The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Limbo of the Lost music not stolen, claims composer

Game's alleged plagiarism doesn't extend to the tunes

The composer of the music used in controversial adventure game Limbo of the Lost has confirmed that his music was used within the title legitimately.

In an email to Register Hardware, Germany-based freelance composer Marko Hautamäki said: "I composed all the game level background music you hear in the game itself, as well as in most of the animated features included on the bonus DVD. My music was also used in many of the game trailers and features.

"I can 100 per cent guarantee [the legitimacy of] everything I was involved in, and I have the original project files to prove that," he added.

While Hautamäki is understandably unable to confirm whether other music and sounds used in the game were included with the permission of their respective composer or composers, he did tell us that "Majestic Studios project leader Steve Bovis has assured me that there isn't any stolen music in the game".

Earlier this week, we reported how website GamePlasma spotted marked similarities between Limbo of the Lost's static backdrops and locations presented by a number of other games, in particular Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Limbo of the Lost
Painkiller

Limbo of the Lost (top) and Painkiller
Images courtesy GamesRadar

Gamers soon added to the list, pointing out alleged appearances of art from Painkiller, Diablo 2, Unreal Tournament 2004 and others in Limbo of the Lost.

Regarding the claimed graphical plagiarism, Hautamäki said: "I hope there will be some explanation to that from Majestic Studios. At the moment, they are the only ones who know how or why this happened."

Indeed, it has been suggested that Majestic outsourced the art production just as it did the music, and may have included what appears to be other games' content in ignorance. As yet, however, Majestic has not responded to the controversy.

Hautamäki, who was credited in the game's PDF manual, told us he "worked on the music for the Limbo of the Lost game from May 2006 to December 2006 as an outsourcer", stressing that he was "never a part of Majestic Studios core team".

Latest Comments

Wow.

I just finished scouring the corners of the internet to find information about this controversy, and what I found was hilarious, shocking, and mind-numbing.

Steve Bovis even goes as far as to pretend to be a beta-tester AND his daughter in forums. You can tell it's him because of the excessive "..................." and "hahahahahaha" remarks found in posts.

For a good archive of every game he stole from, including side-by-side comparisons:

http://lotl.wikia.com

Seems he's been stealing since 1995.

And dear god, watch the ending movie.

0
0

As far as I am aware

Ignorance is not a defense when you have broken the law.

0
0

It would be unfair to sue them if ..

They included the graphics in ignorance of the plagarism. For now I think its safe to say the only thing to do is wait. Surely the developers would have known they were going to get caught if they did this.. so It seems more likely to me that they just got blindsided by a lazy out sourced contractor. I say wait and see. If it was outsourced then it will be easy to produce contracts to that effect.

0
0
Anonymous Coward

Well that is good to know :)

Perhaps, that was the game concept, a game about other games. A player locked, and lost in a game world.

Who knows, but of course copyright exists, and I don't think they are going to get away with fair usage here.

Is anyone going to sue for copyright infringement?

0
0
Anonymous Coward

I am wondering if....

...all these games outsourced to the same graphics house, which started to get lazy :-D

0
0

More from The Register

Android is a mess and needs sprucing up, admits chief
Can Google really fix it? It isn't in control any more
New Lumia 925: This, loyalists, is the BIG ONE you've waited for
Nokia veep drills high-end master plan for El Reg
Android device? Ooohhhh, you mean a Samsung phone
Koreans nabbed nearly all the Q1 profits – more even than Google
Review: HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook
All roads lead to Chrome?
Borked your iDevice? Pay EVEN MORE to have it fixed by Applecare
Or scream at their hapless techies on their forums
Euro PC shipments plummet into bottomless pit of DOOOOM
11th quarter of decline, 20pc drop on last year - Gartner
Report: AT&T dropping Facebook phone after dismal sales
Turns out folks won't buy that for a dollar