Hello........I have posted 13+ volumes of Charley's "Gems" styles at PSR Tutorial and Yahoo Groups over the past 3 years. I have never claimed them as mine, only taking credit for tweaking them. MidiSpot, in NO kind words, has claimed that many of these are their copyrighted styles and must be removed. They also "hinted" that I have intentionally removed copyright info from the styles. Joe Waters has removed all the styles from his site, and I will remove all other posts this weekend.
I'm not quite sure how to respond, if at all, as examination of actual MidiSpot styles shows no copyright info at all in them. I have no doubts that most of the conversions and editing I have done were all from styles that were/are copyrighted. How can I continue to share the styles I tweak without getting me or anyone else in trouble? Maybe I'll just take my PSR3000, computer, and crawl under a rock................-charley

Charley,
Styles have no copyright because they can't have copyright.
You cannot claim copyright on rumba-tango-beat4-beat16-reggae2 etc.......
The dutch copyright is one of the toughest worldwide and the organisation involved called BUMA/STEMRA confirmed this to me a couple of years ago when we had this discussion.
It's complete nonsens.
They would not have scared me off and I would be delighted to go to court with these assholes.
Following their claims you could in fact say that they are using worldwide recognisable standards and then claim that they are their's. Hence they breach copyright themselves.

Freddy's right, they cannot copyright the styles. Don't let them bully you. If styles were copyrighted then other keyboard makers would be running into legal issues by allowing their keyboards to convert styles, and evening taking it further by writing in the manuals what keyboards makers styles are compatable with the style conversion. Tweek all you want man and if they give you hell, well you know the rest

Squeak

My advice, share with your email buddies. Midispot just wants to protect their hard work. They do have a copyright of the styles - not songs made from the styles, but the styles themselves.

Your Gems are great. Just be more discreet in sharing them.

Beakybird

Hi guys.

They can indeed copyright the styles based on the fact that created all the data, not you.

Just because you buy and modify their programming does not make it yours. Same rule applies to everything.

If you did not create it, then you have no right to upload it unless it states clearly that the data is copyright free.

Regards.
James.


[This message has been edited by James Tubbritt (edited 02-26-2005).]

Exactly. Not a whole lot different than hosting a warez link to commercial software. It's a commercial product, that they want to sell.

It would be the equivalent of me modifying a few of the samples in my Sonic Implants soundfonts ( commercial ), and then posting them.

AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 02-26-2005).]

Hi.

I've converted styles for a long time to share with other users,
but never use any of the styles sold sperately as "addons" or from
i.e. MidiSpot or other creators / manufacturers who sell this sort
of stuff.
But at my site I only use the "onboard" styles, regardless what brand,
who I look at as free to use to whatever we like.
I respect the quality work MidiSpot and others do very high, and if we
start spread this around, why should they bother to make new and even
better stuff?

Regarding the copyright issue, I'm not quite sure about it, but I seem
to remember this has been a topic here and at other forums earlier on.
I think what the discussions ended up in, is that it is different for
the styles already in the keyboard and the commercial made and sold
separately.
Also I think that's why Yamaha only claimed the styles from the Disk
Collection that also are for sale removed from the Yahoo groups, while
the rest still are to find.

GJ

Gunnar is absolutely correct...When we buy a Yamaha ,Roland etc ..we purchased the right to do what we want with the styles[I don't think we have the right to resale them]..Third party companies creating styles for profit have the right to protect their interest....and like Gunnar said..If we don't support the developers of the software we use...then they can disapear...It has happened in the past and we need to be aware of the developers rights..

Since this post started I have received several MidiSpot style files via email. The people who sent them, as well as myself, wish to know how they are identified or copyrighted. I have analyzed them thru sequencer programs as well as style editors and cannot see anything as an identifier. Yamaha, Korg, and Roland styles are clearly identified. Why wouldn't one identify their styles clearly? Also........some of these styles sound as though they were tweaked Tyros styles.................hmmmmmm??

Hi,

I have a friend who's pretty high up at Yamaha in London and asked him once if the styles that come on the arrangers are copyrighted. I was using them, along with the styles in XGWorks for my own compositions and sending them out to record labels. His response was that no, they are not, and you can do whatever you like with them!

Of course this doesn't mean that MidiSpot would feel the same way!

Carrie