Korg Forums

[Sharp]

Hi all.
I've invested a little money into hiring a solicitor to answer the age old question.

“Is sampling sounds off a Keyboard legal”.
OK, we already believed that there was a Yes & No answer to this, but here's what I was given, it's a quote direct from Copyright Law.

The sampling of a single sound cannot be considered as unlawful copying because it does not leave any room for personal interpretation and, therefore, cannot be considered and original work of authorship.

This means it's ok for anyone to sample a single note from any sort of copyrighted material. Where it comes a little more complicated is when your talking about sampling a sound from a keyboard as your now not technically sampling a single note. Your sampling a range of notes to reproduce someone else's work.

It's the “reproducing” of someone else's work is where it become illegal.

However, this does means that if you mix sounds together on a keyboard and produce something new, then this is considered your original work of authorship and so can be sampled as the technology and function of the instrument is being used to produce something new. For example, you are using the technology to produce something new, which you have the fill rights to sample. You are not giving the end user a means to replicate anything that already exists.

So for example, it is illegal to sample the Piano sound from a Keyboard, however, if you took the raw waveform and mixed it with a strings waveform and created a Piano & Strings program sound, then this is your original work and you are allowed to sample that.

Pretty interesting stuff.

Regards.
Sharp.

[Lee]

Sharp,
Yeah..I know I'm lost..I'm supposed to be at the PA2 forum.

BUT, I am looking to create some new sounds on my PA FROM sampes I already have bought. They were dsigned to work with another keyboard brand. THey are very good qulity.

I paid a lot for them several years ago...what is your (or others) opinion on using these samples in my Korg PA2XPRO to create my own multi-samples and comlete sounds? Of course I will have to run them throug a translator to get them in Triton ormat first.

Also, How/where do I get more great samples? AND if I buy them can I do what I want ith them? (once again make new sounds for my PA)

AND...can I get the Triton (or trinity...I think they are the same?) samples somewhere to use?


Thanks,
Lee

[Sharp]

Hi Lee.

The download section is full of Triton format downloads, so you could start there. As for the sample you purchased, you never mentioned what format they where in. Chances are it's possible to convert them and generate the necessary multisamples automaticly.

[Lee]

Sharp,
Sorry to be a bother here...So, If I buy samples, convert them to Korg, make a nice voice from them...can I share the voice (samples of course would have to be included) with anyone else.

Example, I buy a CD of samples, convert them to wave or KSF, make a multi-sample, then a complete sound on the PA.

Thanks,
Lee

[Lorenzo]

Hi Sharp! and a big Thanx!
I don't know if this solution works for the whole countries but it's still opened to some interpretations so that it can be surely considered the base for a good sampling rule. At the end it will be the judge who will tell if you're simply reproducing or creating something new.
IE
I still have a piano from Kurzweil k2500r sampled, I don't know what are the based notes sampled FROM kurzweil and I change some of the parameters of the program to make it sound a little brighter. Than looping it and have it fitted on a single floppy disk. I'm sure that it can sound similar to the original kurzweil patch but I made a lot of works not only to sample it but to chose the right notes and to change parameters. In this case I can consider this a sound I've created even if it's similar to kurzweil piano.
I know that this is a case that falls on the limits between the two areas but I'm sure that kurzweil won't bother about this.
What I'm sure about is that if I do something similar with all the voices of my brand new pc3x and maybe create a cd I can sell ... well yes I'm sure I could here the knok knok on the door and see some men in black against my door...
I think that $$$ is the solution or the problem in any case.

Thanx again for your help!
Regards, Lorenzo
_________________
http://www.synthaddicted.com

[Lee]

Lorenzo, Sharp, (others)
So what do you think about my sceario:

I buy a CD from comapany X, It is Kurzweil samples,keymaps and programs....I convert it to play on my Korg with Chicken systems translator PRO. Significant work will have to be done to make it sound worth a crap on the Korg.

