Is that infringement?

[Meffy]

I would like to create a sample library, if I sampling a Virtual Instruments(maybe BFD?), then do some processing like EQ or Reverb,
Will infringement?

In addition to all that has been mentioned already...

Presets of synths that are not sample based also should not be sampled and resold. Once again, someone else worked to create that sound...it is theirs, not yours. Sampling it does not change that fact, and EQ and reverb do not add up to much, in terms of additional sound design.

If you take a sample from something else and mutate it beyond recognition, then that enters a gray zone. If no one could possibly identify the original source material, then you would have done something truly creative to the sound, turning it into something new, and therefore theoretically made it your own. But for this to be effective, you really do have to make it completely unrecognizable.

In my opinion, the general rule of thumb ought to be:

1) Don't take someone's sounds (sample, preset, music) essentially as-is and try to resell them as if they were your own creation. Instead of attempting to cut corners for a quick buck, try to be as creative as the people who made those sounds in the first place. No doubt you'll end up with a more interesting product, a reason to gain a good reputation, and you won't have to be concerned with legal issues.

2) If you do start with material someone else created, warp the hell out of it, be creative, put forth some effort, and turn it into something truly new.

If nothing else, put yourself in someone else's shoes. Lets say you made a product - you slaved over its creation, maybe paid musicians and engineers to record source material for you, did your original sound design, fine tuned your product, and hope to earn something for your time. Perhaps you even have your livelihood hanging on its success because of how much time and money you have invested in it. Then some guy comes along and resamples all your hard work and sells it or gives it away. How happy would you be about this? More than likely, you'd be mighty pissed...and rightfully so.

Sampling is one of those areas where I think the "golden rule" should be remembered and applied. Usually the only people that defend ripping off someone's work are people who haven't thought about getting ripped off themselves.

*points up* This, friends, is a wise man. Heed well his words.

[deastman]

I raised this topic a few weeks ago about drum samples. To answer the original question though, I say how could they ever prove it and sue?
Let's say, for the purposes of an example, you sampled a preset from any well known top selling synth, add some external delay, reverb, chorus, filter, whatever, resampled it and sold that as a sample; how could they possibly say 'Hey that's my synth, I'm gonna sue you buddy'?
How many times do we see topics saying please create this sound for me from a Virus or a Nord or a XYZ. Very very hard to prove imo. I may be wrong

Okay, for arguments sake lets just say that this happened. You sampled a sample-based instrument, ran it through some external effects, and released it. The original developer hears your sounds and suspects that it was derived from their original material. They can't prove it 100% because the waveform has been somewhat altered, but they take you to court anyway. They put you on the witness stand and ask you if you sampled their instrument and ran it through some external effects. Are you going to perjure yourself and lie to the judge?

[yellowfever]

I raised this topic a few weeks ago about drum samples. To answer the original question though, I say how could they ever prove it and sue?
Let's say, for the purposes of an example, you sampled a preset from any well known top selling synth, add some external delay, reverb, chorus, filter, whatever, resampled it and sold that as a sample; how could they possibly say 'Hey that's my synth, I'm gonna sue you buddy'?
How many times do we see topics saying please create this sound for me from a Virus or a Nord or a XYZ. Very very hard to prove imo. I may be wrong

Okay, for arguments sake lets just say that this happened. You sampled a sample-based instrument, ran it through some external effects, and released it. The original developer hears your sounds and suspects that it was derived from their original material. They can't prove it 100% because the waveform has been somewhat altered, but they take you to court anyway. They put you on the witness stand and ask you if you sampled their instrument and ran it through some external effects. Are you going to perjure yourself and lie to the judge?

I wouldn't do anything; read my posts properly and stop misquoting me.

[eduardo_b]

Are you going to perjure yourself and lie to the judge?

Why not. Already did the sampling. No point owning up to it. Unless it can be proved without doubt, there's no case...only circumstantial possibility.

