EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

Thoughts from the mind of Nick Batzdorf, 10-01-2003:

>Eric Persing wrote:
>
>>This is a very complicated subject, but there are two issues. One
>>is the reselling of software, and the other is licensing sound
>>recordings. It's easy to confuse them, but that's where people
>>make the mistake.
>
>>If you licensed a sample
>>from MCA records for a project, you pay a fee, and you don't gain
>>the right to sell that license to someone else.
>
>Good point, but I would argue that loops (which, due my linear
>orientation, wasn't what I was thinking about!) are a different case.
>I meant playable instrument samples, including elements like major
>scale string runs, etc. Yes they're recordings, but unless you're
>easily amused, they generally don't mean anything until someone
>arranges them into a coherent musical idea! So they're software, not
>recordings.

I have the feeling that by now this discussion is not related to the 
YT-"problem" at all anymore.  AFAI can see, the YT-thing has nothing 
at all to do with copyrights on samples, or the distinction between 
recordings and software, or whatever.  No-one redistributes the 
samples, no-one sells or gives away any of the original material, etc.

Imagine buying a sample library on CD.  You find that the samples 
have been poorly categorized, such that it's hard to find certain 
sounds for certain purposes.  To fix that, you create a Filemaker 
database, which references the original samples on the CD, only this 
time using categories _you_ find useful, the idea being that you can 
use the database to search the CD, instead of searching the CD 
directly from the Finder (Windows, whatever).

I don't believe for one second that such a database (which does _not_ 
contain any of the original samples) would be illegal in whichever 
sense.  It's my own creation -- nothing but a bunch of pointers to 
files I paid money for -- and thus I'm obvisouly free to make this 
database available to other owners of this same CD.

Now as to the YT case: to me it seems that an EXS instrument is 
directly comparable to such a database: pointers to files, intended 
to be loaded in an application that can do something intelligent with 
such pointers.  I'd be very curious to know how that can ever be 
regarded to be infringement of whichever legal rights.

Heck, my website contains links to webpages by other people.  That's 
pointers to other people's files, right (of which many are indeed 
copyrighted)?  So is my website illegal as well then?  As long as I 
don't include a copy of the referenced pages *themselves*, but only 
provide pointers (links)...  Well, I guess the argument is obvious... 
If the YT-people have a valid case, then I guess the entire www is 
involved in illegal actions all over the place.

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.omega-art.com