ https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-recording-preservation...
- em500 4y ago
  A somewhat unique desideratum of video game music that distinguish them from film scores (especially with the limited storage in the 1980s and 90s) is that short pieces need to be played in a loop for hours and hours on end without the player getting sick of them. I think nobody has done this as well as Koji Kondo (who also did the Zelda music).
  - autoexec 4y ago
    Film scores have it easy, but for games instead of just looping a tune there are dynamic scores in video games music that change moment by moment in response to the actions of the player or the current situation in the game. Even SMB did this in a way by speeding up the music as time ran out, but newer games give you multiple versions of the same themes and melodies, but in short segments with entry and exit points that can be transitioned into and out of seamlessly while still sounding natural. Games have been getting better and better at this and when it works well, it blows me away!
vrglvrglvrgl 4y ago
[dead]
quickthrower2 4y ago
Aside: I love their writeup on Stairway to Heaven. I never realised the tempo changed.
exegete 4y ago
The song: https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/media/recordedsound/Super-Mario-theme_Koji-Kondo.mp3 https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/media/recordedsound/Su...
WrtCdEvrydy 4y ago
Also, "Gasolina" and "Sweet Dreams are Made of This"
cma 4y ago
The Mario theme intro may have been lifted from here: T-Square Adventures - Sister Marian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2la3MlJx3s&t=1m3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2la3MlJx3s&t=1m3s Guile's theme, same album (from the song "Travelers"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1vwlTZ5EGQ&t=1m26s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1vwlTZ5EGQ&t=1m26s -- Underworld theme intro likely taken from here: Friendship (ft. Lee Ritenour) - Let's Not Talk About It https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX5ef_KAZlY&t=14s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX5ef_KAZlY&t=14s -- Mario star powerup music: Piper - Summer Dream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH5K6fm2C0I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH5K6fm2C0I -- Mario 3 water theme/Zelda Fairy theme: Tatsuro Yamashita - Morning Glory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-A1nnfJ4VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-A1nnfJ4VY -- Hammer Bros. Mario 3 theme and Dr. Mario theme seem to have taken from Lady Madonna though it is also may just be a common form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYp6QbAE6s8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYp6QbAE6s8 -- Mario Galaxy theme: Barbra Streisand - Evergreen (Love Theme from, "A Star Is Born") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH0D4TANhk4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH0D4TANhk4 -- Bob-omb Battle field: Steely Dan - Kid Charlemagne (coda) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ9Xk-VoGqo&t=3m52s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ9Xk-VoGqo&t=3m52s -- Zelda 1 dungeon music: Deep Purple - April https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV8e_RkpiNA&t=2m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV8e_RkpiNA&t=2m -- Zelda Ocarina of Time opening: Gymnopédie No. 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC_4XE8wGa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC_4XE8wGa8 -- Zelda Ocarina of Time Gerudo Valley: Heavily lifted from an anime song that was metal instead of acoustic. Link appears to have gone dead but I think it is the one mentioned in here: https://zeldauniverse.net/forums/Thread/168079-Ocarina-of-time-music-Gerudo-valley/ https://zeldauniverse.net/forums/Thread/168079-Ocarina-of-ti... -- Zelda's Lullaby: Mort Garson - Concerto For Philodendron And Pothos (Plantasia) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49Trz5Rc_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49Trz5Rc_A -- This video goes over several of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBNJ5cAxcQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBNJ5cAxcQ8
- rideontime 4y ago
  I don't buy the notion that Plantasia inspired anything personally, as much as I love it. They gave it away with plants and mattresses in America, how'd it end up in Koji Kondo's hands?
eh9 4y ago
Daddy Yankee’s Gasolina was also included

107 points by segasaturn 4y ago

It's pretty hard to get too excited about seeing our culture locked up in a slightly different way. If we had any kind of sanity to our copyright law the super mario bros theme, and for that matter the game itself, would already be in the public domain and just about anything deemed worthy of inclusion in the library of congress would be available as high quality digital downloads to anyone in the US at any time.

