Tone2 Gladiator 3 (public beta)

[fmr]

From the EULA when you install Icarus or Gladiator:

"...This product can be used for music production, making records, remixes, commercials, jingles, soundtracks for film, theatre, musicals and computer games. The included sounds and this product can NOT be used for making music or sounds that will be licensed or sold as library music, sound clips or other sample based products. You are not allowed to sample and distribute sounds or waveforms from this product without our written permission. Especially not for creating commercial content for other synthesizers, sample packs, romplers or audio devices."

What's in the EULA contradicts the information given to Examigan. Besides, it contradicts THE LAW. They cannot forbid anyone from sharing their creations. Besides, how would they prove that the sound comes from their product? I am talking of original presets, and there are no samples involved, just raw synth data.

Anyway, there is a "catch": "without our written permission". And it seems they would not deny that permission, when what's in question are original presets, and work derived from them.

[thecontrolcentre]

Finally ... I can read Gladiator on my laptop screen. Nice (free) update. Sounds good too. Thanks Markus & Tone2.

[chk071]

What's in the EULA contradicts the information given to Examigan.

No, it doesn't. It clearly says that you need permission from the developers, which Examigan asked for.

Besides, it contradicts THE LAW.

Which law does it, in your opinion, contradict?

[wagtunes]

From the EULA when you install Icarus or Gladiator:

"...This product can be used for music production, making records, remixes, commercials, jingles, soundtracks for film, theatre, musicals and computer games. The included sounds and this product can NOT be used for making music or sounds that will be licensed or sold as library music, sound clips or other sample based products. You are not allowed to sample and distribute sounds or waveforms from this product without our written permission. Especially not for creating commercial content for other synthesizers, sample packs, romplers or audio devices."

Not that I'm trying to start a shit storm, but this is totally unenforceable.

I'll just give you a simple example and then I'll let the hell that's going to follow commence.

Fire up Icarus. Create a random wavetable. Sample one note.

Take the resulting wav file and load it into any sample player. Doesn't matter which one.

Play the sample back through the following FX.

Distortion
Chorus
EQ
Phaser
Tube Amp

Take the output and create another wav file.

Take THAT wav file and load it into The Mangle (Granular Synth) and create yet another wav file.

Go on. Prove that the end resulting sound came from Icarus.

Yeah, good luck with that. Let me know how you make out.

[ChrisQ]

What the EULA says is that you have to ask for a written permission. That's why you should contact them and ask to be on the safe side.
Copyright laws are different in different countries.

Tone2 synths have a pretty unique acoustic footprint. To prove that the sound comes from their product they could analyse the spectrum of the waveforms or wavetables. They could add info to the wav header. Or they could also encode watermarks to the wav files. Or they could hide strings in wav files .This is very easy. You could for example convert the audio data to 15 bit and use the lowest bit for adding a copyright string. This is inaudible for the human ear.
Since they developed the product they got the know-how for it.

[kmonkey]

What the EULA says is that you have to ask for a written permission.

Best to avoid these clowns.

First they toyed with user computers i remember that from quite a few years ago. Invasive reports are being sent to their company and all that lalala things.

Now they ask written permission like their shit is different then others. Ahahaha gimme a break. At the end of a day companies like NI or U-he are laughing silently when they read how these clowns act on their userbase (that's my assumption not a claim).

I mean it's like Microsot is saying "you are not allowed to sell anything created with Access" while Access utter purpose is to create and eventually sell solutions. Without asking Microsoft "can i "

Just avoid clowns and that's it.

Regarding law abiding i am sure this is open for debate but KVR lawyers are also clowns (me included) so there you have it. My another guess is that someone with a lot of time and money could easily crash their stupid lame EULA in court.

Anyway...avoid

[fmr]

Besides, it contradicts THE LAW.

Which law does it, in your opinion, contradict?

I remember seeing publications telling explicitly that synth sounds (presets) cannot be copyrighted, only recordings and derived work. That's why ROMplers fall somehow in a "grey area" where things have been subject to discussion, but none got into court (at least not yet) and many labels (namely Korg and Yamaha) even don't forbid to use and distribute samples from presets made with their ROMplers.

But I guess you are right in that there is no written LAW forbidding them to exclude that in an EULA. But there isn't one allowing them to do that either.

Anyway, it's pretty much common sense. And it seems they are reasonable, when approached with reasonable requests.

[wagtunes]

What the EULA says is that you have to ask for a written permission. That's why you should contact them and ask to be on the safe side.
Copyright laws are different in different countries.

Tone2 synths have a pretty unique acoustic footprint. To prove that the sound comes from their product they could analyse the spectrum of the waveforms or wavetables. They could add info to the wav header. Or they could also encode watermarks to the wav files. Or they could hide strings in wav files .This is very easy. You could for example convert the audio data to 15 bit and use the lowest bit for adding a copyright string. This is inaudible for the human ear.
Since they developed the product they got the know-how for it.

