Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

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Basslint
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Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by Basslint »

I believe so. You are not the owner of those files but a licensee, and they are usually released under a license which does not allow individual re-sampling.
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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by d.healey »

It depends on what you're using them for.
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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by Basslint »

d.healey wrote: Sat Feb 13, 2021 9:10 pm

It depends on what you're using them for.

OK, let's suppose there is no fair use (such as in the EU) and I make a track using a typical sampled instrument (eg. from Native Instruments) and release it under the CC-BY.

People can remix my song, can cover it, can redistribute it and sell it. But can they sample the individual drum hits during a break use them to make their own tracks?

This is the clause Native Instrument uses:

It is only strictly prohibited to use single, combined or modified sounds from Native Instruments to create sample CDs, loop libraries, sound libraries or similar products, as the license granted is strictly limited to one person only - any trading, lending, renting, reissuing, re-distribution or re-sale of sounds is not permitted under any circumstances.

By looking at this specific clause, I would say yes: the author of the track is not necessarily releasing the track under a CC license with the intent of having it sampled. It's simply a side effect of that license. But the license is generic enough (similar products) to create confusion and also the maker of the track can't really release it under a CC license because he's not the owner of the whole track, he's the owner of a part of it and a licensee of the rest.

Freesound in its FAQ says:

[...] however if the synth you sampled from is a digital "ROM" synth, you might actually be recording the samples stored in the memory of the synth. And this is illegal! Some examples: PCM drum machines like the TR-707, TR-909 (cymbals and hi-hats), Linn Drum, Boss DR 550 etc... are all digital synths you should not sample. ROM samples like the Korg Wavestation internal ROM samples are also not legal to post on freesound. To make matter more crazy, if you have a digital "virtual" analog and you created some patches on it, those are fine to sample too, but if you buy a pack of presets from someone, those might not be legal.

Still, this says nothing about using those samples in whole tracks.

Last edited by Basslint on Wed Dec 07, 2022 9:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by d.healey »

Basslint wrote: Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:34 am
d.healey wrote: Sat Feb 13, 2021 9:10 pm It depends on what you're using them for.
OK, let's suppose there is no fair use (such as the EU) and I make a track using a typical sampled instrument (eg. from Native Instruments) and release it under the CC-BY.

People can remix my song, can cover it, can redistribute it and sell it. But can they sample the individual drum hits during a break use them to make their own tracks?

This is clause Native Instrument uses:
It is only strictly prohibited to use single, combined or modified sounds from Native Instruments to create sample CDs, loop libraries, sound libraries or similar products, as the license granted is strictly limited to one person only - any trading, lending, renting, reissuing, re-distribution or re-sale of sounds is not permitted under any circumstances.
By looking at this specific clause, I would say yes: the author of the track is not necessarily releasing the track under a CC license with the intent of having it sampled. It's simply a side effect of that license. But the license is generic enough (similar products) to create confusion and also the maker of the track can't really release it under a CC license because he's not the owner of the whole track, he's the owner of a part of it and a licensee of the rest.

Freesound in its FAQ says:
[...] however if the synth you sampled from is a digital "ROM" synth, you might actually be recording the samples stored in the memory of the synth. And this is illegal! Some examples: PCM drum machines like the TR-707, TR-909 (cymbals and hi-hats), Linn Drum, Boss DR 550 etc... are all digital synths you should not sample. ROM samples like the Korg Wavestation internal ROM samples are also not legal to post on freesound. To make matter more crazy, if you have a digital "virtual" analog and you created some patches on it, those are fine to sample too, but if you buy a pack of presets from someone, those might not be legal.
Still, this says nothing about using those samples in whole tracks.
I doubt it. You usually can't use a sample library to make a sample library, no matter what you do to the sounds before.
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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by merlyn »

I think it's worth bearing in mind that 100% of nothing is nothing.

The law is in a big way tied up with money. Even a cease and desist letter from a lawyer will cost money, so the copyright holder does have to ask if it's worth it. Making music in your bedroom that a handful of people hear is not going to be a big earner for lawyers.

Copyright law has gone insane. No offence, but the fact that you're asking this shows how insane it has got. :) The record labels and multinational corporations don't need armies of lawyers -- we've all become so self-policing.

It reminds me of home taping in the 80s. It was legal to make a copy of a record for your own purposes, so the whole 'home taping is illegal' was the greedy record industry trying to hold onto their profits. Copying your friend's record was a grey area, but I never heard of anyone being prosecuted.

Selling tapes of records -- that was illegal and you can see why the record industry would go after that -- they wanted a slice of the action and it could be worth it for a record label to pay (expensive) lawyers.

In the 21st century a sane approach would be -- Code Is Law, meaning if you can do it you can do it without having to look up some obscure texts on what is and isn't allowed. :)
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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by Impostor »

merlyn wrote: Sun Feb 14, 2021 5:58 pm

It reminds me of home taping in the 80s. It was legal to make a copy of a record for your own purposes, so the whole 'home taping is illegal' was the greedy record industry trying to hold onto their profits. Copying your friend's record was a grey area, but I never heard of anyone being prosecuted.

