IYYF/Worlds 2023 Music Rule Changes

[fradiger (the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)]

Hey all, curious to get your opinion on something and maybe spark a discussion. Might be the wrong subforum for this.

As many of you know, last year the Online World YoYo Contest (OWYYC) had rules in place requiring contestants to use music from a set of pre-selected tracks. Stating essentially (source: Rules – Online World YoYo Contest):

1. You must use a track from the IYYF Library, or from a list of sites (providing copyright-approved tracks).
2. Songs cannot be altered, edited, connected or remixed. You must use it starting at the beginning of the music.

Now, I don’t know if any of you have watched all of the OWYYC 2022 free styles, but the quality as a result of pigeonholing people’s music choice has clearly declined, and none of the free styles really punch into that upper echelon of hype that we’ve seen. Even just compare Mir Kim’s freestyle from 2021 to 2022, you’ll probably feel the difference, and if you want a culture shock, just go watch any of the other worlds freestyles from past years (or for a different online contests, go watch scales international!). Man is literally winning worlds to a song ripped from a truck commercial.

And so, a few of the more competitive yoyoers are understandably upset about this year’s worlds music rules, which are severely more restrictive than in-person worlds in the past. The tl;dr is (source: Freestyle Music – WORLD YO-YO CONTEST 2023):

1. No swearing/violence/disturbing/sexual/discriminatory content (standard rule from previous years)
2. No copyrighted music, must have proper licensing (e.g. license free or creative commons)
3. No Beeping/Blanking of swear words (even if it’s an official safe version)

These second two rules basically restrict every iconic freestyle song ever used, and personally I’d hate to see this happen.

I especially don’t see why this is happening now, on such short notice in front of the contest. Especially when japan nationals just happened and didn’t have these restrictions on them, indicating that one of the following scenarios is probably the truth:

1. the JN organizers were ignorant (or actively ignoring) the laws surrounding this
2. there are no laws against this and JN was fine to do it

Even if we assume that some cost was paid to play copyrighted music at JN, surely… worlds (one of the few bigger and more important contests) is worth making this investment at to?

Interested to hear opinions, would love some additional insight, I don’t have much, I’m just a spectator who likes hearing banger music during the freestyles! Overall I think this should be reversed by the IYYF before we watch them lose their grip on contest organization.

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Update:

This has been reversed! (see: IYYF/Worlds 2023 Music Rule Changes - #31 by p44company)

[Albertino (Waltz.Romantic)]

I think this is quite of a death of creativity in honour of some “politically correct” stuff and also probably against the copyright infringement (which I don’t see the point as every freestyler doesn’t make money using the music but is just a secondary part of a perfomance, they not claiming the music is their or similar so I find it pretty useless), there are some fees to pay for copyright music to be played in a public place but usually (at least in Italy) the price is not that high or impossible to pay.

Weird choice, would like to hear more opinions from people that really know the rules but to me this seems quite useless and cut down a lot of performance creativity, also what you gonna do if you don’t like any choice in the list?

[fradiger (the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)]

The justification they give is absolutely awful in my eyes, from the site:

Why do we follow these rules?

Because this is an event geared toward all ages.

Music must be suitable for an audience of all ages (including young children and their parents). Contestants who use inappropriate music (with inappropriate words in all languages, obscene language, and inappropriate lyrical content explicit and implied) may be disqualified by judges. If the contestant is unsure if their music is suitable, they may request that the judges review it beforehand.

Maybe this is a hot take, but it’s not the IYYFS job to …parent kids? They then shoot their own argument in the chest by stating that official clean versions aren’t allowed. I could understand not wanting to expose kids to poorly censored XXXTENTACION (sorry Iori), but restricting the official clean versions is mind boggling to me, that’s literally why they exist.

The copyright issue is even bigger, but I’m not in touch with the copyright laws in Japan to state… anything.

[MattC (Matt C M)]

Maybe make this a rule next year?

Tough to do this with no notice to competitors who have been planning their freestyle for months.

[GTDropKnot (Henry)]

https://wyyc2023.com/contest/freestyle-music/
I don’t see anything about copyright here?

Also if it is like this you should be shouting from the rooftops everywhere you can.

[fradiger (the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)]

Hidden at the bottom of the page (usual stuff for unpopular rules )

Please use Proper Copyrighted Music

We cannot accept any illegally obtained music.

You must use music you purchased or licensed properly. You can also use music with no copyright (license free) or labeled as creative commons.