echelon 4y ago
In some short years I'm sure we'll just imagine the rules and the feeling of Mario and have it instantly transcribed into playable form and emotion. Copyright is a blip on the trajectory of information.
Towaway69 4y ago
Richard Misek talks about this in short documentary[0]. He describes the difference between public domain and public realm. The former being meaningless in terms of access to content, while the latter is what most us think public domain means. 0 = https://aeon.co/videos/who-owns-history-how-remarkable-historical-footage-is-hidden-and-monetised https://aeon.co/videos/who-owns-history-how-remarkable-histo...
qtzfz 4y ago
I could understand these arguments, in a way, when they are about IP that hasn't been used in decades. But Nintendo still exists and is still producing Mario games. Why should any other company be able to use the Mario theme?
- DoctorOW 4y ago
  It makes for more creative challenges. If someone has a good idea for a Mario game, they could do it. If Nintendo wants to create something unique, they'd have to take more risks and create something new. We're talking one new character every few decades.
  - qtzfz 4y ago
    You know what makes for more creative challenges? Not being able to use someone else's character.
    - flangola7 4y ago
      Culturally, Mario doesn't belong to any one person or organization. The idea of ideas being property is strange and alien.
      - bitwize 4y ago
        There are indigenous tribes who assign ownership of stories and songs to particular people/families. Retelling them without ownership or permission warrants punishment. The idea of ideas being property is as human as anything.
        earthling8118 4y ago
        The only thing that is human about corporations is the people that make them up. There's a several order of magnitude gap between a few people/families in tribes compared to them.
        bitwize 4y ago
        The original claim didn't mention anything about corporations. The idea of ideas being property is, itself, as old as the idea of property.
        4y ago
- autoexec 4y ago
  Why should they still be able to keep old games locked up just because they're making new ones? Let them profit from their new ones, hell let them continue to repackage and sell the old ones over and over again if they want. Plenty of people will continue to pay for them on their new Nintendo devices, even after they are in the public domain. They've been widely available to play online and in emulation for years but that hasn't stopped Nintendo fans from pulling out their wallets so far. They've had more than enough time to profit on those old titles, and they certainly have. There's no reason to continue to prevent others from using those old assets, or enjoying the old games as they like. It certainly doesn't encourage the creation of new works to continue giving Nintendo copyright's special "limited" privileges for those titles, and removing them absolutely would encourage new works, as well as help to bring Nintendo's new mario titles new fans.
  - kstenerud 4y ago
    Quite true. I lost my original Diablo 2 CD key ages ago, then repeatedly pirated it from time to time until Blizzard released the remastered version, which I bought.
    - scns 4y ago
      Studies have shown, that people who "pirate" music, buy more than those whondon't.
      - b1ue64 4y ago
        Source?
        autoexec 4y ago
        This I'm guessing: https://torrentfreak.com/pirates-spend-much-more-money-on-music-study-shows-160226/ https://torrentfreak.com/pirates-spend-much-more-money-on-mu... There's certainly truth in that for some pirates. Some folks are just supper passionate about things, and it's natural that they'd be hitting up the internet for early releases, versions only released overseas, demos, etc while also grabbing as much as they can available to them through retail channels. Speaking personally, in the early days of napster I found so much amazing music I'd never been exposed to from bands I'd never heard of or had given a chance to, that I found myself spending far more money on music than I ever had before. I wasn't obsessive about it like some fans, I just had so much more I wanted than I ever did previously. I had stacks of binders full of CDs, CDs slotted into tall plastic towers, and CDs stacked on bookshelves. Since then they've all been ripped into FLAC and MP3 and given to friends or stored away somewhere, or lost in moves and the RIAA became so deplorable to me that I vowed to never buy another CD from an RIAA affiliated label ever again and that was the last they ever saw a dime from me from retail sales, although I have imported a few CDs from Australia and Japan which I'm sure had their equivalents to the RIAA. Still, my first steps into music piracy (I don't count the MOD or MIDI files) coincided with the peak of my spending on music.