Doubts to share soundfonts

Hi,

I'm not a lawyer, but MIDI keyboards and similar devices containing packaged samples or soundfonts, are being used daily by composers and music studios to produce their own works (new music creations). And they don't have to seek permission to the makers of the devices to do so.

But I recall reading from (for example) Korg documentation, that it's strictly forbidden to redistribute or repackage, or to sell, the individual sound samples in their devices.

For example, the user's manual for the Yamaha PSR-E453 (from http://download.yamaha.com/api/asset/file/?language=pl&site=pl.yamaha.c…) says:

"Information
About copyrights

• Copying of the commercially available musical data
including but not limited to MIDI data and/or audio data is
strictly prohibited except for your personal use.

• This product incorporates and bundles contents in which
Yamaha owns copyrights or with respect to which Yamaha
has license to use others' copyrights. Due to copyright
laws and other relevant laws, you are NOT allowed to
distribute media in which these contents are saved or
recorded and remain virtually the same or very similar to
those in the product.

* The contents described above include a computer
program, Accompaniment Style data, MIDI data, WAVE
data, voice recording data, a score, score data, etc.

* You are allowed to distribute medium in which your
performance or music production using these contents is
recorded, and the permission of Yamaha Corporation is
not required in such cases"

See the last paragraph. It says clearly that you can distribute your performance, that is, your music played *using* the device, and there's no need to seek Yamaha permission in this case. At least this is my opinion.

But (from the other paragraphs above), I think there is a explicit restriction regarding making a soundfont out of the elements the Yamaha device provides. So, it seems you cannot go and record each sample of the keyboard, and then package and distribute it as a sondfont of yours.

In doubt, I would search your device's Manual or other available documentation, to locate the proper copyright statements (as in the case above)

No, I'm not a lawyer either, but ... the legal logic probably goes more-or-less like this:

Yamaha/Korg/whoever probably bought many of their sound-samples from someone else, under a royalty agreement which (say ...) grants the licensee some small percentage of revenue from sales.   It of course goes without saying that the purchasers of the equipment intend to use the sounds in their own songs, and to pay nothing further for the privilege.   But the understanding obviously would be that no third party (e.g. "someone who downloaded a SoundFont file from the Internet") would be able to reap the same benefit ... to produce songs that use these very sounds ... without having purchased a piece of hardware (and therefore contributed a few more pennies to the royalties).

Therefore, n-o ... I would assume that it is not legal for you to extract the sounds from a device and to then to publish those sounds as a SoundFont.   (Because, in that scenario, “someone who rightly deserves to get paid ... isn’t.”)

If someone created a soundfont taken from hardware and explicitly noted what hardware it was, then I daresay that either they or their lawyer or both “in some way, covered their posterior.”   They probably found someone to “ask for permission,” and carefully documented the exchange.

And so, that's precisely what I’d suggest that you do:   due diligence.

Also, by all means, ask a lawyer (who practices in copyrights and intellectual property).   Describe what you want to do, and if s/he agrees that what you want to do is kosher, pay this person to write you a letter on his/her letterhead which states what you intend to do and which, in the same letter, confirms that, in his/her opinion, what you propose to do is legal.   Keep that letter forever.   It will be well worth the hundreds of dollars you will pay for it.

In short:   “ask someone who knows.”

- - -
So, the very worst happens:   someone challenges you and serves you with a “cease and desist” letter.   (Which, of course, you immediately do!)   You now have the ammunition that you need, should it ever come to that, to plead to the Honorable Court that any infringement, should it be found to exist, is innocent.   Your “Exhibit A” is a letter-on-letterhead, signed by “so-and-so, Esquire.”

It also should go without saying that, in every step of this publishing project, you should keep a detailed written log.   What did you do, and when did you do it?   Exactly when did you call anyone, who did you speak to, what did they say?   Exactly when did you upload a file, to where and under what name?   And so on and on and on and on and ...   (That will be “Exhibit B.”)   Any objective trier of fact, looking objectively at what you have provided, will have all the objective information they will need.   (And, much more likely, anyone who might bring charges against you will probably decide not to.)