When does Sampling become Piracy ?

[burningbusch]

Great info HardSync. I particularly liked:

"2. You can sample any instrument you like, acoustic or electronic (including sample-based synths). When you do this, you are the "creator of the work." You own it, you own the copyright, you can do anything you like with it. There may be a few exceptions, or what are known as "famous sounds" but these are very rare, and they usually have to be protected with a specific type of audio copyright that isn't available in most countries anyway. What you are sampling is known as a "performance." There are host of factors at play here, including gear used to record, technique, number of samples per key, modulation, effects, mic placements, etc., etc. This includes mixing several different samples into a new whole. Basically, what Stephen Kay said above about combining multiple samples is correct.

There is a lot of argument over whether you can legally sample preset patches on synths. The short, easy answer in most jurisdictions is that you can do this, because again, you are recording your performance on that keyboard/patch. There may be exceptions, so I won't say it's true in every case. "

Busch.

[SanderXpander]

I would like to add (even though it may seem obvious) that while it may be fine to sample (e.g.) a Roland Fantom, that does not give you the right to use the Roland name when redistributing them. As far as I understand it at least.

[HardSync]

I would like to add (even though it may seem obvious) that while it may be fine to sample (e.g.) a Roland Fantom, that does not give you the right to use the Roland name when redistributing them. As far as I understand it at least.

What you're talking about is trading on another's good will or perhaps even passing off, for instance: You cannot imply directly or indirectly that Roland authorises your samples (the work), i.e. that they are official Roland samples. You cannot use the Roland logo without their permission, ever. Nor you can you have the company name in huge text, larger than other text, in attempt to pass off your work as Roland's work.

But a statement of fact to describe what instrument(s) you sampled should be acceptable under most circumstances in respect of sample sets -- although as always there may be exceptions. If you do mention Roland or Fantom, it might be good idea to say that "ROLAND" and "Fantom" are trade marks owned by Roland, Inc. (or whatever company owns them), along with a disclaimer that the work is not officially endorsed by Roland. If you look at most sample sets, they specifically note which instruments were sampled, because that's what people want to know, but they make no claim to brand or company names on their packaging artwork. That's important.

It may be (actually, I suspect it will be) completely different if you are a keyboard manufacturer in direct competition with Roland. In which case, you would need permission to use their name or trade marks with your product -- and it's unlikely you'd get that permission, and it's even more unlikely that you would ask for permission. Why advertise for your competitors?

As for the actual sample names, most keyboard manufacturers get around potential legal issues by using a short abbreviation to describe the name of the instrument being sampled. You know, like MG = Moog, etc. The synth's documentation will likely say "we meticulously sampled all those classic synths you loved from the 70s and 80s" and so on. We all know what they mean.

In some cases, the rights to use another company's name in your documentation or in the keyboard itself, for instance AKAI comes to mind in respect of the ability to load AKAI samples, is usually licensed along with the right to use the AKAI format, because you have to inform your buyers that AKAI format samples can be loaded into the sampler. There's probably a ton of legal paperwork involved. Certainly money is changing hands... but I have no idea what the terms are between say Korg and AKAI (or whatever company owns the sample format) for the rights to use AKAI format samples.

[Bald Eagle]

Yeah, as stupid as it is ...

It's not a Hammond, its a tone wheel electronic device simulation or something like that ... ?

[Gambler]

This is mostly true, but not for the reasons you think they are. The problems are primarily jurisdictional, i.e. every country has different copyright laws and the laws change often.

I think the main issue with IP laws is that some of them are fairly specific to a certain technological reality that becomes outdated. What works for radio and tape recorders doesn't work for 3d printes and genetic engineering.

As someone who has had years of experience working in intellectual property (IP), which includes patents, copyrights, designs, and trade marks, I can assure you that is certainly not the case.

It was bad phrasing on my part. Obviously, laws are all about legality. I think you got the gist of what I meant, though. Rampant piracy on one hand. DMCA take-down bonanza on the other hand. There is also the whole deal with EULA clauses that aren't meant to be enforceable, but rather are added to scare clueless consumers.

To express my main point more eloquently, I see the original post in this thread as a classical case of chilling effect.

[kingtj]

If the companies offering the commercial sound libraries haven't offered them in a version directly compatible with our synth, and someone goes to the effort to convert them (reassigning key ranges, etc.) so they do? I feel like the original manufacturer could have offered that for sale themselves but didn't ... so it's not exactly the same as someone openly redistributing the original library (as, say, an ISO CD or DVD image file).

I understand the copyright angle, but at the same time -- it seems like they want to have things both ways at times? (EG. They'll happily charge me hundreds of dollars to resell me the SAME sound collection except converted for a different unit than the one I originally bought it for. But they want to deny the value in the whole conversion/remapping process when they claim someone else can't release a conversion -- because "it's the sound samples themselves that matter").

I think it was my comment that made you withdraw your stuff. I didn't mean to accuse you. But we've had people on here convert commercial libraries and offer them for free, and that's not fair practice I think.

So since you spoke about "your orchestra" I just asked if you sampled the orchestra or if it was some free collection you adapted.

I think resampling or converting is fine for private use, even if the EULA states differently, and I seriously doubt any company would ever pursue legal action if you bought a Kontakt library from them and you resampled it to use in your Kronos because you didn't want to bring a laptop to your gig. If, however, you start spreading these sounds, for free or for money, you may run into trouble. You lose control over who gets them and if they spread far and wide enough and the trail leads to you... Why take the risk?

[SanderXpander]

I'll be the last to speak on the companies' sides. However, being realistic, I believe if you made a large scale conversion and distributed it wildly, you may attract their attention. Whether they would win a case against you or not seems entirely irrelevant to me considering the amount of hassle and headache even having a case at all would entail. You may call this a negative chilling effect. I still think it's fine to sample my own stuff for private use. I'm just not going to sample a whole bunch of current digital soundsets and distribute them to anyone who wants them.