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  I think OP is specifically talking about the array of bits that make up “the Super Mario Brothers ROM image” and music, and not the trademarked characters, level designs, and so on in the game. There is no way in hell Nintendo still makes significant revenue from selling, say, the Super Mario Brothers NES cartridge, or its software image. It is effectively “locked away” in a vault until freed from the bonds of copyright. This happens to so many old works, because copyright is so ridiculously long. I would love to see a histogram of how much profit all copyright holders make from all artistic products, year by year. I would guess that, for the vast, vast number of works, 99.99 or more percent, they make all their money in less than 10 years and for the remaining 100 or whatever years the work makes $0 and just sits there, wastefully and needlessly kept from the public.
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    > There is no way in hell Nintendo still makes significant revenue from selling, say, the Super Mario Brothers NES cartridge, or its software image Why not? Nintendo has been quite successful in selling emulated versions of these games in their ds store and released the wildly popular Nintendo Classic Edition which included this rom and sold over 2 million.
    - wizzwizz4 4y ago
      Because of the convenience of playing them on the new consoles. The only people I know who have bought Super Mario Bros Virtual Console releases are the sorts of people who'll buy additional ports of Portal to Nintendo consoles. They're buying the port (the emulator), not the ROM; the availability of the ROM image is not cutting into Nintendo's sales.
      - cowsup 4y ago
        I'm not so sure that's true. I simultaneously see people say: > Nintendo needs to stop hurting ROM sites for games older than 20 years. There's little profit to be made from such old titles. As well as: > Why did Nintendo create the NES Classic? You can do the same for far cheaper with a Raspberry Pi. And why are there NES games locked away behind an online subscription? I can play them on my phone for free. There are definitely many, many reasons to be unhappy with current copyright law. But claiming that Nintendo stands to gain nothing from retaining rights to their ROMs is not a valid critique, and does not pave the way for honest discourse.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  > But Nintendo still exists and is still producing Mario games. Good for them. Let them sell this new stuff then. If they want to keep making money, they should have to make new stuff, all the time. Anything 10+ years old belongs in the public domain.
andai 4y ago
Why should the US get to decide what to do with other countries' IP? China has the same attitude and it is generally frowned upon.
shp0ngle 4y ago
Eh, I am fine to hold copyright as long as the author is still alive.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  How does that work for companies or things made by multiple people? Today it's life plus 70 years. My guess is they imagine someone creating a hit work then getting killed or dying in an accident, leaving their would-be-rich family destitute instead.
  - Taywee 4y ago
    It's so stupid. I have a 10 year old son. If I died today, why should he have the right to try to profit from all my creative output until he's 80 years old? I get leaving the fruits of creative work for your progeny so they can have a buffer after you die, but I strongly disagree that the period should be the length of three human generations. My work should belong to my culture and my world after a decade or so, and really, a decade after publication, not after I die. It is not natural to treat ideas like regular property. Some degree of ownership and control is needed in a market economy, but even for the life of the creator is excessive and stupid. I can create a cultural phenomenon, but unilaterally decide that it doesn't belong to the culture until 150 years after it was popular? Total bullshit.
    - shp0ngle 4y ago
      If you build a house, or buy land, that one will go to your kids and their grandkids. So the fruit of your head should too. 70 years is a bit too much though
      - Taywee 4y ago
