Is Boom Bap legal?

[aciddose]

can you be sued for using it? no. can they be sued for selling it? maybe.

United States case-law disagrees with your statement here.

The correct answers are: Yes. Yes.

either way..its not "illegal".

Not entirely correct as copyright infringement in certain locales has become a criminal offense under certain conditions. We're talking in terms of yes, you could be subject to a SWAT raid, have all your equipment confiscated with potentially no recourse and be thrown in jail.

For the most part however you're correct, this isn't the same as assaulting someone.

[loachm]

For those who are interested in one of the most prominent cases in Germany search for "Kraftwerk vs Moses Pelham". This was the last really big decision overhere in Germany within the last years.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/d ... pling-case

...thanks for that source - I remember that case, as I found the judge's statement a bit peculiar.

...the judges said uncleared samples are permissible only "if the same effect could not have been produced by the new artist himself".

...one could argue then that if you don't have access to a vintage drum kit and the recording gear in James Brown's studio and you're not friends with Clyde Stubblefield, it's legal to sample "Funky Drummer". Don't think so. Anyway, it's just one judge's statement and not actual law...

Still, the battle is not quite over. The defendants' lawyer, Udo Kornmeier, said the supreme court decision might be a violation of article five of the German constitution, which governs freedom of expression, including the right for art to be "informed without hindrance from generally accessible sources".

...using art as a fallback position will probably only work in non-commercial circumstances, but it still doesn't free from a permission from the original creator. I think, it's OK to sample in non-commercial situations, but if the copyright holder asks to remove it, it should be respected. Generally, it's probably better trying to recreate stuff, because a) it's an opportunity to create something original again (i.e. inspired from) and b) considering what tools are at our disposal - how easy is it supposed to get?

[aciddose]

So for arguments sake:
(a) ... assuming it's not illegal to steal samples from old records and sell them, can we ... steal samples from this product and sell them, use them, whatever?
(b) If even the people who made the records are unable to copyright their own material, how can this '3rd party company' claim that ... "All Sounds and Samples are licensed as Royalty-Free for you to use in your commercial productions or even for DJ/Remix purposes."?

(a): The copyright on the samples belonging to the plugin author / other source is a recording copyright, while the original recording was a combination of various forms of copyright.

If you take the samples directly from the plugin without license, you will violate the copyright on the recordings much like you can't resell a photograph of a common landmark. The landmark isn't under copyright but the photograph, its particular angle, framing and other properties are.

You can however go and take your own photograph of the same landmark in your own way, just like you can sample the original source recording to create your own recordings which then have recording copyright assigned to you.

In the case the original content still maintains any of the original copyrights, this would make any recording a derivative and therefore your recording would be an unauthorized derivative, which would make any copyright you have on that recording invalid.

Beyond this point, this gets a bit hazy. Case-law here is still working itself out over the years.


(b): Since the recording is owned by those who made it, assuming that either the original content was public domain or they were licensed and therefore explicitly authorized to produce the recording it means the copyright for the recording belongs to them. In such a case in order for you to use the recording (place it in your music or otherwise) it requires a grant of license to you so that your own work is an authorized derivative of those recordings.

[loachm]

...OMG - I just saw the video of that Boom Bap Kit. Holy Sh#t!!! Such a product is exactly what I'm talking about. So many things wrong about it!! It's probably a pretty useless Maize player with ripped samples. Probably you're better off with that DopeVST thing, although it's the exact same thing, but with a nicer GUI. And I don't want to sound misogynistic - but does she really know about the things she's reading from the prompter??? And then that guy after that - they really know how to make professional promo videos - wow! It doesn't matter, if Boom Bap is legal or not (it's not!) - it's rubbish...

[bungle]

As usual a hundred arm chair lawyers give their opinion based on nothing much really lol
The reality is this, proof of completely unique generation would have to exist.
Example..
I sell a sample pack and one of the snares sounds like Funky Drummer.
The copyright holder now has to prove completely that it is totally impossible that i personally and totally accidentaly did not come up with that sound, which is after all impossible to prove.
A single note of a guitar or piano is not copyrightable, a single hit of a drum loop is not copyrightable, they are simply too common a sound to be copyrightable.

Now all the usual armchair lawyers can scream all they want, but the facts are the facts and that is why no case has ever existed where a single note or hit has been brought to court.

[aciddose]

No case you're aware of you mean?

I'm not going to actually link you to something you can do a simple web search on and find in two minutes.

