I wonder....how would you go about copyrighting a style?

I would think you have to record it first. Record it, submit the recordings along with the fee, and have it registered (if you were interested in proving copyright infringement down the road).

So what would you record? Take a standard "whatever" style. You'd record the 4 or 8 or possibly 16 bars of sequence for the major, minor, and 7th chord groups. Maybe diminished and augmented too. You'd have 4 variations of those and then the fills, intros, and endings (of each variation). And you'd have to do a great job of defining originality for each of those sections (again to prove any infringement).

I always thought copyright was to protect "whole" pieces of intellectual property, not "snippets".

http://www.wisegeek.com/can-i-copyright-a-phrase.htm

If a manufacturer does copyright each and every style....that's a heck of a lot of work to go through. I would think they would be proud to show you their copyright on request (IMHO).

-mike