        I disagree. Information is not property, and should not be treated like it is. If food could be copied as trivially as ideas and data, it would be immoral to let people go hungry. If homes could be copied so trivially, it would be immoral to let people remain homeless. Treating ideas as property to be restricted and horded is necessary to some degree in the present world to make it possible to survive from a creative pursuit, but I reject the notion that ideas naturally should be a personal possession, rather than a cultural artifact. Even so, the terms of the system should be tuned to encourage the most and best creativity possible, and allow people to support their families, with some safeguard for death so the family can get back on their feet. Anything more than 10 years is ridiculous. If I die, 10 years living on my creative output is more than enough time for my family to find stability. The idea that a company could just own and horde that work for generations is absolutely disgusting, and completely against the spirit of the system.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
Yeah. This Mario game is like 50 years old now. Nintendo has already been properly rewarded for their efforts: they've turned a profit many times over. This stuff belongs in the public domain. Instead we have Nintendo DMCAing sites out of existence and selling people the exact same Mario game from the 80s over and over again with every single console they create. It's the epitome of rent seeking.
- dbg31415 4y ago
  1985 is 50 years ago! Wait... =P
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    38 years ago. Almost 40 years ago. Almost half a century ago. An eternity ago. It's such a bygone era that it's foggy in my mind. People who grew up playing this stuff are middle aged already, probably already parents. They'll probably die and the culture that they literally grew up with will still be owned by corporations. This is screwed up.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Dalewyn 4y ago
>the library of congress would be available as high quality digital downloads to anyone in the US at any time. It should be noted that the primary function of the Library of Congress is, as the name suggests, to facilitate research by members of Congress and the government. The Library of Congress is not a public library.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  How do you see this as relevant to the discussion? It's true that that is the Library of Congress's official purpose. We don't have a true "National Library" like other countries have. (Whose purposes aren't actually those of what we think of as "public libraries" either). The Library of Congress ends up fulfilling many of those purposes, despite it's official mission being facilitating Congressional research. Which is kind of a messy situation. I don't think the "National Recording Registry" has anything to do with facilitating Congressional research at all, does it? According to wikipedia: > The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000,[1] which created the National Recording Preservation Board, whose members are appointed by the Librarian of Congress. The recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry form a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress. > The National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 established a national program to guard America's sound recording heritage. The Act created the National Recording Registry, The National Recording Preservation Board and a fund-raising foundation.[2] The purpose of the Registry is to maintain and preserve sound recordings and collections of sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant... So, these purposes were in fact created by Congress.... but they are different purposes than the original primary function of facilitating congressional research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Recording_Registry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Recording_Registry
Rebelgecko 4y ago
How does listing the song lock up our culture?
- autoexec 4y ago
  That song is a part of our shared culture and it's already locked up by copyright law. Adding it to the library of congress is nice, since works included there are preserved and are freely available to some people, but ultimately while those works are recognized as being culturally important, access to those works is still artificially restricted and so the vast majority of Americans will not benefit in any way from it's inclusion.
LocalH 4y ago
There are people who ultimately liberate works and ensure that they are forever preserved, regardless of the wishes of the copyright holders (some of which would like to think that they have the moral right to withhold copyrighted works from public access). Unfortunately, those people are labeled "pirates" and demonized by the proponents of lengthy IP protection. The fact of the matter is, regardless of an individual "pirate's" motivations, piracy is preservation. The most widely preserved libraries of media and software are the ones that are the most widely pirated.