[chaosWyrM]

can you be sued for using it? no. can they be sued for selling it? maybe.

United States case-law disagrees with your statement here.

The correct answers are: Yes. Yes.

either way..its not "illegal".

Not entirely correct as copyright infringement in certain locales has become a criminal offense under certain conditions. We're talking in terms of yes, you could be subject to a SWAT raid, have all your equipment confiscated with potentially no recourse and be thrown in jail.

For the most part however you're correct, this isn't the same as assaulting someone.

well...you can be sued for absolutely anything.

the correct answer is still no, maybe.

yes, copyright infringement can be a criminal offense under certain circumstances...but not under these circumstances for a user/buyer.

a user who bought this could only ever be subject to a civil case...and even that would be next to impossible. no swat team is showing up for a civil matter.

im not a lawyer. but my wife is...and shes the one who explained this to me. shes not just a normal everyday ambulance chaser lawyer either. shes is in house council/head of the legal department for a (rather large) law firm. that means shes the top lawyer in charge of making sure a bunch of other lawyers follow the law properly.

im fairly confident that she knows what shes talking about when she says that maybe the people selling it could get in trouble, but you cant really get in trouble for using it.

as she states it...(all paraphrased by me) criminal copyright infringement is generally reserved for people making profits from counterfeiting (and the like), or in very rare cases when the damaged party cant seek legal action on their own for some reason. in a criminal case there are several things which would need to proven by prosecutes (not just one thing), and those things dont generally apply to regular type people (i.e. the user).

copyright infringement (in the terms we generally use here) is relegated to civil suits, and good luck with one of those. a civil case would be almost impossible to win...it would be too difficult to even be worth the attempt.

so, can you be sued? sure...you can be sued for wearing a hat thats too big.

but in practical terms...no...you cant.

as my wife put it "if it were my client, not only would they not have to pay anything, but id file a counter suit and make the plaintiff pay them".

[aciddose]

As someone using this software, do you need to care?

No.

Not even the authors of this product need to care because it is so unlikely they could ever face serious consequences that it isn't worthwhile to invest the slightest amount of worry.

I'm only speaking from a true/false perspective here. Is it possible to be sued? Yes. Not maybe. If your only options are yes and no, and the answer is not no, that makes the answer yes. End of story.

[aciddose]

Check this out:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/08/16/ ... lic-domain

You can find numerous similar stories.

[Dasheesh]

What happens if you make samples of the samples?

Are the oscillator wave forms that so many of todays sofsynths use legal?

It depends on the lawyer and what they want to go after, and how they want to go after it. The law is on the lawyer's side. What ever side he/she gets paid to be on.

[Sendy]

You know what else is technically illegal? Cat pictures and memes. Do you own the picture of the cat you're adding text to? Do you own the rights to the fictional character you're making a reference to in your joke and posting an image of? Do you own the rights to "Happy Birthday"? No?

At one point in American history, the value of Pi was very nearly set to 3.2 and a process for "squaring the circle" copyrighted such that everyone (except the "inventor's" home state) would have to pay every time they used it. It nearly got through as well. And probably would have if it wasn't bunk. There's a Numberphile video on it on Youtube.

Oh yeah, and most of Youtube, technically illegal. It's pretty much how the site was initially designed and how it gained such popularity. At least 75% of the history of electronic music, essentially illegal also (mostly due to sampling and the genres that spawned from it).

Just work within your own ethics, don't do anything you wouldn't like done to you, don't do anything stupid whilst at the same time making tons of money, and you should be fine . Oh, and don't listen to me or anyone else here, either, becuase most of us don't know shit

[aciddose]

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33578180

[aciddose]

At one point in American history, the value of Pi was very nearly set to 3.2 and a process for "squaring the circle" copyrighted such that everyone (except the "inventor's" home state) would have to pay every time they used it.

Straw-man that doesn't even deserve a response.

This was shot down before coming anywhere near close to passing and the author of the bill was called out as a moron.

Speaking of morons, any moron should be able to find the evidence in a split second rather than simply making shit up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

[aciddose]

You know, I thought that in order to argue or debate someone you needed to use logic, reasoning and evidence.

I wasn't aware you could just make obviously false statements without pointing toward any evidence at all and then pat yourself on the back for having been so clever.

You guys are genius.

You know what, you should all study law. You'd clearly make brilliant lawyers and win every case!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense

[arkmabat]

Oh yeah, Michael Jackson owns happy birthday. How did that happen?!