Skyrim Composer Gives Modders Permission to Use His Music

Matt Morgans 5 years ago
Skyrim Composer Makes Album Free for Modders to Use
Skyrim Composer Makes Album Free for Modders to Use
Matt Morgans 5 years ago

One of the biggest problems for modders working on projects in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series (and elsewhere) is audio. The game’s music, and audio files, are often covered by specific copyright laws. Indeed, in the case of Fallout, Bethesda told several mod projects, including Fallout 4 New Vegas, that they would not be allowed to take the dialogue recordings from Fallout New Vegas and mod them into Fallout 4. When it comes to music, many modders either don’t include any, or source their own. Now, however, Skyrim composer Jeremy Soule is giving modders permission to use some of his work. Specifically; his 2018 album, The Northerner Diaries.

Skyrim Composer Gives Modders Permission to Use His Album

Skyrim Composer Jeremy Soule Gives Modders Permission to Use Some of His Work

Jeremy Soule is a very well-known game composer; his work includes the Elder Scrolls series back as far as Morrowind, Guild Wars, and plenty more. It remains to be seen whether he will return to the series for The Elder Scrolls 6 – the composer recently said that he had yet to be contacted by Bethesda about the game. While Soule doesn’t have the right to allow modders to use the music he wrote for games like Skyrim, as the rights to that music is owned by the respective studios, he has written several collections of standalone music.

In a recent tweet, Soule gave modders permission to use the music from one of his albums; The Northerner Diaries. This isn’t the first work of his that he’s given permission for modders to use, but it does open up a lot more of his material; “Dear mod community,” he says; “please feel free to include The Northerner Diaries in your games. I only ask that you credit me when possible. […] To clarify, this includes Mods and Full Games. Have fun!”

The Northerner Diaries is a 12-track symphonic album featuring original compositions of Soule’s. It was released back in July of 2018.