KVR Audio

Doragon · Post by **Doragon** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:59 pm

I'm not 100% sure this was the correct place for this topic. If it's not, I hope a moderator will be kind enough to gently guide this topic to where it belongs.

A rather long time back, I downloaded a lot of samples from an ftp-server which has been mentioned more than once on this forum. I managed to aquire most of the samples from the server, but now that I'm actually starting to clean up my sample-collection and only keep what I can legally use, I'm starting to question the legal status of this library. I have failed to locate copyright information for the library, as well as whether or not it can be used commercially. So, after google and forum-searches have failed me, I finally cave in and ask out loud in here, in hopes that someone will know the answer.

What is the legal status of the 'famed' AkaiPro library, which at some point was possible to download from ftp.akaipro.co.jp?
Can it be used commercially, and if so, under what conditions?

Any replies directly answering the questions or giving hints to where the information can be found will be greatly appreciated.

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 10:14 pm

First, I Am Not A Lawyer. But I have contacted Akai about the lib in the past. FWIW, here's what I found.

Akai won't allow redistribution. I offered to mirror the lib when they shut down the ftp server a few years ago. Got back a very polite but negative response. As for commercial use, since there's no info included my assumption would be the terms are identical to those of the CDs whose contents the library duplicated. I don't know for sure what terms they had but would be VERY surprised if they didn't allow commercial use. I guess the thing to do is to locate early Akai sample CD documentation.

Doragon · Post by **Doragon** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 10:16 pm

So in general, if the original CDs allow commercial use, the library that was possibly to download should also allow commercial use? Or am i misunderstanding?

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 10:21 pm

Yes, that's my opinion. In the absence of any other info, that's the only authority on rights I can think of.

laputa_sync · Post by **laputa_sync** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 10:41 pm

there is very little on the net except threads about "Akai ftp is down", nothing about ftp on archive except it failed to get robots.txt

here

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 11:27 pm

You could always email Akai themselves. The person I contacted didn't identify him- or herself, but the email was webmaster@akaipro.co.jp -- worth a try.

There was also this:

P.S.
We will prepare the new fine contents in our FTP server in the future.
Please expect it.

It's been a long time, but I do keep checking the ftp server every six months or so.

Doragon · Post by **Doragon** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 12:17 am

Well, thanks for the help in any case. I'll try contacting Akai and see what they have to say about it, and I'll probably post the nature of the reply here.

hollowsun · Post by **hollowsun** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 3:38 pm

You can use the stuff you downloaded from the server in your music freely - as if you bought the actual CD.

What you can't do is sell them, include them in some other collection you may be selling and neither can you re-distribute them (for free or otherwise) in their original format or in any other converted format (such as Soundfont for example) although you may convert them to whatever format you want FOR YOUR OWN USE. You cannot put them on a P2P network or bit-torrent, whatever, and neither can you upload them to some website that hosts samples for download.

And just because Akai made them available for free once does not grant anyone any permission under any circumstances to make them available for free now.

Any contraventions of the above will be robustly challenged.

The decision by the 'old' Akai Japan to make them freely available was just the weirdest one especially as they were stock items that their distributors were trying to sell - it's like they bootlegged themselves

As it happens, they didn't anticpate the demand for them (I think they thought just some nice, polite Japanese customers would download them, not the entre world and his mother!!) and their servers soon hit bandwidth excession which is why they were withdrawn.

Hope that clears things up.

Steve

Doragon · Post by **Doragon** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:27 pm

Wow, didn't expect anyone to have that detailed information on the library, so big thanks goes out to hollowsun right now. That was pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be off to celebrate by making horribly cheesy music.
Thanks!

Rick Deckard · Post by **Rick Deckard** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:29 pm

Meffy wrote: It's been a long time, but I do keep checking the ftp server every six months or so.

read: every six minutes.

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 7:17 pm

No, Rick, read what I typed. =9_9=

If anything the figure I gave was too frequent. I have a good collection of samples, so my interest is no more than casual.

laputa_sync · Post by **laputa_sync** » Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:49 am

I am creating a time machine, when finished i will post a link to the ftp files on the original server on the day they were uploaded - which will under all laws be legal due to lack of laws about time/space vortex internet linking.

due to the laws of bandwidth and delays in time/space cycle updating you will only be able to download at 16.67% of your total speed.

AkaiPro library's legal status