Kronos Sample banks website

[michelkeijzers]

Is it that the sample banks are illegal or not? Because I also cannot find them in the KF download section ... and I had very little time last days so haven't downloaded them from Mathieu's website

[75631]

That's very sad to read...

[Sharp]

Is it that the sample banks are illegal or not? Because I also cannot find them in the KF download section ... and I had very little time last days so haven't downloaded them from Mathieu's website

Only what SynthKeyWizard has created is very likely to be illegal.
His London Choir and Boys Choir are most certainly sounds from the AKAI Disks Symphony of Voices. I can only assume he used the same process of sampling on his other sounds, which would mean there's an issue with them too.

I don't believe this was intentional. I think SynthKeyWizard has simply a wrong understanding of copyright law on sampling.

Regards
Sharp.

[apex]

Is it that the sample banks are illegal or not? Because I also cannot find them in the KF download section ... and I had very little time last days so haven't downloaded them from Mathieu's website

Only what SynthKeyWizard has created is very likely to be illegal.
His London Choir and Boys Choir are most certainly sounds from the AKAI Disks Symphony of Voices. I can only assume he used the same process of sampling on his other sounds, which would mean there's an issue with them too.

I don't believe this was intentional. I think SynthKeyWizard has simply a wrong understanding of copyright law on sampling.

Regards
Sharp.

why is it illegal?

honestly... I can see this streaming stuff opening the door for alot of sampling and sharing of stuff you own... pandora's box....

gonna be VERY VERY hard to police it too... considering the gray area.

resample with a little different eq or just a subtle change... and it's no longer the same...

or is it? wow. did Korg put anything in their ULA about people doing that kind of stuff?

[burningbusch]

why is it illegal?

honestly... I can see this streaming stuff opening the door for alot of sampling and sharing of stuff you own... pandora's box....

gonna be VERY VERY hard to police it too... considering the gray area.

resample with a little different eq or just a subtle change... and it's no longer the same...

or is it? wow. did Korg put anything in their ULA about people doing that kind of stuff?

Apex, it's not grey at all. Look at any license agreement. This is from Symphony of Voices: "...the sounds and samples are licensed, not sold, to you by Spectrasonics..." "The license to use this product is granted for a single user only. You cannot resell the product used to someone else because this is a non-transferable license. You cannot electronically transfer or post these samples to another person or group of of persons over the Internet or place them in a computer/sampler network to be accessed by multiple users."

"Spectrasonics constantly monitors other Soundware releases to check for copyright infringements, and will prosecute all piracy and copyright violations to the fullest extent of the law."

Changing a sample set slightly (or massively) doesn't change anything. The underlying sound source is a RECORDING and these recordings can be fully protected under copyright law. If I change the EQ on a recording of "A Hard Days Night", is it suddenly mine?

Busch.

[apex]

why is it illegal?

honestly... I can see this streaming stuff opening the door for alot of sampling and sharing of stuff you own... pandora's box....

gonna be VERY VERY hard to police it too... considering the gray area.

resample with a little different eq or just a subtle change... and it's no longer the same...

or is it? wow. did Korg put anything in their ULA about people doing that kind of stuff?

Apex, it's not grey at all. Look at any license agreement. This is from Symphony of Voices: "...the sounds and samples are licensed, not sold, to you by Spectrasonics..." "The license to use this product is granted for a single user only. You cannot resell the product used to someone else because this is a non-transferable license. You cannot electronically transfer or post these samples to another person or group of of persons over the Internet or place them in a computer/sampler network to be accessed by multiple users."

"Spectrasonics constantly monitors other Soundware releases to check for copyright infringements, and will prosecute all piracy and copyright violations to the fullest extent of the law."

Changing a sample set slightly (or massively) doesn't change anything. The underlying sound source is a RECORDING and these recordings can be fully protected under copyright law. If I change the EQ on a recording of "A Hard Days Night", is it suddenly mine?

Busch.

