Hi everybody…

This file includes 4 E-Pianos.

Filesize: ~132 MB (extracted) / ~46 MB (packed)
LINK DELETED

pass: motifator.com

have fun ;)

Roland either worked hard or paid a lot of money to use those samples in their keyboards. Unless you have their permission to give them away for free, please delete the link you posted (and the link in your other thread).

Or admins please delete it. Even legitimate sound designers are not to advertise their work here unless they sell in the motifator.com Shop. Certainly soundware pirates should not be allowed to create threads like this.

Ksounds? Link is deleted!

Is it allowed to convert Samples and Patches which are available 4 free
@ http://www.rolandclan.info/de/samples/index/ & http://forums.rolandclan.info/ ?

If the creator of the original samples (the person who sampled an actual Rhodes or a real grand piano) gave them away for free and allows others to do the same, then I personally don’t see a problem with you making them available for free in a new format. However, from your original posts (before they were edited), it seemed like you sampled the Fantom ROM and were “giving” those samples away. That’s soundware piracy (stealing) because you don’t own the rights to the samples inside the Fantom, and its very unlikely Roland gave you permission to give their costly samples away for free.

If the piano samples in your other thread are resampled from Fantom factory sounds (patches or samples), please delete the link there as well.

ZR

I’m kinda confused by all this sound-piracy stuff. What is and what isn’t allowed?

It seems ok to sample a $200.000 USD grand piano and sell the samples.
It seems ok to sample a violin, flute or any real instrument and sell the samples.
It also seems ok to sample a Rhodes, Wurly, Hammond or for example a CP70/CP80 and use it in a sound library. The same way it seems ok to take samples from an anologe synth.

Though, when you sample a voice created with an instrument which uses a sample as source, it all of a sudden is sound-piracy. Though, it is ok to use these patches on commercial recordings.

I have searched through a couple of Yamaha and Roland manuals, but nowhere I can find anything on the use of samples from the synths. (checked for example the DX7, Fantom XR, Juno 2 and JD800 manuals). In the manuals accompanying the Roland extension cards on they other hand, are specific license agreements on use of samples.

And it get’s even more confusing with a Roland JD800, which combines analoge and digital sample based synthesis.

So what can and can’t be done? Could anyone enlighten this please?

Confused? Steal from the poor!

;JOOP!

Who’s talking about stealing? Just exploring still what point it’s legal and why it’s no problem sampling an analoge synth, but sampling patches from a digital synth all of a sudden is ‘stealing’. There is no way you can actually ‘steal’ the samples from for example a Fantom XR without reverse engineering or dumping the ROMs.

I actually do not see the difference between sampling a patch from a Fantom X, a Yamaha CP70 a Juno or an Oberheim. In neither case you are stealing samples.

Just to avoid confusion: I’m not looking for ways to steal. I seriously would like to know how this all works legally as I have quit some vintage synths which I have sampled for own use and would like to know what can and can’t be used in libraries, either commercial or free. These vintage synth will most likely die some day as they are getting quite old.

eagle007 - 29 August 2009 07:29 AM

Who’s talking about stealing? Just exploring still what point it’s legal and why it’s no problem sampling an analoge synth, but sampling patches from a digital synth all of a sudden is ‘stealing’. There is no way you can actually ‘steal’ the samples from for example a Fantom XR without reverse engineering or dumping the ROMs.

I actually do not see the difference between sampling a patch from a Fantom X, a Yamaha CP70 a Juno or an Oberheim. In neither case you are stealing samples.

Just to avoid confusion: I’m not looking for ways to steal. I seriously would like to know how this all works legally as I have quit some vintage synths which I have sampled for own use and would like to know what can and can’t be used in libraries, either commercial or free. These vintage synth will most likely die some day as they are getting quite old.

Here’s how it works.

A “sample” is technically an audio recording, and the copyright to that
audio recording belongs to the entity (person or company) that recorded
it. If someone “samples” a sample-based sound and then distributes that,
it “can” be construed as infringement of copyright.

An analog synth, on the other hand, does not produce sound from recordings.
Its sound comes from circuitry - no recording involved. Therefore, when you “sample” an Oberheim or a Prophet, you are not infringing on anyone’s recording copyright.

What does this mean in the real world? It means that if someone samples a workstation and then SELLS those samples in a package, they can be sued by the manufacurer of the workstation. Roland actually brought
a copyright infringement issue to court years ago, I believe.

