Patches and discussion for Ensoniq VFX family

On Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 04:16:45PM -0500, swomp_rabbit@... wrote:
>  
> ... if it is a previously recorded/published song the law
> requires that it has to be licensed prior to any of those acts. If
> you create a sequence of some previously published song in your
> home, which is what you are doing, and it goes no further than that,
> then that is no problem and no licenses are required. 

I'm not even sure that's entirely accurate.  By the letter of the law,
what is protected is making copies of the song -- I believe the words
actually go something like "fixing the work in a tangible medium".  As
I understand it, creating the sequence in your own home actually is a
copyright infringement.  (You might have to put it on a floppy to make
it tangible, I don't know.)

We ran into this same legal / ethical discussion at church when it
comes to writing down our own private, arranged parts for extra
instruments on songs we already purchased sheet music for.  (The
discussion didn't start there, but it's one of the things that came
up.)

The bottom line for us was: we aren't really cheating the publisher,
we are paying them for the song, through purchasing the original music
(enough copies for everyone who plays / sings) -- so we're OK with it
ethically; the effort to actually acquire rights is not worth it; and
no publisher in their right mind would sue a paying customer for
something like this without at least asking us nicely to stop
first. :-)

And as far as making a sequence at home goes, you are not making any
money at it.  That is not a legal defense, but it does mean that you
are not worth the money / lawyer time to sue, so the publisher will
leave you alone.

If you use your sequence live, hopefully your venue has paid ASCAP/BMI
"dues" or whatever (what it's called escapes me at the moment), to
cover live performances of the songs.  If so, you can see yet again
that suing you for making the sequence would cut off a portion of
their revenues from the venue, so they wouldn't do that in their right
mind, either...

I'm not a lawyer, btw!  So take all that with a huge grain of salt.

--> Steve