Without naming any names, I’ve definitely heard a few “sound alikes” of recent top 40 hits in the past little while. And I mean they are very obvious. Just thought I’d start a discussion. You think it’s a good idea? Is it allowed or frowned upon? They are obviously getting accepted and some have made a nice little number of sales. Interested to hear thoughts.
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A very interesting topic. It’s in fact a widely spread practice and seems to be allowed by Envato. As you mention, there’s quite a variety of sound-alikes around the jungle. Just type “Stranger Things” or “Game of Thrones” and you’ll see authors from all levels (from newcomers to elites) uploading several items of this kind. They actually sell pretty nicely; maybe I should give it a try in the future.
There’s another thread where that has been discused:
Cheers!
My understanding is that direct pastiches of existing songs are definitely not allowed.
The problem is that these kind of rules are not made very visible to authors and are not always being consistently enforced.
It might help if all authors were sent regular emails reminders about these kind of rules and there were clear consequences for flagrantly breaking them. Removal of upload rights for an extended period would be a straightforward and effective penalty, particularly if it became generally known that this was a likely consequence of rule breaking (I suspect there could be a reluctance to suspend the accounts of high selling authors because of the impact on buyers who have been working with previews and then find they can’t buy and download tracks.)
Call me simple minded, but it seems to me you either believe in the rules you’ve set and seriously try to enforce them or don’t have them! 
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Totally agree.
The rules are very visible 
And also:
https://help.market.envato.com/hc/en-us/sections/200615784-AudioJungle-Requirements
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Agree with you @PaulGraves. And rules are very visible indeed, yet the market has plenty of tracks that clearly incur in many of the practices the article above discourages. I guess it all comes down to this key line: “It’s your responsibility as an author to ensure you respect copyright. This responsibility does not change if your track is accepted on AudioJungle.”
Anyway, far from my intention to start an argument on this issue or anything like that.
Cheers and good luck to all! 
Yes, you are right, and everybody at the beginning must read it.
But i think a lot of people doesn´t, you can see it when they come to ask those (and many others easily to find them) questions at the forum.
Even asking about the queued time, when the “official” post about it is usually at the top.
An automatic email, like @PaulGraves says could be a good idea.
Well I suppose it is visible IF you look for the information but it’s obvious that lots of people don’t! And I’d bet good money that most people’s first line of defence is to plead ignorance.
It just seems to me that regular email reminders to all authors about rules which are consistently being broken (with links to the relevant help articles) would be a pretty labour free way of raising awareness and making it easier to enforce the rules.
Interesting to read the rules.
I think it definitely is hard to draw that line between inspired by, and “pastiche”/total rip off… one of the pieces I was listening to is so obviously riding a top 40 hit, but they have definitely added a few instruments… melodies aren’t exact but certainly motifs and key are all there… so tricky! It’s beautifully done as well, and made me want to try something similar haha.
Perhaps more important that the concept of visibility is the concept of accountability (which you mentioned.)
If there’s no clear consequences for infractions, there’s no incentive to follow rules. While I’m not advocating for the death penalty (or even artist removal from the site), something like a temporary upload ban would be very effective.
As it stands, there are several authors who upload the same tracks (with very, very minor modifications) under many different accounts, essentially flooding the market and bypassing upload limits. If there aren’t any real consequences for doing this, it’s going to keep happening.
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This is definitely a problem and should totally be banned. Not really what I was referring too in terms of “sound alikes” but I agree completely.
It doesn’t seem like there is a great deal of enforcement on a lot of things here unfortunately. It was made very clear that an author posting here on the forum was Exclusive but selling the exact same tracks on other market places very recently and while the thread was locked, it doesn’t look like any action was taken in terms of the author (he is still exclusive and selling the same tracks). Not enforcing the rules doesn’t look great to those of us who follow the rules and take the hit…
I noticed that one as well! The author basically admitted that they sell their tracks at other marketplaces but had an exclusive account. Like you said - apparently nothing happened.
I know monitoring compliance is a difficult task for such a large marketplace, but seeing some type of enforcement, or even reminder, would be encouraging.
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Pfff, let alone the self copy-cats flooding the jungle. The “corporate ambient” category is mined with those, and everything is so similar inside that genre, with the exact same chord progressions and instruments used, that it’s like finding needles in a haystack.
On a different matter, a few days ago I came into an author who had literally 8 almost identical tracks named “Corporate Upbeat” and then about 4 or 5 repeated track names for every cheesy cliché we all know. But then again, I guess it’s kind of a safe shot and seems to be within the rules…
What’s upsetting is that the ambient genre is a place for these kind of tracks which in my opinion should be under miscellaneous. Imagine searching on youtube an ambient mix and find this kind of music for you to relax
Brian Eno’s worst nightmare.
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