And, suppose it's not going to be resold but used? Now it's okay...assuming anyone cares?

Finally, advocating copyright infringement is itself a vague assertion. Is that defined somewhere in the kvr rules?

[hollowsun]

This line of thinking, when it comes to hardware romplers, is paradoxical to me.

Either Roland (for example) retains the rights to the samples, which means they have rights to anything recorded from them. Including music made with them.

Or, Roland does not claim these rights, at which point you can do what you want with anything that comes out of the synth.

The EULA for a hardware ROMpler is much the same as that of a software sample-based product - i.e. you are free to use the sounds in your own music and productions as you like but you may not re-distribute them or sell them or give them away, whatever, in isolation as samples and I think you might find such EULAs being incorporated in modern hardware ROMplers these days.

But there is a historical context to this...

Years ago, when the D50 (as an example) came out, samplers were hardware, had limited memory and were very expensive and the only currency for sample distribution was a low capacity floppy disk. Sample formats were also very proprietary. So if I sampled the 'Digital Native Dance' preset on my S1000, it required several floppies and the only people I could re-distribute it to were fellow S1000 owners who had shelled out the £2,000+ for their S1000 ... and the only way I could do it was using the postal service or have people round to my place and spend time copying it. I couldn't give it to Emu owners or S900 owners or even Roland S770 owners. Roland weren't really bothered - why should they be? No-one was going to buy a £2,000+ product just to have a handful of sounds on floppies that took time to load when they could get the real thing for £1,200. In other words, some floppies floating round for the S1000 didn't damage their sales.

Similarly, the TR909 and 707 and 727 - none of them commercial successes and discontinued. Any samples of those floating about on floppies in different formats for various expensive hardware samplers was not a threat to their sales so Roland didn't concern themselves with it.

Likewise Korg and their M1, whatever - having some samples of their sounds floating round on floppies or expensive (and unreliable) Syquests for expensive hardware samplers was not a threat to their sales (M1s were flying off the shelves) so they were lax regarding copyright.

Fast forward a few years and we have the internet, the dance/rave culture (where the 808/909 ruled) and affordable software samplers with much larger memory for a few hundred quid (or could be cracked) which could read most if not all of the popular hardware samplers' formats fairly well and suddenly there WAS a threat to their sales and they started taking copyright a bit more seriously.

Now fast forward a few more years and we have very capable software samplers and fast broadband internet such that anyone can sample a Roland/Yamaha/Korg ROMpler quite extensively and, if they choose, make it available for free download on their own website (if they pay for the bandwidth) or use Rapidshare or the torrents and people can get it in minutes. The situation now is such that with Soundfont, you don't even need a software sampler! This is a BIG threat to their sales (in fact, it's damaging them) and so they now take copyright VERY seriously ... understandably.

You have to see it from the manufacturers' point of view - you invest $millions (literally) in recording all sorts of instruments in your pro studio with top engineers and gear and have lots of programers and sound designers at the top of their tree refining those into a fabulous new product which you release with a massive marketing budget and some initial success...

And along comes someone, samples them all and gives all those sounds away for nothing which kills your sales!

I think you'd be seriously pissed off and would be seeking at the very least a 'cease and desist order' especially if A) the samples were shite and made a mockery of all the time, investment and hard work you'd put into the product and B) exploited your brand name to add credibility to their download!!!

Think about it!

Cheers,


Steve

[hollowsun]

f nothing else, put yourself in someone else's shoes. Lets say you made a product - you slaved over its creation, maybe paid musicians and engineers to record source material for you, did your original sound design, fine tuned your product, and hope to earn something for your time. Perhaps you even have your livelihood hanging on its success because of how much time and money you have invested in it. Then some guy comes along and resamples all your hard work and sells it or gives it away. How happy would you be about this? More than likely, you'd be mighty pissed...and rightfully so.