Please do not download your music track directly from YouTube and submit that file. (It is NOT properly handled for copyright and also the music quality can be too low for a big speaker on the contest stage.)

[GTDropKnot (Henry)]

Sketch…

[fradiger (the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)]

You know, there’s probably a timeline where Evan Nagao can’t use his own music due to a poorly worded record deal if they expand even further.

[MarioMaker17]

I thought there was a license purchased by the contest organization to play music at yoyo contests?

Realistically I don’t think it is a huge deal to pay for your own music at contests. It only costs like $5 to purchase a song.

[fradiger (the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)]

Agreed, my main gripe is the censoring rule changes so close to the contest start, when no rules were present at JN afaik.

Also, I’m actually not sure if this rule restricts you from using music you purchased e.g. through like iTunes or a CD. Purchased “properly” could imply an actual license deal to use the track in the event, which would be a catastrophe in that case.

[UnluckyOwl53 (Mike T)]

I’m trying to learn more about it but from what I read it seems like JASRAC might have tried to crack down on them and they folded.

[fradiger (the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)]

If this was the reason, wouldn’t Japan Nationals (which happened very recently) have these rule changes? The dates I’m seeing here are pre 2020.

[Jerrod]

What?! Rules?! Booooo… Let’s make our own comp. Anything goes. Community votes for best performances. Winners get a free pizza. Who’s with me?

[UnluckyOwl53 (Mike T)]

My assumptions is that JASRAC actively looks for events to make them pay royalties and Japan nationals got caught this time and they dont feel like dealing with them again. I’ll try to find some more up to date cases.

[GTDropKnot (Henry)]

These songs all suck. It’s just knock offs made by studio musicians and this will really hurt the quality. Not even being able to start a song at a specific point in the middle is crazy to me I don’t know…

[fradiger (the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)]

The rules for the OWYYC are stricter than the ones for the contest, you can still start wherever and select from anywhere, but … no swearing at all, or anything else controversial. And it has to be properly licensed.

[fradiger (the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)]

Tossing Remy Baskin’s IG story here about this, since it’s relevant:

[KirbyRobot (Gingie)]

It’s just a bad decision. For a couple reasons.

This should have at least been more clearly announced far sooner than it was.

You can see in this screenshot how unprepared people were for this rule

Seems obvious to me that a whole host of highly experienced and competent competitors did not clearly understand the ruleset if it was announced earlier (which it wasn’t). If you tell me one of these individuals has it coming because “oh they should have known” then you’re blatantly ignoring their experience and prowess as competitors. These people know how to navigate rulesets and prepare accordingly especially if given the time to adequately do so.

It’s entirely possible that these rulings could completely throw off the planned performances and cause great players that have worked hard to just lose a higher placing because they don’t have time to properly prepare anymore.

Get ready for NCS songs, Alan Walker’s Fade and Deaf Kev’s Invincible boutta go crazy this year.

Creativity is already not entirely prevalent in a competitive scene, after all, it’s not creativity that wins, it’s the ability to score better. But, that doesn’t mean that the competitor doesn’t wanna be creatively different than other people. It doesn’t mean the competitor wants to be corraled into doing something they don’t want to. It’s just lame.

Competition isn’t inherently creative, but part of what makes competition fun is creativity.

Evan’s 2018 performance is iconic because of how he choreographed and synced his yoyoing to an extremely popular song. I hear Free Bird now and I think of Evan’s 2018 performance.

Yes, copyright law is copyright law, but JN2023 didn’t have such a vice grip on the copyright rules. US Nats 2022 didn’t (and as far as I know, doesn’t in the case of 2023 US Nats) have such a vice grip on the copyright rules, so what gives? Why ruin the hype of the most important contest of the year?

The no-beeping/blanking rule is awful. On the surface, it may not seem that bad, but it’s just a uniform ban on anything that uses profanity at all. It’s the IYYF’s way of saying “This is an absolute ban on music with profanity, even censored.” The fact that they double down and say a contestant can’t even use the safe version, in my eyes, makes it apparent that it’s not about sheltering the youth of yoyo or whatever. Those songs literally exist for family-friendly, kid-friendly radio stations.

tl;dr: Contestants have whiplash, and I don’t wanna see 20 people performing to NCS songs

[GTDropKnot (Henry)]

ooo well these songs all suck still

[fradiger (the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)]

Now, that I agree with. I can tell you that I had a blast watching people hit insane yoyo tricks to glorified elevator and pharmaceutical commercial music.