So tell me, what drugs are you on?

If I load up a random wavetable in Icarus and play a note and record that note and then run that recording through 37 different FX and a granular synth, how the f**k on this good green earth are they gonna know that the raw sound came from THEIR synth?

Your comment is almost laughable.

[thecontrolcentre]

So tell me, what drugs are you on?

If I load up a random wavetable in Icarus and play a note and record that note and then run that recording through 37 different FX and a granular synth, how the f**k on this good green earth are they gonna know that the raw sound came from THEIR synth?

Your comment is almost laughable.

As is yours, considering you agreed to the Icarus EULA when you installed it.

[wagtunes]

So tell me, what drugs are you on?

If I load up a random wavetable in Icarus and play a note and record that note and then run that recording through 37 different FX and a granular synth, how the f**k on this good green earth are they gonna know that the raw sound came from THEIR synth?

Your comment is almost laughable.

As is yours, considering you agreed to the Icarus EULA when you installed it.

Well, like I said, let's see 'em try to prove it. We both know they can't. So what's the point?

[Examigan]

What's in the EULA contradicts the information given to Examigan.

No, it doesn't. It clearly says that you need permission from the developers, which Examigan asked for.

Besides, it contradicts THE LAW.

Which law does it, in your opinion, contradict?

I actually take back what I said earlier as I just heard from Markus himself on this. If you really want do anything like that, I'd suggest you get permission from the developers.

from EULA:
Sampling:
This product can be used for music production, making records, remixes, commercials, jingles, soundtracks for film, theatre, musicals and computer games. The included sounds and this product can not be used for making music or sounds that will be licensed or sold as library music, sound clips or other sample based products. You are not allowed to sample and distribute sounds or waveforms from this product without our written permission. Especially not for creating commercial content for other synthesizers, sample packs, romplers or audio devices.

[JoeCat]

...

from EULA:
Sampling:
This product can be used for music production, making records, remixes, commercials, jingles, soundtracks for film, theatre, musicals and computer games. The included sounds and this product can not be used for making music or sounds that will be licensed or sold as library music, sound clips or other sample based products. You are not allowed to sample and distribute sounds or waveforms from this product without our written permission. Especially not for creating commercial content for other synthesizers, sample packs, romplers or audio devices.

Library music? A lot of music for soundtracks, commercials, etc., comes from library music - full productions.

Seems questionable whether you could specify your synth (or guitar, etc.) could not be used for a specific type of music distribution system (which is different than, for example, sampling the synth and creating a rompler, etc.).

In any case, that's completely unenforceable. I'm not even sure what rights you can take away with a EULA. If I say "this drum machine may not be used for hip-hop distributed by Tidal" or "this microphone may not be used for conservative speeches", I'm not sure it matters if my customers agree to it.

Then again it's not just a legal matter - why put a restriction on a product that really won't impact sales or prevent piracy, just makes you look petty?

[EnGee]

So do I need their permission if I use their presets and make music? If I want to sell this music, I need their permission? Or if I want to make presets and sell them?

I don't think I need any permission for the above! Otherwise what the purpose of the money that I paid for the license?! It is a commercial product not an evaluation or demo!

I think they just want to protect their intellectual efforts, wavetables and samples from being used in other competitors synths or products.

[bmrzycki]

And where is the proof of this ? Just cos someone said something it became gospel on here.

It wasn't just "someone" that said so. Later in the same thread Bastiaan, an official Tone2 employee, admitted to the practice:

Only blacklisted Tone2 keys are removed, no additional scanning (certainly not deleting other software/banks/....)

That's all I needed to see to know it wasn't a fluke or an accident.

[Urs]

I think they just want to protect their intellectual efforts, wavetables and samples from being used in other competitors synths or products.

Absolutely. I don't even understand why this was ever a question.

Here's an analogy of what I want to do:

I have a photo that I have the copyright to. I open the photo in Photoshop and apply a bunch of filters. I save the photo as .tiff. Now I can do with that tiff whatever I want. I can upload it to Facebook. I can sell it on a stock photo platform. I can include it in my iPhone app. There is no single instance where I infringe Adobe's copyright, since the copyright was mine from the beginning to the end. Likewise, if I open a .wav file, a sample whatsoever, in any editor and save it again, I still retain the copyright from beginning to end. Hence there is no case to be made, since I never intended to use any other waveform because I never wanted to infringe on any other's copyright.

Furthermore, file formats are not subject to copyrights, unless patented (as freshly discussed with my lawyer who's specialized on copyright). Unless we see a patent on specific wave file formats, we can the f do whatever we want, as long as we retain the copyright on the original data.