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That said, I wouldn't sample a modern currently available sample based instrument and try to sell it as a VSTi.

Or e.g. Pianoteq or Roland FP-90X.

It just "has to be wrong" somehow.

And of course earlier above JoeT and MacMacMac said basically the same things:
- "By default copyright permits nothing, so everything you do with copyrighted material (samples) needs permission by the owner."
- "The samples may be copyright, but the EULAs explicitly permit free use of your performance on a digital piano or virtual instrument."

I don't really see a "technical" difference there assuming we get that permission when we buy/rent the instrument.

But has anyone ever seen a digital piano EULA?

hmm.. hope this clear this out...

Apple vs Some company..

Company buys old/non-functioning Mac laptops.

Company extracts the magnetic charger connector (plug and socket)

Company installs magcharger on their own devices.

Apple files case vs company.

Company loses case

No worries I don't, I read up on that. I would talk to a lawyer if it was really relevant to me, but if you look into license agreements, they usually are all in regard to underlying samples. If it
s not a sample then your recording is an original and not derivative work.

The key suite is also a rompler btw., fancy name for it and all, but it's essentially a sample player.

Then if a sample is recorded before 1988 and there was no explicit copyright, you may have the right to copy it.

I have an HP (Hewlett Packard) calculator emulator which uses legally the original HP microcode on some early models, but it lacks models released since HP did think it could be wise to copyright the microcode. Then no HP15C emulator.

Depends on the agreements between ringtone creator and sample creator. In practice we will usually see the sample creator asking only for a one time compensation, while the ringtone composer wants to earn from each copy.

Sadly Copyright law doesn't care about that either. If the source is copyrighted, the result is too. For example recording an MP3 to a steel wire will make it sound horrible and barely recognizable, but the steel wire will still be copyrighted, even when played back at a different speed. And the YouTube algorithm will make sure to catch that!

Sure, if digital pianos used steel wires or wax cylinders instead of electronics that wouldn't change anything. 😄 (Except they wouldn't be digital.)

So, it's all about the "EULA" or "permission" and all this technical talk is sort of pointless though maybe interesting.

And as for the magic year 1988 above: At least the Akai, Alesis, EMU and one Kurzweil sound module sampled by UVI are from the 90's.

Do Akai, Alesis, EMU and Kurzweil just not care? Or maybe the hardware comes with the magic "permission"(?)

If acoustic pianos will die away, as predicted in another thread, then all piano music will come from digital pianos, keyboards, or virtual instruments.

If performances on these are restricted by the instrument maker's copyright, then we'll have no piano music!

This seems impossible.

So the whole point is moot. Perform whatever music you want. The only copyright holder of interest is that of the composer, if his copyright still lives.

Let's define a few things:

1. Sound - comes out of the DP speakers resulting from pressing a single key/button resulting in one pitch or multiple keys/button resulting in a melody/music

2. Sample - a sound generated by the DP after pressing a single key for a specific key velocity or a key velocity range(lower resolution DPs). Note: Applicable only on sample based instuments.

3. Music - a series of sounds generated by the DP after pressing several keys in various sequence(s)

4. Modeled Sound - a sound generated by the DP, extrapolated from a sample by an onboard algorithm, for a specific key velocity. Note: Applicable only to model-based instruments..

All of this are simplified definition for the sake of copyright discussion and not technological precision.


Simple answer: The music (#3) you perform and then record, is not considered a violation of the intellectual property nor of any proprietary licenses of your DP manufacturer.

Long answer:

A sample (#2) is recording of an acoustic piano, mastered in a studio, by the DP maker. They own that sample. You are prohibited from using it separately from the DP and put into a different product(or VI)
.Much like buying new desktop, which came bundled with Win 10. You can definitely remove the hdd and put inside another desktop and run Win 10 inside. But the license is only for the original desktop.

The onboard algorithm of a model-based instrument, is also proprietary. And since a modeled-sound is from a proprietary sample extrapolated by a proprietary algorithm, that makes it also proprietary. This means you cannot make a recording of individual keys on this model-based instrument and use it on another instrument. Neither can you use the same individual recording to paste in your DAW to make music. (Like recording middle C, then G and A of the same octave, to make the first line of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on you DAW).