Our posts crossed in the ether, Ugo. You make your point well and this is the crux of what it seems we are both saying.

Cheers,


Steve

[deastman]

I wouldn't do anything; read my posts properly and stop misquoting me.

I meant "you" in the collective sense of the word... I understand your good intentions and wasn't gunning for you in particular. I'm simply trying to extend that line of thinking to its logical conclusion. Remember, "you" (not *you* specificially!) don't actually have to be guilty in order to have someone sue you. If they have a pretty good suspicion that their sample set was the basis, they could still file suit even without conclusive evidence.

[deastman]

Are you going to perjure yourself and lie to the judge?

Why not. Already did the sampling. No point owning up to it. Unless it can be proved without doubt, there's no case...only circumstantial possibility.

And, suppose it's not going to be resold but used? Now it's okay...assuming anyone cares?

Finally, advocating copyright infringement is itself a vague assertion. Is that defined somewhere in the kvr rules?

Well, its a bit like using DNA as evidence. Perhaps today it isn't possible to pinpoint the original source of the sample, and you could get away with lying to the judge. What happens 5 years from now when some reasearcher comes out with a clever algorithim which can pinpoint the original source. The plaintif goes back to the judge, and guess what happens when they find out that you lied? Purely hypothetical situation based on non-existent future technology, but hey, you never know... or what if your disgruntled ex-girlfriend decides to come clean on your behalf?

Yes, I have a rich fantasy life.

[eduardo_b]

Yes, I have a rich fantasy life.

I'll say.

[ugo]

Usually the only people that defend ripping off someone's work are people who haven't thought about getting ripped off themselves.

I challenge you to read my posts above and correct your statement

No need for me to correct anything.

I'm not in any way advocating illegal sampling, piracy whatever, just saying it is incredibly difficult to prove.

You said you are not advocating illegal sampling, therefore you are not defending ripping someone off - which is the first half of the sentence you quoted. Unless I missed it, you also didn't say anything about having thought much about how you would feel if you, yourself, got ripped off - which is the second half of my sentence. Furthermore, I used "usually" as the first word, which implies that not everyone who does defend ripping someone off (which you clearly stated you were not doing) hasn't thought about this.

My apologies if I missed a post or misunderstood what you wrote.

[LXNDR1]

what escapes me is how come i pay money for a product and cannot use it as i please
say someone sells or just gives away for free processed samples of a sample based instrument or sampled soft synth presets, this is not reselling the unique product he bought and thus cannot harm anyone's business
so what it looks like is that software instruments manufacturers kinda try to eat the cake and keep it, restricting the rights of the end user, which isn't exactly fair

[yellowfever]

My apologies if I missed a post or misunderstood what you wrote.

no worries mate

[Bonteburg]

edit: ---

[penguinfromdeep]

It's illegal but I ask again, did anybody sue anybody because of this? People get away with really blatant sampling for their libraries from commercial tracks but they get away with it. So sampling a small drum hit from roland box or using preset library, I dunno. I suspect it's too expensive or too much hassle to sue somebody (probably both). You'd have to hire an audio specialist. I remember a case of a drum loop used in a commercial that was sourced from sample cd. But that sample cd had sampled some drumming lesson cd (it was a straight rip) and I think this case went to court. That was a whole drumloop though, unaltered.

[Rock Hardbuns]

The EULA for a hardware ROMpler is much the same as that of a software sample-based product - i.e. you are free to use the sounds in your own music and productions as you like but you may not re-distribute them or sell them or give them away, whatever, in isolation as samples and I think you might find such EULAs being incorporated in modern hardware ROMplers these days.

Really? I haven't bought a new rompler in the past 10 years so I wouldn't know. But if this is so, it only emphasizes the point that products sold without a licensing contract are in a legal limbo.


penguinfromdeep > I too would like to see court cases. I have searched but not found anything so far.

There are three different questions being intermingled in this thread. What is moral, what is legal, and what you can get away with.