Do sample CD’s of loops, beats, and textures employ samples of other
prdocuts, even the ones that use “samples”, such as an Akai MPC? Of course they do. But hiring lawyers to go after the producers of these
CD’s is both a waste of time and money, and the ikelihood of collecting
large sums of money from it is very very low. Artists and companies only go after people they can reasonably expect to collect from. In other words, no one really bothers with it.

What does this mean in the real world for you? Probably nothing. Unless
you’re planning to start a soundware company as big as Sonic Reality or
Big Fish Audio, I’d say you can go ahead and sample what you want.
You don’t have a big distribution system, you’re not taking Pay Pal
payments or credit card transactions - your endeavor is a teeny tiny speck in the world of music and recording, essentially it is insignificant.

What does concern me and other professional sound designers here is that
the quality of programming, and often the samnpling, for these “free” sample sets is usually bad to atrocious. And, it tends to blur the distinction between these free soundsets and what is available for purchase. The professional sound libraries available at the motifator shop are the result of a lot of hard work and attention to detail. And if you bother to check it, you’ll see there is nothing in the shop that
includes “samples” of other workstations.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your enlightening post. I actually bought quite a lot of the libraries from the shop, including of few of your work. I’ve no intentions to create free sets and distribute them to compete with the work from professional designers.

Might I release some set in the future, it will not be before I’m absolutely sure it adds something and it’s quality is more than average. This might never happen, though I’m very interested in sound design.

I’m actually a software developer working on expanding and migrating a wave editor which I created for BeOS/Zeta in the past to MacOSX and maybe Windows. I’m exploring possible features that might make it more interesting for sound designers and exploring syntheses more in depth to add basic wave modeling features to it.

Because of this, I do a lot of sampling to do tests and analyses, and I do not want to risk using something I could get in trouble with afterwards.

eagle007 - 28 August 2009 08:03 PM

I’m kinda confused by all this sound-piracy stuff. What is and what isn’t allowed?

Digital products are common heritage of mankind, copyright issues belong to last century. If you like it, copy it : )

tuquoque - 29 August 2009 04:45 PM

eagle007 - 28 August 2009 08:03 PM

I’m kinda confused by all this sound-piracy stuff. What is and what isn’t allowed?

Digital products are common heritage of mankind, copyright issues belong to last century. If you like it, copy it : )

Of course I know taking samples from a sample, or just duplicating them is illegal. That’s quite obvious.

My point was more the samples of synths that use samples as input to create new voices. If one creates a new patch on such a synth and samples it, you are not sampling the ROM samples.

And you are allowed to use the sounds based on these samples in the device for commercial records, so in a way you are indeed allowed to sample it :) As there is nothing on this in the manuals of the synths I have, I just wondered where one should draw the line and how this all lies legally.

In studio recordings, you are required to get a mechanical license just to re-arrange the original author’s song - even with different instruments.  http://www.copyright.gov will tell you a lot about this.
Often people say “I’m not selling it” or “It’s for a good cause”, etc.

It really comes down to a question of both law and ethics.

Since you need all of the license agreements/EULAs/lawyers, etc to really get into the legal aspects, I’ll pass on that one. :) The prior post makes a great point of ‘who will they come after’, but that still leaves the ethics question.

Let’s suppose you spent a lot of time working on a CD, released it with original songs, put a lot of time, energy, effort, and money into developing it, and put it out on the market.  Then Mr. Ripper comes along and rips it, and puts it out on their web site for free download.

It’s technically possible, and you may not have the $$ to sue him, but bottom line - it’s just plain wrong.

If you’re providing something that someone else created to others as a duplicate of their original, you are reaching in the creator’s pocket and stealing their cash.  Would you do that to someone waiting in the checkout line at the music store?

There is still a gray line there somewhere, though - as eagle007 is pointing out - I’d also like clarification on that. :)

tuquoque - 29 August 2009 04:45 PM

eagle007 - 28 August 2009 08:03 PM

I’m kinda confused by all this sound-piracy stuff. What is and what isn’t allowed?

Digital products are common heritage of mankind, copyright issues belong to last century. If you like it, copy it : )

Wrong.

This kind of comment comes from someone who expects something for nothing.

You know what happens as the result of this kind of thinking? Artists and creators start giving up and don’t produce anything - because they can’t afford to. For sound designers, what they create is their job, not a hobby.

If someone wants to create something and then give it away, that is their right. It is NOT anyone’s right to steal someone’s intellectual property, period. Just because a lot of people do it doesn’t make it right, legally, morally, or ethically.