anshumankmr 4y ago

I wish they add Mario Kart Wii next.

otaku59 4y ago

what does this mean? As I don't live in America I don't understand. Does this mean the theme is now in Publc Domain?

boomboomsubban 4y ago
No, it means it's on a list of recordings that the Library of Congress calls important. You'd think it means they also now archive a copy of the song, but that doesn't seem to be the case Kinda neat, but completely meaningless.

havblue 4y ago

"Perhaps the most recognizable video game theme in history, Koji Kondo's main motif for the 1985 Nintendo classic, “Super Mario Bros.,” helped establish the game's legendary status and proved that the five-channel Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) sound chip was capable of vast musical complexity and creativity. The game's main theme, or “Ground Theme,” is a jaunty, Latin-influenced melody that provides the perfect accompaniment to Mario and Luigi's side scrolling hijinks. Kondo's score laid the groundwork for an entire generation of chiptune musicians and has been performed by orchestras around the globe, befitting its status as one of the most beloved musical compositions of the last 40 years." Also added: Stairway to Heaven, What a Feeling, All I Want For Christmas and Imagine.

dwighttk 4y ago
Which all I want for Christmas? Two front teeth? Or You?
- turtleyacht 4y ago
  The You one, sung by Mariah Carey: https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/recording-registry/registry-by-induction-years/2023/ https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-recording-preservation...
em500 4y ago
A somewhat unique desideratum of video game music that distinguish them from film scores (especially with the limited storage in the 1980s and 90s) is that short pieces need to be played in a loop for hours and hours on end without the player getting sick of them. I think nobody has done this as well as Koji Kondo (who also did the Zelda music).
- autoexec 4y ago
  Film scores have it easy, but for games instead of just looping a tune there are dynamic scores in video games music that change moment by moment in response to the actions of the player or the current situation in the game. Even SMB did this in a way by speeding up the music as time ran out, but newer games give you multiple versions of the same themes and melodies, but in short segments with entry and exit points that can be transitioned into and out of seamlessly while still sounding natural. Games have been getting better and better at this and when it works well, it blows me away!

vrglvrglvrgl 4y ago

[dead]

quickthrower2 4y ago

Aside: I love their writeup on Stairway to Heaven. I never realised the tempo changed.

exegete 4y ago

The song: https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/media/recordedsound/Super-Mario-theme_Koji-Kondo.mp3 https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/media/recordedsound/Su...

WrtCdEvrydy 4y ago

Also, "Gasolina" and "Sweet Dreams are Made of This"

cma 4y ago

The Mario theme intro may have been lifted from here: T-Square Adventures - Sister Marian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2la3MlJx3s&t=1m3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2la3MlJx3s&t=1m3s Guile's theme, same album (from the song "Travelers"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1vwlTZ5EGQ&t=1m26s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1vwlTZ5EGQ&t=1m26s -- Underworld theme intro likely taken from here: Friendship (ft. Lee Ritenour) - Let's Not Talk About It https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX5ef_KAZlY&t=14s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX5ef_KAZlY&t=14s -- Mario star powerup music: Piper - Summer Dream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH5K6fm2C0I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH5K6fm2C0I -- Mario 3 water theme/Zelda Fairy theme: Tatsuro Yamashita - Morning Glory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-A1nnfJ4VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-A1nnfJ4VY -- Hammer Bros. Mario 3 theme and Dr. Mario theme seem to have taken from Lady Madonna though it is also may just be a common form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYp6QbAE6s8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYp6QbAE6s8 -- Mario Galaxy theme: Barbra Streisand - Evergreen (Love Theme from, "A Star Is Born") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH0D4TANhk4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH0D4TANhk4 -- Bob-omb Battle field: Steely Dan - Kid Charlemagne (coda) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ9Xk-VoGqo&t=3m52s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ9Xk-VoGqo&t=3m52s -- Zelda 1 dungeon music: Deep Purple - April https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV8e_RkpiNA&t=2m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV8e_RkpiNA&t=2m -- Zelda Ocarina of Time opening: Gymnopédie No. 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC_4XE8wGa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC_4XE8wGa8 -- Zelda Ocarina of Time Gerudo Valley: Heavily lifted from an anime song that was metal instead of acoustic. Link appears to have gone dead but I think it is the one mentioned in here: https://zeldauniverse.net/forums/Thread/168079-Ocarina-of-time-music-Gerudo-valley/ https://zeldauniverse.net/forums/Thread/168079-Ocarina-of-ti... -- Zelda's Lullaby: Mort Garson - Concerto For Philodendron And Pothos (Plantasia) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49Trz5Rc_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49Trz5Rc_A -- This video goes over several of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBNJ5cAxcQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBNJ5cAxcQ8

rideontime 4y ago
I don't buy the notion that Plantasia inspired anything personally, as much as I love it. They gave it away with plants and mattresses in America, how'd it end up in Koji Kondo's hands?

eh9 4y ago

Daddy Yankee’s Gasolina was also included