Hi Diki

I've actually paid for research to be done on this subject and in the end the solicitor couldn't provide me with one law that would be broken if I sampled another keyboard. Yet she could quote pages of information on what law would be broken if I sampled someone else's recorded works.

Ok so when I heard the words �recorded works� I said ok that's how the factory sounds are protected. She then corrected me and said no, not at all.

Where it all got confusing was the second you try apply the law to a musical instrument. You cannot copyright the sound a musical instrument produces and there is nothing left open for debate in that at all. It's a simple open and shut case. You can only copyright your programming that actually went into creating the factory data.

The argument presented by her was where do you think the keyboard manufactures get all their waveform data from in the first place and how is that any different from you sampling their keyboard she said.

It's a good argument actually.

If you were to reproduce the programming that went into creating the final sound, then your screwed but as we all know, sampling is does not reproduce anything other than the sound it hears, so your not reproducing anyone else's programming by sampling.

Now apply that to factory styles. Now you are in a situation where you are reproducing the actual programming or part of it. However the factory styles that come with your musical instrument come under a royalty free copyright statement which throws the law out of whack and makes it very hard for the developers to sue you of making copes if their data if you are not charging for it. .

So long as your not charging for the styles, then there has been no infringement of the royalty free licence because the data is still free.

Please note, none of what I've just said is a representation of my feelings or opinion on the subject. I'm purely only sharing the research I paid for and even though the answer I got was clear, I won't be tempting faith.

That said, in the history of Samplers and Style sharing, nobody has ever been done for doing it and by hell it goes on every day on a massive scale. So maybe the research is 100% correct.

Regards
James

[This message has been edited by Irishacts (edited 02-14-2010).]