CAN I USE GAME MUSIC IN MY GAME

Nah, using assets from commercial games is a past time of RPG Maker games. There's a few guidelines to follow though:

- Don't plagiarize. You don't have to credit sources but claiming the work of others as your own is not allowed.

- There's a bit of an Indie Code of Honour: Don't use assets from one indie game in your own indie game. This is heavily frowned upon by the community.

author=tajsodia

author=kentona
you must be new...

Actually yes I joined a few days ago.

:) I only say this because using commercial rips (graphics and music) is practically a rite of passage in RPG Maker development! You'd actually be hard pressed to find an RM game that doesn't have ripped graphics, music or sounds.

author=mawk
all that said, you should be careful of using really well-known or iconic songs. not that it'll be frowned upon or anything, but it's difficult to create a tone when it's likely that everyone in the audience has already heard the song you're trying to create it with and built up their own emotional associations with it independent of its appearance in your game.

this is a drawback of all rips, to an extent, but you can lessen the impact at least by not using, say, One Winged Angel as your boss theme or whatever. not a hard and fast rule, but something to keep in mind!

This is very good advice to keep in mind. It can be very immersion-breaking to hear a very well-known song, even if remixed to high heaven. That said, it's more about song placement than the actual song itself.

There's one big no-no, though. Using copyrighted music if you're making a game to sell. You'd think that would be common sense, but it's happened a few times.

Also, beware. Something I found after one of my games got a bit more well-known outside of the RM community is that those who aren't RM users judge using copyrighted songs harsher than the community itself.

And a last point - it's okay to take music you found in another game as long as you recognise it as a copyrighted song from a commercial game that is not made in RM. Original songs, though, as with original graphics and other assets are a big no-no. (For example, you found a song renamed 'Battle Star boom-boom' but is clearly the Final Fantasy 9 battle song. That's fine. If it's not a song you recognise, though, best to leave it.)

But go forth, have fun and create yourself a neat-sounding game.

There are also other music packs available in the shop section of the site, but keep in mind that those ones cost money.

Scandalous!!

But seriously, it's surprising how many people are using illegally ripped stuff, when there is actually a lot of original material coming out specifically FOR rpg maker, that doesn't cost all that much, on the official RPG Maker site. (And if you know where to look, you can even get some pretty good things legitimately for free, for commercial use, that are 100% original creations of their authors.)

I mean, really... why steal, if you can be legit? Granted it's been harder, but also a lot more rewarding. As a matter of policy, I simply will not use anything unless I can be as sure as humanly possible that the author has made something 100% original, and that they have given permission for commercial use, if I want to use it commercially.

Of course, it helps if you can learn to make your own materials, too. And there are tutorials for that, out there, incidentally. (And cheap graphics tablets that work in a pinch, but don't cost a small fortune... unless perhaps you have literally no money at all. ~_~,) Music is a bit harder, of course... but so far my music budget is $0, and I've got software that allows me to make music for commercial use, without an instrument... which, admittedly, will probably take a while to learn... but hey, education doesn't end when you graduate, right?

author=AquaXranoX
As for using commercial game music, I'm kinda here and there on that with using it in my projects especially if the company gives you some Cease and Desist Letter or sues you, but hey, that's what VGMusic midis are there for!

And us up-and-coming composers! :D