And now we also have to consider intent. If you intend to make a recording of the music you played on the DP, then you are using the proprietary samples on the DP as intended by the DP manufacturer. Besides , they do not own the copyright to the music your are playing. So if you intend to sell that recorded music, if it's still copyrighted, you will have to obtain permission to do so from the owners for the royalties.

In addition, there are a lot of sample libraries online that explicitly say you can modify, alter, use in another sample library , or incorporate in a VI for free provided that you release it back to the community also free of charge. The music you generated with this kind of VI, can, of course, still be sold provided the samples are usable,

Now what if you recorded A5 from your DP; then you designed an Arduino to play that recording every time someone rings the doorbell; then sold that doorbell system. Would you need a license to use that recording? The question you should ask is, do I need a proprietary-licensed sample for a doorbell or even a toy piano? No, I don't think so. You are simply courting danger. Your desktop's GM Midi will do for such purposes.

Item #2. That's not my definition of a sample. Instead, a sample is the sound from the acoustic piano source, recorded digitally, and saved.

Playback of that sample is sound. That's your item #1.

I have nothing to really add here, but I did want to say Rickard, welcome back! It's been a while.

2 sides to copyright law, the composition and the sound recording. So if you didn't write the music but do a cover version for example that sounds very different to the original it's still copyrighted for composition so you'll never own all rights to your version/recording...only the copyright to the sound recording.

To the op, just have a look on YouTube and you'll see absolutely no one cares about copyright, there are millions and millions of videos uploaded all the time that don't get permission/copyright cleared for use. That's why they created article 17, formally article 13.

hahaha, your got that right it was way back 2017

Sigh...

If you are pertaining to source of the sample, then you are right to say it is from a recording of the AP.
Now that's settled, what do you call the sound played back by a Sample-based Instrument after you pressed a key?
A sample!

Btw , I forgot to add that... #2 and #4 are both under #1

I don't see why the algorithm would have to "extrapolate from a sample". In theory e.g. Roland could have developed the algorithm just by listening to an acoustic piano and never record anything.

And if we don't know how it was done we don't know that any samples were used and we don't know that we should worry about any copyright.

Now of course the interesting question is when a recording stops being a recording. If the "algorithm" were to use FFT to convert the sound into a bunch of overtone sine waves and then play those back to create something resembling the original sound one could of course say that "it's just a recording technology like MP3".


And it uses proprietary samples.

On Windows it's the "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth". (Apparently Roland GS compatible in addition to General Midi Level 1.)

Yes, the Windows samples (c:\windows\system32\drivers\gm.dls) is copyrighted by Roland. You can open the file in the notepad and see many « Copyright 1996 Roland Corporation U.S. » comments.

Is there an EULA? 😉

And anyway, my nitpicking above wasn't to argue, but just to emphasize the "it's complicated" aspect of all this.

There is a EULA for the whole Microsoft distribution. But I don’t think it allows you explicitly to share music generated by these samples. And if it is not explicitly allowed, you can consider it to be disallowed.

What is tricky is that when you play a chord, you generate something which is not really a copy : it is a sum of multiple samples. If it is not a copy it is allowed. But when there is a single note, it is a copy.

It reminder me a French comedy TV program where in the day of a president election they displayed the mean of surveys of competing TV channels… with the comment : it costs less and it is more accurate !

I suppose there is no strict pass/no-pass criteria and it is up to the judge to decide when we should consider a copy.

What if you play a "One note Samba" style composition as a single finger right hand solo piano version and then extract one note from the recorded piece of music?

There's a rhytmic pattern in it, so it's "music".

😉

And then we talk about sampling a piece of recorded music, which is another topic, but in this case you own the copyright. Just route everything trough the copyright organizations if you are a registered artist in those.

If you create something from other contributions (mashup, medley or other blending processes), you can’t say you own the copyright, since it appears more like a contributive work.

If your « music » makes it to easy to rebuild a library, I guess you may have some issues with the original library owner.