Legality of distributing sampled synths

[gambaytheunspoken]

Intellectual property restrictions are pretty tight, but in the musical arena it's always amplified somewhat because of the kind of money involved. But think about this, how many times have you borrowed a book from a friend? Read the fine print on the second page, no lending or borrowing allowed. Used book stores are not supposed to be in business, but they are because they flout the law all the time and at every corner and they are neither cracked down on nor investigated nor are they raided. Libraries now pay a royalty fee each time someone borrows a book or a cd or a dvd. Something in the area of five cents per use. Photocopies of articles and photographs, not allowed. To do do this sort of thing you really have to move to China. In all honesty, companies weigh the pros and cons in pursuing copyright infringements. Noodle around some of those dark musical sites on the internet and have a look at the ads: I've seen ads for Yamaha, Native Instruments, Steinberg and Sony. These companies know what's up and yet they're trying to cash in on it.

Ciao!

[Genetic_Junk]

double

edit: might as well use it. Here's an old excerpt from an authoritative figure on copyright. In Defense of Piracy. Of course it doesn't advocate piracy, but is an argument for why current copyright should be changed.

[sorohanro]

Books and CDs, not very different.
I've seen many times people selling their old CD collections in market places. You sell the physical object, not the intellectual rights.

Same for books, if you sell an old book as an object, it's fine. If you reprint it without permission, you're making something illegal.
More to that, if you take content of a book and change stuff, then re publish it with your name as author, you're making something illegal again.

[synaesthesia]

Intellectual property restrictions are pretty tight, but in the musical arena it's always amplified somewhat because of the kind of money involved. But think about this, how many times have you borrowed a book from a friend? etc.

Was gonna respond but Mihai got there first and pretty much nailed it.

If you don't grab the difference between a book and an unauthorised copy of a book, then a further discussion of copyright's not going to go well.

[whyterabbyt]

double

edit: might as well use it. Here's an old excerpt from an authoritative figure on copyright. In Defense of Piracy. Of course it doesn't advocate piracy, but is an argument for why current copyright should be changed.

The only problem with that article is that the actual case is an example of why copyright need not be changed.

The actual case, (which is actually somewhat disingenously misrepresented in the article, as it talks about 'Ms Lenz's trial' as though she was taken to court) basically goes like this:

woman posts video on youtube
record company issue DMCA takedown notice to youtube for infringement
woman sues record company arguing that its not infringement, on the basis of 'fair use', as enshrined in copyright law
woman wins case

[sorohanro]

Told you the solution:

People should never ever have intellectual property rights. Whatever you do, if you want to make it into a commercial product to support your life, should be taken from you and released as public domain.

[Genetic_Junk]

double

edit: might as well use it. Here's an old excerpt from an authoritative figure on copyright. In Defense of Piracy. Of course it doesn't advocate piracy, but is an argument for why current copyright should be changed.

The only problem with that article is that the actual case is an example of why copyright need not be changed.

The actual case, (which is actually somewhat disingenously misrepresented in the article, as it talks about 'Ms Lenz's trial' as though she was taken to court) basically goes like this:

woman posts video on youtube
record company issue DMCA takedown notice to youtube for infringement
woman sues record company arguing that its not infringement, on the basis of 'fair use', as enshrined in copyright law
woman wins case

The rhetoric of the piece is certainly colored favorably for Lenz. I don't have a hard time believing it misrepresents the case. But I don't see why the case is an example for why it shouldn't be changed.

The argument (at least the one that persuades me) for why it should be changed rests upon an intuition that incidental music in the background of a family video which was not being used commercially should not give the owner of the music the legal ability to control the distribution and reproduction of the video. I don't think this one case shows the law should be changed but rather the current law can be easily abused.

[sorohanro]

double

edit: might as well use it. Here's an old excerpt from an authoritative figure on copyright. In Defense of Piracy. Of course it doesn't advocate piracy, but is an argument for why current copyright should be changed.

