Hi Guys.
I'm the person behind the “Synthesizer LA-50” and “ASTRAL 880” sound expansions for the VST called “Infinity”.
Obviously, I don't want to upset anyone, especially Eric when I know many of his friends, and I own and run Korg Forums. It's not like I'm someone hiding out in obscurity in some remote corner of ebay under a name nobody knows. Quite the opposite actually and it's very easy for anyone to reach out and touch me. I cannot stress this enough, if there are any issues that need to be addressed, I'd only be too happy to talk to anyone about them.
I was reading this thread and I'd like to point out a few things.
I've lost count of how many times I've read threads on this kind of subject, and I'm sure you all have too. This thread won't be the last either. The debate will go on forever. There's always an argument both ways, generally never backed up with any actual research into copyright law by someone qualified to do the work. Even when there is, the answers are not so simple. These kind of threads always end up in the topic being undecided, a grey area people agree to disagree on, or people swing one way or the other and get confused with copyright law as well as the difference between a performance vs a sound a musical instrument makes, which is a key point.
After reading all this, you won't have an answer one way or the other either. You just have to make up your own mind based on what everyone is doing, not just me, I'm taking about every keyboard and VST manufacture.
To satisfy my own personal curiosity, I paid a solicitor to do research on this for me. As expected, I also didn't get any straight answers, but I did get a much better idea of what everyone else is doing and assuming there are fine in doing that too, if it's good for them, why not me I thought.
Take any keyboard you like or any PCM based VST, it's ROM is populated with PCM data sampled from every kind of musical instrument you can imagine, all without the need to seek permission to use that data. If it were illegal to sample another musical instrument, Steinway and everyone else would have sued every Keyboard and VST manufacture going as everything from acoustic to digital instruments are sampled to produce today's keyboards and VST's that are based on PCM data.
For Roland to sample a piano for the D50 is no different of an act of you sampling a Roland D50 piano. You have simply repeated the exact same process they have, never having gained access to the original information and having to put in your own time, effort, equipment,, skill and knowledge to do it. Not to mention the fact that you still have to package it into your own product functional product.
And so on..... I could list endless examples.
With regards to the comment about trademark violations. Infinity doesn't use any Roland trademarks or any technologies invented or patented by Roland.
With regards to Eric's work, as above, my sound engine has none of Roland's technology so Eric's parameters are not even usable to me in order to shape my waveforms. There's also no assumed or written copyright between him and the end user anyway. That's between him and Roland who purchased the rights to distributed this parameters for the purpose of making their product produce a sound.
With regards to raw waveforms, I didn't use them, and a sound cannot be copyrighted. If that were even remotely possible, Steinway and everyone else would have sued every keyboard manufacture and sample library developer years ago.
With regards to the final sound a “musical instrument” produces, as above, you cannot copyright a sound. More importantly, to even assume you can requires the explanation of how come every other PCM based keyboard and VST manufacture are sampling whatever they like.
So from my point of view, my VST does not do any function invented by Roland and there's no trademark violation. I'm simply doing the exact same thing they did, and everyone else have been doing for the last 3 decades.
With regards to the comment of a direct competing product. As above, Infinity doesn't use Roland's trademark, plus they haven't sold or build a D50 or JD800 in over two decades. So, how could I be competing with something that you can't buy in the last 20+ years ?
If it comes down to Eric or Roland wanting me to remove select expansions for Infinity, then sure I'm obviously going to listen as I don't want any trouble at all. Can't say I'd be too happy about it though considering all that's said above, and what all other manufactures and sound houses are doing. I'm only a little guy though so easily pushed around. This is all way more of a hobby for me. Anyone who knows me knows I spend most of my time doing things for free,.
Hope this helps explain things a bit and my position.
Kind regards
James.
post edited by IrishActs - 2014/10/17 09:43:26