Home taping and exchanging tapes with friends was free advertising for record companies. Virtually all the music I know, love, and buy cds from and concert tickets for, I got to know by this grey area circuit. Record companies had nothing to complain about really.

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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

I don't know what "Creative Commons licenses" are. An American thing? Some sort of licence that allows others to copy and sample your stuff? I'll tell you why I'm not gonna look it up. An example. Say that I sample the "Amen" break (link Wikipedia) and clear the sample for using it in my song. Then it would still be illegal for somebody else to sample the Amen break from me, no matter what.

The same goes for (CD based) sample libraries if they have a legal clause like the one you cited. If you buy such a sample you have the right to use it, and nobody else. If not then there is, logically, no point in selling the sample library to begin with. So if somebody copies this sample from your record and uses it he's doing something against the law. No matter what license you release it under.

You cannot "set something free" that you yourself did not create to be sampled without penalty. If you hit a drum, use it in a song and release that song under some sort of licence that allows me to sample and use it then that's your prerogative. The crux is: someting you, and only you, created. Not someone else.

Last edited by Linuxmusician01 on Mon Dec 05, 2022 2:50 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by Basslint »

Linuxmusician01 wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 11:34 am

I don't know what "Creative Commons licenses" are. An American thing? Some sort of licence that allows others to copy and sample your stuff?

Yes, they have equivalents for licenses like the GPL (CC-By-SA), MIT (CC-By) and Unlicense (CC0), plus a bunch of non-free licenses which restrict commercial use or disallow derivative works (this last clause if clearly unsuitable for samples!).

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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by Largos »

CC0 is the only one really usable for samples. All the other ones have some condition which make them more restrictive and difficult to use in a released track than a standard royalty free set of samples.

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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by nils »

https://hilbricht.net/foss-sampled-instruments.html

For further reading regarding sample libraries and licenses.

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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by miuzik »

Carl Irwin get interesting information about samples and free licenses. Look the last videos from his youtube channel and his debate with unfa. Irwin's channel: youtube.com/channel/UCkW-rAdIJ7ebTa9f8L5O5gw

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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by Largos »

He says that people worrying about CC licensed samples are paranoid. I think that's slightly unfair. He rightly says if you normally/by default distribute samples solely made for the purpose of being instrumentation, you don't have the rights to to the material made with them. That's the case for royalty free samples, sample based instruments etc. Of which there are literally millions.

So, why would you use CC licenses with their conditions that muddy this issue for people and with the availability of samples, why would you use these things over them in your music. As he says, there has been no litigation example. Do you fancy wasting your time being the test case? or not even that. Even someone causing some internet stink because you sold a track with their "Non commercial" clause sample in. It is not just about what is technically right or wrong.

I think if sample creators want to relax the default rules, create clauses on the re-distribution then it could be done with a better more explicit and simple license that what CC offers (CC0 being the exception). Carl Irwin's point is that CC licenses basically "All these conditons... but they don't affect the standard fair use and exceptions rules" Fair enough but if you feel like you need over an hour of youtube time to explain CC licenses in the context of copyright law, people are better off using samples which just say it's ok in more simple terms.

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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by tseaver »

@Largos

He says that people worrying about CC licensed samples are paranoid. I think that's slightly unfair.

I wouldn't characterize his statement that way. Rather, he argues that composers who worry about using CC*-licensed samples in their music are mistaken: sample library authors do not have any rights under copyright law to such works, because they are not "derivative works" in the sense used in copyright law. Instead, the CC* licenses restrict how other sample library makers can use the "tangible medium" of a sample library, e.g. to prevent BigEvilSampleCo from bundling one of them into a larger, proprietary sample library (because such an act does create a "derivative work" under copyright law).

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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by nils »

I want to remind everyone in this thread that so far only opinions have been shared across multiple law-traditions of the world and even about two separate topics, which nobody seemed to even acknowledge.

There were no court cases presented here are no certified lawyers present here.
It's all just guys in a forum arguing about even more guys on youtube.

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Re: Is using sample-based instruments incompatible with Creative Commons licenses?

Post by Largos »

tseaver wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 2:18 am

@Largos

He says that people worrying about CC licensed samples are paranoid. I think that's slightly unfair.

I wouldn't characterize his statement that way. Rather, he argues that composers who worry about using CC*-licensed samples in their music are mistaken: sample library authors do not have any rights under copyright law to such works, because they are not "derivative works" in the sense used in copyright law. Instead, the CC* licenses restrict how other sample library makers can use the "tangible medium" of a sample library, e.g. to prevent BigEvilSampleCo from bundling one of them into a larger, proprietary sample library (because such an act does create a "derivative work" under copyright law).

https://youtu.be/EGMeEyS81p4?t=1098 "If you're worried about this you're paranoid, you're crazy, you're nuts"

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