Actually:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued Universal on behalf of Lenz in 2008, arguing that the music company's lawyers should have taken a moment to consider whether Lenz had a fair-use right to post the clip before firing off a takedown notice to YouTube. YouTube removed the video, but restored it six weeks later when Lenz filed a counternotice.

and more to that:

In the most recent action, Judge Fogel ruled that Ms Lenz can recover some level of damages. Quite reasonably, the EFF asked for damages to make real a deterrent for copyright holders who abuse the takedown process of the DMCA.

But how about if Lentz wouldn't have a baby dancing but a strip show with 20 dancers and sell DVDs ?
Or me with my band miming on top of Prince's music and pretend that is my band playing live?
And that's the situation with samples re-sampled and re-re sampled and redistributed. Those are not re-sampled to put a 13 months old baby to dance, those are re-sampled to be presented as "MY OWN library", get it ?

[Genetic_Junk]

I believe what you are pointing out is exactly the purpose of the fair use doctrine.

[whyterabbyt]

I don't see why the case is an example for why it shouldn't be changed.

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I don't think this one case shows the law should be changed

okay, im confused now.

[synaesthesia]

Seriously, if someone creates any work of art, shouldn't they have a say in how it is used?

Ms Lentz video might not have been a family one. Or even if it was it might have included, for example, racist views - God knows there's enough of that on YouTube.

Should the creator of the art be forced to adjudicate on every use of their work? No, that's why the law has to be designed to have wider parameters. Yes, there'll be cases where it seems unfair to take down videos, websites, and the like, but people seem to be completely losing sight of the fact that if someone owns a work of art (be it music or whatever) they have the right to protect its use.

[Genetic_Junk]

I don't see why the case is an example for why it shouldn't be changed.

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I don't think this one case shows the law should be changed

okay, im confused now.

Actually I didn't understand what you were saying. You think the case shows that the system works. Universal overstepped and fair use put it back into equilibrium.

What I meant was the case didn't demonstrate the opposite of what it intended. I think the conclusion shouldn't be the opposite, but should be toned down. It is too strong. It is not a defense of piracy; it is an example of a copyright holder trying too hard to protect their copyright and getting a slap on the wrist. But this doesn't necessarily mean the system works as well as it could. The transaction costs in working out the dispute could have been lower. This could be remedied by the law, but there could be other solutions. Hence this one case doesn't show the law should be changed.

[hollowsun]

Here's an old excerpt from an authoritative figure on copyright. In Defense of Piracy.

I don't think that is an indication of the failings or otherwise of copyright law but says more about the pedantic petty mindedness of the Universal Music Group and, perhaps, Prince's paranoia (he is known for a zero tolerance on the most innocuous of usage of his copyright and he won't even release stuff on iTunes as I understand it).

This is not a 'typical' case or precedent for wholesale changes to international copyright laws - just a silly incident that should have been thrown out of court.

On the other hand, if Mrs Lenz wanted to just share the vid with family members as the author suggests, she could have flagged it for restricted viewing when she uploaded the video so only they could see it. This would have circumvented the problem before it even arose.

[Genetic_Junk]

I think that's pretty much my assessment too. If there were tons of cases like this one, then it would be a good indication that copyright law needs to changed somehow. But this one case doesn't.

I didn't mean I agreed with the author's arguments. Just throwing up a piece with a controversial/ad selling title by a stanford law professor.

edit: I suppose the author would say it is happening on large scale just not with cutesy family home videos.

He seems to think there is a lot value to remixes. But then the question comes back to how much of transformation of the original do you have to make for a remix to yours or at least jointly owned. The other question is how would that affect the incentive to create "original" art. Because the point of copyright is to create an incentive for artistic creation for the eventual public benefit, the definition of remix would have to written to not deter original artistic creation. Alternatively or additionally an automatic royalty system could be created.

[ghettosynth]

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