[danatkorg]

IMO, once you have combined and layered several different sounds to create a new sound, it doesn't matter where those original sounds came from. From your description, it would seem to be that the resulting composite sound was something "new" - and believe me, all of the manufacturers do this. Take sound A, mix it with sound B, and stick it in their waveform ROM.

I know that you did a lot of work on samples some time ago, and I can believe that was the case at the time. Nowadays, though - at least at Korg - we're generally sampling our own acoustic or electroacoustic instruments, with occasional samples of old analog synths.

If you have layered sounds and then sampled them, and then released them, they are new sounds. You paid (hopefully) for the right to own sounds A, B and C. If you now layer them, and then sample a resulting composite, it's a new sound.

Depending on the terms of the sample library, you may not "own" the sounds per se; use in derivative works (for instance, selling or distributing a library which contains the sounds mixed with other sounds as above) may be prohibited. For instance, see Spectrasonics' license terms:

http://www.spectrasonics.net/support/kn ... egoryID=81

[danatkorg]

Is it legal to sample a keyboard or instrument, YES.
If it wasn't, your KRONOS wouldn't have a fraction of the PCM data it has. Much of all that data was recorded from other products.

Sharp made many good points, and I appreciate his insights. I'd like to clarify this comment, however.

It's certainly true that the KRONOS includes samples that we've recorded from acoustic and electric pianos, and many other acoustic and electro-acoustic instruments (guitars, brass, winds, percussion etc.). At least in data size, these make up almost all of the gigabytes of data shipped with the KRONOS.

Out of the approximately two thousand Multisamples shipped with the KRONOS, I roughly count a couple of hundred samples which appear to be from old analog synths (some of them Korg synths). There are also the VS waveforms, included as part of the Wavestation data - remember that Korg R&D's origins are from Sequential Circuits, and the Wavestation was in various ways intended as an evolution of the VS.

The KRONOS also includes Multisamples originally created by Korg for other Korg instruments - people complain when we don't include their old favorites! Is this what you meant?

[blackmamba]

Interesting discussion

What is also 100% legal from what I understood is to sample a keyboard if there are computer steps into the sound generation.

I mean, modeled instruments can be sampled (as there is no base sample) and half modeled/ half synthesis instruments too because there are base samples but they are then emulated via computer instructions.
In both cases, the generated sounds are not copyrighted as they don't exist before you generate them.

[Yuma]

But isn't that comparable to analogue instruments?
A trumpet doesn't produce sound until you blow it.
An acoustic guitar doesn't produce sound until you pluck or strike it.
I would call this simply sampling (capturing the sound that is brought forward by the instrument).
Sampling a sample in a digital instrument I would call re-sampling.

[blackmamba]

The difference I think is that when there are computer steps to generate the sound, you are selling a software and not an instrument.
And the software rules are completely different ...

For example, the korg kronos has different sound engines, some are based on modeling. I think its completely legal to sample these instruments as you basically sample the result of a software.

However, if you sample the strings, if they are 100% sampled based, then, this leads you to the grey zone...

To be honnest, this sounds a little bit ridiculous. If you sample piano notes for example from a keyboard, if you master the wave sounds, who will really prove that you used their sound. (from a technical point of view).
I can understand for melody, but for single sounds ...

I have the feeling that a lot of sound companies use the sounds of other companies, and that it is just hypocrit as we all know that they all copy/slightly modify the samples to create new libraries.

Am I wrong?

[blackmamba]

IMO, once you have combined and layered several different sounds to create a new sound, it doesn't matter where those original sounds came from. From your description, it would seem to be that the resulting composite sound was something "new" - and believe me, all of the manufacturers do this. Take sound A, mix it with sound B, and stick it in their waveform ROM.

I know that you did a lot of work on samples some time ago, and I can believe that was the case at the time. Nowadays, though - at least at Korg - we're generally sampling our own acoustic or electroacoustic instruments, with occasional samples of old analog synths.

If you have layered sounds and then sampled them, and then released them, they are new sounds. You paid (hopefully) for the right to own sounds A, B and C. If you now layer them, and then sample a resulting composite, it's a new sound.

Depending on the terms of the sample library, you may not "own" the sounds per se; use in derivative works (for instance, selling or distributing a library which contains the sounds mixed with other sounds as above) may be prohibited. For instance, see Spectrasonics' license terms:

http://www.spectrasonics.net/support/kn ... egoryID=81

Hello Dan,

The issue is that not being able to use the sounds for derivative works is a big abuse in my opinion...
Lets say that I will make a bank of sounds with sinus waves with all the basic frequencies.
I will ask for royalties to people using my sound library as derivative work.
I guess I would be rich then

[Sharp]

The issue is that not being able to use the sounds for derivative works is a big abuse in my opinion...

Here's a list of all the keyboards and VSTi's they used to create Omnisphere ( CLICK HERE ) so their licence agreement is completely hypocritical not to mention impossible to uphold.

You can't sample anything you like and then prevent others from doing the exact same thing you did. Both parties are either guilty, or not guilty.

Who's resurrecting this old thread anyway. We will never come to a final conclusion on all this.

Stick to the unwritten rules and you will be fine. If you have to sample, stick to really old gear (20+ years), and if your going to sampling somthing new, make sure whatever you are sampling that you have changed it so much that it sounds nothing at all like the original.

Regards
Sharp.

[blackmamba]

Thanks for your answer Sharp.

I am resurrecting this post to be sure what I am saying about sampling based-modeled software is OK

Because I think it is still different from sampling an instrument ...