Busch you are correct, it would not be yours. But at the same rate, a recording of "A Hard Days Night" does not JUST consist of a sound. There are lyrics, chord progressions, and a melody that is also copywritten...

Right?

But if you record a piano sample of a yamaha piano... who owns the right to the sound? and if you record that sound and then sell it as your own sample then great no harm done. But then if I re-record your recording and say add something to it while it records... like another pitch, or another voice is there harm done in that? or if I run your recording through an effect of some sort and then record the result... is that stealing too?

I'm not saying a straight copy is ok to do. I'm saying at what point is a "re-record" ok.... ?

[burningbusch]

Look up info about copyright. Yes, you can copyright a song as has been traditionally done. BUT you can also copyright SOUND RECORDINGS. That's what I'm talking about. That's why re-sampling a digital keyboard which derives its sound from recordings in ROM is very different from an analog synthesizer or Rhodes piano. The sound emitted from the analog instrument has no protection under copyright law--it is not a recording.

Busch.

[burningbusch]

Look at it this way. Photography is much like sound recording. I can take a picture of a bird or I can record a bird singing. Both of these can be copyrighted.

Busch.

[BasariStudios]

Changing a sample set slightly (or massively) doesn't change anything. The underlying sound source is a RECORDING and these recordings can be fully protected under copyright law. If I change the EQ on a recording of "A Hard Days Night", is it suddenly mine?

You are right and also not right...i can take a Sound from Omnisphere for
example and rework the hell out of it, i am not taling about EQ only, what
if i run that Sound thru MS20, STR-1 or MOD7? Add destructive FX such as
distortions and others...can someone actually prove where that came from?
There would be nothing left to that sample for someone to claim ownership.

This s**t will never end...nobody understands it...

Yamaha created a Piano...Best Service Sampled it and sold it to Native Instruments...
i bought the Kontakt Version...resampled it and brought it to Kronos...
Apex took it and shared it for M3...who broke the law on this tree?

Yamaha owns the actual Piano...is Best Service in trouble now or NI who
bought the license from them to sell it? Who gave the License to Best Service...
Didnt i pay to NI so i dont have any rights on it? Its all messed up.

But i believe in one thing, if i take a Sound and completely change it then
the original then by law i brake it but noone can prove it.

What about Korg's internal ROM? I sell Sets which are based on Internal
ROM...i paid for this machine 3000$, Korg can stop me from doing that?
But there is a catch to it. I sell internal Set but from Kronos to Kronos users.
I do not sample them...i edit them and resell them...they sound nothing like original.

And this s**t goes ON and ON...I took a Sound from illegal Omnisphere,
ran it thru illegal Amplitube...then did some work on illegal Waves...
WTF???
...and here you have it on Kronos sold to you...noone in the world can
recognize where it comes from or what was it done with...

The only thing left in here i guess would be ones own Moral and Self Conscience.

[apex]

What about Korg's internal ROM? I sell Sets which are based on Internal
ROM...i paid for this machine 3000$, Korg can stop me from doing that?

now this brings about an outstanding point... a person doesn't sample the data, but just edits it to make it sound better and then sells it is that wrong?

they don't "own" the sounds, but yet and still they could sell them?

I could take all the pianos in the kronos and change the effects and then call the .pcg "Modded Piano Effects".... guys would be a fool to buy them... but at the same time... would that be "illegal"?

This is so weird.... all that and I'm working on a commercial sample set right now.

Please Lord Have Mercy on Me. .... (I'm just trying to get it all correct)

[Ojustaboo]

Interesting discussion and one I suspect that most of us will have differing opinions as to what's morally or legally acceptable.

Would be interesting to take a copyrighted sound and then have about thirty different sounds made from that sound, each one less like the original than the last one, then get people to say at what point they feel it's no longer piracy. Maybe ending up using a few slices of the sample in a granular synth.

If I buy a sound library and simply copy it and sell it,then obviously that's piracy.

But if I use those sounds I brought to make a no one chart hit that makes me a load of money, I have made a very good profit out of sounds someone else created.

