Jeez, you guys even HEARD of the word copyright before now?
For a START off, your live venue you perform at FOR HIRE has a blanket license (usually) that allows you to perform copyrighted works. They pay a fee, per year, to the licensing societies. If they don't, then THEY are in violation. As are you, for performing it.
Secondly, my quote was from the Roland G70 manual. And, in all likelihood, you read other manuals, you will find something similar.
Thirdly, if you had BOTHERED to open up any of the Roland songs and styles from their Zips, you would see a copyright notice in them. Mind you, there's a LOT of copies of this stuff floating around, some of it with the copyright stripped out. This does NOT make THEM legal, though.
Lastly, it is not the job of all these companies to place indelible copyright information on these works, although many of them try, but the copyright bits can easily be stripped out (once again, just because a third party did this, it does NOT make them legal), it is the job of YOU, the consumer, to try and find out if a work is copyrighted if you did not buy it from the original seller. If you look at originals from Tune1000, Roland, Yamaha, and many, many other reputable makers of styles and SMF's of songs, you WILL find copyright information. They pay the licensing organizations for permission to make MIDI files from the pieces, and pass that information on to you.
James, that link to Steve Demming's post is NOT a 'computer says no' response, that's the word of the Product Representative of Yamaha US, after being told so from Yamaha's legal dept.. Ignore it at your own peril.
Just because a COPY of Ludcris' new album was made without the copyright information printed on it does NOT make it legal. Either to sell, or use. And this is what you are claiming for copyrighted SMF's and styles. Just because it is commonly done does NOT make it legal.
But if you think it DOES, James, would you mind me contacting someone that you have sold your sample libraries to, and getting them to send me copies (with any copyright information erased) of all your library, because I simply don't feel like paying you a penny..? That's OK, isn't it?
And AFG, better get set for a fight with James. He thinks he can copy your styles for free, if you decide to sell them. Apparently, sticking a copyright notice somewhere won't count as long as it is erased (or even there, as long as he chooses not to find it)...
I swear to God, the willful ignorance and deliberate lack of understanding on this topic shocks me. Doesn't ONE of you have any aspirations to make something in the music business? Because, if your puerile opinions about copyright is actually true, not one of you will ever make a penny. EVER...
Someone can copy it, sell it, give it away, distribute it world-wide, and there apparently isn't a damn thing you can do about it.
If this ignorance about the law wasn't so tragic, it would be funny...
Educate yourselves. Don't go around ASSUMING you know anything about it. You don't... If you decide that you don't want to take my word on the subject, go ask a lawyer in the field of entertainment and copyright law. Stop making things up just because it's the way you WANT them to be