Official Statement on Music Rules for WYYC2023
Hey everyone!
We’re really excited about hosting the upcoming 2023 World Yo-Yo Contest, our first in-person World Yo-Yo Contest since 2019, and can’t wait to see you all there. We have been a bit behind in getting the website updated, and some rule changes and clarifications that should have been communicated earlier were announced with just two months to go before the event. We underestimated the impact of these changes, but we’ve heard your feedback. We will be moving forward with a modified version of these new rules that holds to the spirit of the 2019 rules with a few clarifications that should not affect the music you are using for 2023. The disqualification standards will not change from the 2019 rules. This updated language we have added to the Freestyle Music page is meant to clarify the intent of the same rules from 2019.
We apologize for the poor communication on our part. We’d also like to clarify a couple of things.
In the 2023 rule section titled “Please use proper copyrighted music (now: Please use Legally Obtained High Quality Music)”, some players understood this as they must own the copyright to the music they are using. This is incorrect. Our intention was to encourage players to submit high-quality, “official” copies of their freestyle music instead of low-quality YouTube to MP3 rips that have given us many, many audio issues to resolve over the years. We are not asking you to purchase the copyright for your song, merely to spend the dollar or two to purchase and download an official, high-fidelity copy of the song. We’ll be rewording this to clarify.
The “No Beeping/Blanking/Silencing” rule was an attempt to solve a problem that has plagued yoyo contests for decades without a resolution. Many players have insisted on using music that contains profanity or questionable content, without properly editing the song to make it “contest safe”. The result is too much time spent checking music, players being disqualified at the last minute, inappropriate music causing problems during the event, and an overall unsustainable amount of effort being spent on this issue. We will be working on an equitable solution to this problem, and there will be a rule change regarding this for 2024 Worlds. We’ll announce the change no later than the end of 2023 and we are open to ideas on how to solve this issue fairly for all.
Thanks to all the competitors who reached out with their concerns and engaged us in productive conversation to help us get to a quick solution. See you in Osaka!