I think as long as I don't sell the ORIGINAL stuff I'm OK...But I think I could sell the finished products (sounds) I made to work on the Korg.??

I'm real sure I could use this for only my own playing with no issue at all...Agree?

????

Thanks,
Lee

[xpander]

Upping since I've been doing sampling for quite some time and seen lots of issues along the years.

So the copyright allows to sample a single note from a keyboard? If I got it right, the original quote from the law was

The sampling of a single sound cannot be considered as unlawful copying because it does not leave any room for personal interpretation and, therefore, cannot be considered and original work of authorship.

and the rest was explanation of that? I'm asking this because for me it really didn't clarify the age old debate at all.

Now, single sound can mean one single waveform (oscillator based, sample or combination), or many of them mixed/layered/effected to play as one sound. All this without any prior user changes that is.

If I have bought a synth, and some I surely have, I will certainly use them which ever way I want to...play as is, tweak, sample, everything. Buying the synth, I have bought the rights to use it, as simple as that.

However, on some synths there are copyrighted pieces of music that I cannot touch, demos usually. It's the music there that I cannot sample, except for my own amusement if I want to. But I surely can do whatever I want to with the sounds those demos were made with. Otherwise any good old demo will leave the world without much use for the actual machine.

Sampling a single note or all of them from a synth won't make a darned difference in real world. I can simply tweak, say, a common LFO or FX parameter by a single notch and I have made something not original anymore. Can be done in seconds, and it's all mine now.

Personal interpretation is something really easy to understand when we are talking about the actual music being done with the sounds. Rip a melody for instance and you're busted. But no manufacturer in the world will necessarily be able to tell if that one sound came from their stuff or somebody elses. Even sound designers who have been in the game since long ago have sometimes only quessed if that and that specific sample originally came from them or not. Enter your basic piano/string/something noises which are everywhere in every possible format...and forget about it.

Soundwise, personal interpretation is hard, if even ever possible to tell. Could be seen as original wavedata work, sample set, maybe? But then again, once you have bought a sample CD, you have bought the rights to use it...just like common sense would tell you. Or like companies tell it themselves, for example here;

http://www.spectrasonics.net/companyinfo/copyright.php
Once a customer purchases a Spectrasonics product, no additional licensing fees are required to use it in their music. However, some CD-ROM sample libraries require a specific crediting in the liner notes of the music release.

Credits, that's what some of them want, they already got your money. Now tell me how would anything be different as soon as it all resides inside rompler or sampler?

Oh, selling the original or not so original wavesets, not the music you made with them? Now that would be something else, wouldn't it?

Sorry Sharp, not trying to be an ass, but I just didn't get it...I quess.

[BasariStudios]

I think Sharp is talking about something else in here, i own many keyboards,
over 15 and most of them are INTERSAMPLED with each other, noone can do
nothing to me for that. I sample from Korg to Roland, vice versa, from Kontakt
to YAMAHA and what not...but...the problem arises when selling your work.
You cannot sample a Korg sound into Roland and sell it to me for my Roland,
i think thats where this laws mostly apply otherwise noone knows what i am
doing at my own studio as long as i dont sell or share.
On the other hand, prohibited is also Sampling a sound from Korg M3 and then
converting it to Korg PA and sharing it or selling it, same as from another brand.
So if i was to sample a sound from my M3 to PA and share it here i would be
doing something against the law and be responsible for it.
Even if i shared it for free here, on Korg's forums. As Jerry once said to me:
If we wanted to be like that we would've done it on our own...
_________________
http://www.basaristudios.com
Cubase 8.5 Pro. Windows 7 X64. ASUS SaberTooth X99. Intel I7 5820K. ASUS GTX 960 Strix OC 2GB. 4x8 GB G.SKILL.
2 850 PRO 256GB SSDs. 1 850 EVO 1TB SSD. Acustica: Nebula Server 3 Ultimate, Murano, Magenta 3, Navy, Titanium.