Not hard at all, actually. But it is going into endless argument territory because it necessitates either acknowledging, or refusing to acknowledge, the significance of the intention behind making sample libraries. One must also acknowledge, or, again, refuse to acknowledge, the extent to which one is "effectively recreating" any instrument by creating a sample library version of it.Acid Mitch wrote:I can't imagine how you could possibly argue that. Give it your best shot.Dewdman42 wrote: it could easily be argued that an analog instrument should not be sampled either.
Let's cut out the b.s. though and stop arguing about the law when it comes to the question of sampling any kind of instrument or, for that matter, any manufactured thing that makes sound.
We have no Star Trek replicator device so it's obviously inherently impossible to materially copy an instrument by any simple means. No one is literally recreating a Fazioli piano that costs as much as a house and distributing the actual piano on DVD.
So, therefore, it is not now and it may never be illegal to make a Fazioli sample library, as long as "Wondrous Italian (wink wink) Uber Piano" is used to identify it as opposed to the original name.
But that's really not the basis of the ethical question and the resultant long, hideous, often insulting argument threads that come out of that ethical question.
The basis of the ethical question is simply this: why is it perfectly fine to use the sound of the Faziloli in order to intentionally make a virtual Fazioli without the Fazioli company issuing any permission or getting any compensation if the virtual version of their original creation is distributed for profit by someone else?
Yes, obviously the virtual Fazioli is a set of recordings engineered into software, and obviously that's not wood, metal strings, varnish, etc.
But that's not the point of the ethical question. The point of the ethical question is that the absolute intention of creating the virtual Fazioli is to get as much of the Fazioli as possible into the virtual recreation, and that goes for live, on stage applications as well as studio applications. If that isn't the intention of the library developer, then either they are failing at their job or they are trying to create some kind of sound effects library.
So the ethical question persists: if the library developer is trying to use the Fazioli to get as close as possible to recreating the Fazioli as an instrument, NOT as a performance recording of a music piece, then why is it just perfectly ok for them to do that with impunity if Fazioli doesn't want them to?
Now, I want to make it perfectly clear that I'm not taking potshots at any developers or users of samples, since I use many myself and, as a home studio musician on a very tight budget, I would be very hard pressed to do without them.
If there is "guilt" inherently worked into the fabric of the whole culture of sample based music making, then I am as guilty as anyone else.
I'm just convinced this is not a simple issue that can be dismissed strictly because it isn't illegal, or talked away easily by drawing analogies to the free use of instruments for music recordings, etc. Making virtual instruments isn't the same as making music recordings. It's an entirely different process with an entirely different intention, goal, and ultimate effect, and it can't be lumped into the same category, regardless of whether it is or isn't treated differently under any existing laws.
but you get my point. It's much better to approach them with a profitable partnership than to play the "I won't be making any money distributing your ip" card.
