can you recreate presets legally?

[Caine123]

hi guys,

recently i stumbled upon a comment on a tutorial video where someone makes some patches on youtube, there is no disclaimer or something that you may not recreate the presets he creates there and use them yourself. but i read that someone asked "may i use these presets commernally".

never heard that, only with samples but presets/sound design patches?

is this bullshit or is it really not permitted? if so you could just change a knob and then you have a different preset dont you ?

[vurt]

hi guys,

recently i stumbled upon a comment on a tutorial video where someone makes some patches on youtube, there is no disclaimer or something that you may not recreate the presets he creates there and use them yourself. but i read that someone asked "may i use these presets commernally".

never heard that, only with samples but presets/sound design patches?

is this bullshit or is it really not permitted? if so you could just change a knob and then you have a different preset dont you ?

no, its just one person who asked, im sure they were told, yes, thats what presets are for.

[Caine123]

hi guys,

recently i stumbled upon a comment on a tutorial video where someone makes some patches on youtube, there is no disclaimer or something that you may not recreate the presets he creates there and use them yourself. but i read that someone asked "may i use these presets commernally".

never heard that, only with samples but presets/sound design patches?

is this bullshit or is it really not permitted? if so you could just change a knob and then you have a different preset dont you ?

no, its just one person who asked, im sure they were told, yes, thats what presets are for.

thanks vurt, i had to read your reply a few times didnt quite get it. yeah so just to be clear.
i know that presets shipped and sold can (always?) be used also commercially. but if someone creates a preset in a tutorial video afaik he cannot copyright it, cause then he shouldnt show it in the video at all correct?

[whyterabbyt]

but if someone creates a preset in a tutorial video afaik he cannot copyright it, cause then he shouldnt show it in the video at all correct?

no, not even slightly.

[RunBeerRun]

Ya mi ah yo sung foo!

[BertKoor]

> someone asked "may i use these presets commernally"

There are several interesting issues here.

Firstly, I'd advocate for the term "program" or "patch". A preset is literally pre-set, short for "factory preset". If one knob is twisted, you no longer have the preset. Unless you store it. [/pedantic]

I envision this kind of video:

Hey wussup!? Last week I showed you my hooovah recreation. You liked it so much, thx for all the comments, keep 'em coming. This week we'll go hunting for that illuster Lately bass and how it's cooked up. Blablabla. Don't forget to subscribe!

This is education. He shows you the ropes. No way copying the moves of the knobs can be illegal.

If you see someone playing a MiniMoog and you can make out the pot positions from the video, power to you. Go grab it and play the same sound.

"Use commercially". How? In a song? What else to do with it? Nobody is obliged to give credits to what synths are used, let alone how the patches were sourced. If it cannot be enforced, then what... you lose right of passage to heaven? Maybe if it doesn't feel good, better don't do it. But you're dealing with instruments here. Use them for what they are made for. I read the smallprint: anything goes.

Another "commercial use" is to sell the preset. Rule of thumb: don't sell what's not yours.

And here it gets interesting: can a patch be considered "intellectual property"?

If it is based on an arp pattern / melody, or it's sample based: those certainly fall under copyright.
Patch names might fall under trade mark.
I don't think Eric Persig will be happy if you advertise with "his" patches. Especially if he did not make them.

Use your common sense. For crying out loud

[vurt]

Ya mi ah yo sung foo!

exactly.

[aciddose]

Generally we go by United States case-law on this subject, and, to my knowledge no case has explicitly defined that a "preset configuration for an audio-synthesizer" is eligible for copyright protection. What is eligible is a recording (sample.) There is a requirement in copyright law that protection is granted only upon a creative effort to produce something original. Only very specific works are actually protected and are listed explicitly. One of those is an audio recording. None of those are "factual information" such as the heights of mountains, telephone numbers or similar. What grants factual information eligibility for protection is sufficient creativity and originality. In other words, a telephone book is protected if the particular arrangement of numbers is made by creative choice of the author rather than alphabetically or numerically sequenced. Other creative choices such as the color of borders, artistic designs and aspects not directly related to facts but added entirely by option of the author are protected.

In order to copy a telephone index you need to remove all creative elements and copy only the factual information. This is also what allows "cleanroom reversing" in software, where rather than copying protected program code a 3rd party can strip out all the creative elements then another party can document this stripped code showing only the essential, minimal elements that can not be added or removed by choice. This documentation is then delivered to the programmers who write a unique program that works identically but has entirely unique creative elements and choices - because the functional, factual elements are not protected - only the creative ones are eligible for protection.

So: are synthesizer presets protected? Yes, they've made many creative choices in producing that particular file or data and yes it is under copyright protection. Is the resulting sound protected if not recorded? No, you can duplicate the preset on another synthesizer by making your own choices to approximate the sound and there is no legal limit to this.

Going further: What if I hear a sound in a song by an artist, can I reproduce the same sound in my own music? That's a complex subject. That comes down to a court "test" I can't recall the name of. If a typical ordinary person aware of the same music would determine that your sound was the same sound rather than merely alike (another piano versus a very unique "tinkling" piano with bells and foil on the strings) then it is in violation. So it comes down to how unique that sound is and how often it appears elsewhere. Once a sound is not the only example ("The Satisfaction Saw") but rather ("a dub-step wubwub sound") then it is no longer likely to be protected.

Example case-law includes a case I also can't remember or trouble myself to look up where a particular guitar chord was "sampled" from another song to be reused, if I recall correctly. Since this was obviously a direct copy of the very unique guitar chord and not merely just another guitar playing the same chord, they lost and were found in violation for using that, although it wasn't taken from the original record it was reproduced to be unique and as close as possible. Many other sampling cases exist where the original was sampled directly.

There is so much copyright case-law and it gets so hairy past 2000 or so it's just crazy to keep track of it. Recently (2010s - 2020s) they've been saying "yes, normally you'd get away with that but this time you won't, you're guilty." This has greatly confused a lot of what were thought to be simple issues. Ultimately if you do anything that you could be caught, and if you intend to specifically duplicate something, that makes your action sketchy and potentially in violation of copyright protection.