It could be argued that if I did that, the company that made the sound would get publicity and further sales, so let's take it a step further.

I buy a sample sound set, I then use these samples to create my own sounds. Sounds that while completely different to the original, sounds I couldn't possibly create out of thin air, in other words, I would have needed the original to end up with the sound I have now (hope that makes sense).

I create the music for a blockbuster movie using these sounds I made from the sampled sounds I purchased. The sound track to the movie is sold and is a huge success.

I want to give away the sounds I used to make this movie, but to do so would mean including some parts of the original copyrighted sound library.

Roll on 10 years and a large sound software producer (not the company I brought the original samples from) releases a large software package and buried in it somewhere is something that sounds 99.9999% the same as the sound I created from the sample pack I brought for the movie (as close as synthkeywizards boys choir is to the original) and the name they've called the sound, while not the same, is obvious they called it something similar so your not in any doubt they are referring to the film soundtrack sound.

Someone modifies that sample slightly and posts it on a forum such as this one. The software producer asks for it to be removed as they own the copyright.

And it only gets more complicated from here

[mathieumaes]

Based on the currently known facts I have deleted SynthKeyWizard's libraries. They are obviously illegal.

As per Sharp's request, I have also deleted the orchestral library and won't be uploading the Superwave library.

[DocBambs]

Using other peoples copyright source material can seem like a really grey area and because of the nature of sound as it often seems to not have the "solidity" of other copyrighted materials - you might quote a book, but you wouldn't blatantly copy the characters and storyline.

For sampled data I would say the question is "could you have created your item without the original sample?"

Let's try it with a picture...



The original is at A1. At what point does copyright not apply? B2 perhaps, or C4. When you get to C6 the original image is unrecognisable because of the amount of processing on the image... BUT it isn't possible without the original: It still required me to set up the original photo shoot, employ my lighting specialist, makeup artist, pay the fee for the life model, etc etc. Therefore, it's still copyrighted. If you take a piano sample from a copyrighted library and do a "C6" to it, I believe it's still covered by copyright.

I think sounds 'created' with tools/instruments such as Omnisphere fall outside of this copyright because if you can't use sounds that have been created with it, then there is no point the product existing - perhaps someone can confirm from the software license wording: here's my picture demo of that!



Those were both created using a "plasma fill" function - I defined the parameters, not the creator of the software, so I can do with the image what I like. I think that just because someone else also managed to produce an almost identical image, they don't automatically (because of the way it was created) have a right to protect it. As per usual, it's not quite that simple because you can suddenly end up in IP or patent law with this.

My advice: Always assume the "worst case" with samples.

As an aside - there are countries in the world where the copyright laws are either different or don't exist and you could host the data on web servers there quite legally. However, a couple of recent cases in the UK have shown that the owners of a website linking to sites hosting illegal content can now be prosecuted - Sharp MUST continue his strict approach on this.

DB

[.Jens]

The original is at A1. At what point does copyright not apply?

It's quite simple: copyright applies in all of these cases. You made all pictures by the use of a copyrighted picture.
If you add some own artistic content by modifying the picture, you might also yield additional copyrights regarding your modification. But still the copyright holder of the original has the right to prohibit the distribuition, because his copyright is still affected.

That is quite simple.

The only point where it becomes "gray" is that it will be difficult to impossible to definitely verify that a certain original has been used - in a lawsuit for example. If one takes a clean guitar sample and redistributes a heavily distorted and processed version of it - that would still be illegal, but if there's no claimant, there's no judge, because no-one will be able to tell, which original sample has been used, unless they search your rooms for evidence.

[DocBambs]

If you add some own artistic content by modifying the picture, you might also yield additional copyrights regarding your modification. But still the copyright holder of the original has the right to prohibit the distribuition, because his copyright is still affected.

Interesting. In the case of modification, can I credit the original copyright holder? Album covers often list libraries among the "instruments" used in the making of albums, so that suggests there are some approaches available.

DB