Recreating commercial presets on other synths - a legal question

[tehlord]

A recipe is different as it's going to be written and described as pictures/text.

A preset is different. You might as well try and copyright your air conditioning settings or your graphics settings in GTA5.

[ghettosynth]

A recipe is different as it's going to be written and described as pictures/text.

A preset is different. You might as well try and copyright your air conditioning settings or your graphics settings in GTA5.

I didn't say that they were the same thing, I simply said that they were the closest thing that I could think of with respect to collections of individual works that are generally not copyrightable.

There is an article in Keyboard magazine from sometime in the 90s that makes a reference to this issue, but, I haven't been able to find it online.

The fact is, however, it may not be as cut and dry as that. I know that in 1987 the copyright office was considering this question and I believe that's what the keyboard article was referring to, but, it's a lot of effort to go find that information.

The bottom line, however, is that there are no "cut and dry" standards for what is viewed as a creative work. A synthesizer patch might be interpreted by the courts as a list of settings, or, it may be viewed as a "program" for a "sound computer."

In that sense, it is very similar to a recipe, there is no restriction on which forms of tangible medium are afforded copyright protection. So, a preset saved in a file may very well be copyrightable, and if it is, I suspect that it would be viewed much in the same way that recipes are viewed in terms of creative content.

Again, if you know of cases, I'm interested.

BTW: Here is the link to the report from the copyright office in 1987 where this was briefly discussed. IIRC, the Keyboard magazine article was several years later and was related to progress on this issue.

https://www.copyright.gov/reports/annua ... r-1987.pdf

[recursive one]

My understading of copyright as a law is that it basically protects the form but not the essence. Hence a book of recipes may be protected by a copyright as any other book, but if you rewrite the recipes in your own words you avoid the copyright protection (but you may obtain an invention patent for your own food recipe which will protect your idea regardless of the exact words used to describe it).

As regards the presets, I think if I manage to recreate, say, some Virus sounds in Spire i could distribute them in any way I want since the signalflow and the parameters will be most probably completely different. I'm not that sure about synths with similar structure (e.g. two different emulations of the same hardware or a hardware and its emulation) where presets can be copied, at least to some extent, by simply copying the settings.

Anyway, the last thing i'm going to do is to rip off someone else's bank and sell it as my own, I'm mostly talking about free distribution of presets derived from commercial presets made by someone else for another (but similar) synth.

[ghettosynth]

My understading of copyright as a law is that it basically protects the form but not the essence. Hence a book of recipes may be protected by a copyright as any other book, but if you rewrite the recipes in your own words you avoid the copyright protection (but you may obtain an invention patent for your own food recipe which will protect your idea regardless of the exact words used to describe it).

Right, I agree, which is why individual recipes aren't generally copyrightable. Another way to say that is that copyright protects the expression but not the idea. People are often surprised to find out, for example, that the information in a schematic is not protected by copyright. So, if I create my own tube screamer schematic I'm free to post it, and, in fact, free to manufacture it all that I want. Now, the schematic itself, as an expression, is copyrighted, but that just means that I can't photocopy it and put it online.

So, with synth patches it would seem that this applies to just copying an existing patch file which is what others were saying, but, even this isn't clear to me if patches themselves are not copyrightable.

As regards the presets, I think if I manage to recreate, say, some Virus sounds in Spire i could distribute them in any way I want since the signalflow and the parameters will be most probably completely different. I'm not that sure about synths with similar structure (e.g. two different emulations of the same hardware or a hardware and its emulation) where presets can be copied, at least to some extent, by simply copying the settings.

No doubt. My point was more about whether or not there is some protection afforded to a collection with a theme. Does the theme raise the view of the creative content? I really don't know how this would be viewed, and neither did the copyright office in 1987.

Anyway, the last thing i'm going to do is to rip off someone else's bank and sell it as my own, I'm mostly talking about free distribution of presets derived from commercial presets made by someone else for another (but similar) synth.

Right, but then this hinges on whether or not the patch itself is afforded copyright protection as a creative work and, consequently then, is your work a derived work.

In terms of practicality, I wouldn't worry about it at all. I really don't think that there's enough there to worry about, I just find the subject interesting.

[ghettosynth]

Also, see this:

https://books.google.com/books?id=asBnY ... ht&f=false

Which suggests that, yes, technically, presets are copyrightable, however, only in the sense that infringement can be asserted if it can be proved that copying occurred. Which is also why copying someone's entire library might be more easily shown to be a copy of their library if all the patches sound similar, especially if they also have the same names.

[tehlord]

Presets aren't viewed as sounds. As I said, they are viewed as settings and therefore not subject to copyright.

This was advice from a legal professional. I have no idea whether it's accurate advice or not, but it does seem logical.

[ghettosynth]

Presets aren't viewed as sounds. As I said, they are viewed as settings and therefore not subject to copyright.

The link I posted is referring to patches or presets. It is calling them "synthesizer sound programs." Again, this was considered by the copyright office as it was becoming an issue back in the late 80s.

This was advice from a legal professional. I have no idea whether it's accurate advice or not, but it does seem logical.

Yes, it does. In fact, if you search KVR you will find me saying exactly the same thing because I had heard it before and also thought that it sounded logical. Then when I started looking further, I found more information.