Thanks a bunch spot - very interesting about trademarked notes. My little ditty would fall under the heading of parody & it's not a very exact arrangement so I think I'm o.k. - hmmmm

Am i in violation of intel if I write this:?
----------------------bum--------------------
--------bum-----------------------------------

bum----------- bum----------------------------.

(ok the spacing didnt work out on the cleff right, haha)

What key was that in?

It's in violation if you take part or the entire arrangement. If it's a recognizeable musical "phrase" then you are in violation, and if you are making monetary gain from using that musical phrase without prior clearance, and you get caught, you will be prosecuted. Just ask Vanilla ICE who used 8 bars of a base line from David Bowie from his biggest hit ever.

I would so love to debate this, because that's not accurate if you record it yourself, which yoyodyne has done, but this forum has seen enough copyright debates until the next 3 month phase passes. Suffice it to say, our IPattorney (ironically) was here when Yoyodyne posted, and most of what I wrote came straight from his mouth. Derivative works, based on performance, fall into a different area of law. FWIW, it doesn't matter if there is monetary gain at all. Intent is related to replication/distribution/compulsories.

Without intending to enter into the legal debate (and having no qualifications to do so) I always wonder why, with tools like ACID, anyone would WANT to use even a snippet of a copyrighted work? It seems so much more efficient (of if not that, at least much less hassle) to simply craft your own from loops.

No lawyers, no royalties, no disputes---and if done properly, something probably unique and original.

Hm,
my last client performs works based on songs by Sinatra, Porter etc, re arranges and adds his own lyrics. As I understand the situation down here he's cool performing these so long as the venue has cover under APRA. Some are parodies but clealry derivative, he even acknowledges the sources.
Now we've recorded his performances for a demo reel, I don't think anyones going to be too pedantic about that however what happens if/when he wants to sell DVDs / CDs of his performances. Naturally whoever wrote the original music or their copyright owners is entitled to a slice of the action.
I guess I should just talk to APRA for the best localised answer but it always helps I've found if I know a bit of the lingo that they use.
Question I'm asking then is in this circumstance what rights have to be negotiated?
Bob.

While I'm not for using copywritten materials to make personal gain, I also have too much foolish pride to let a robot (program) write music for me. It might be fast, it may be legal, but it has to be redundant and boring too. But that's my personal opinion and I can understand people with no time and/or musical talent, needing such a program. It's about as unique and original as throwing Paint at a wall and calling it art. Which, some people (and animals) do also. Some, legitimalely.

Steve, there is NOTHING robotic about ACID. Nothing at all. David Was scored the Academy Awards with it, probably a good 30-40% of the pop songs on the radio have ACID loops in them, or used ACID in the initial construction phase. It's very musical if you want it to be. I use ACID nearly every day for scoring short segments, or for forming base material for larger production pieces.
Farss, check out this month's issue of VideoCamera.au, you'll see a great article on copyright, and it has a little on APRA coverage in there.

Point well made, Gr8Steve, but of course you realize it's possible in ACID and other programs for a musician to create his own loops, which can then be manipulated to his heart's content, if he doesn't want to purchase loops.

A composer who says to himself, for instance: I want drums, a cello, a guitar, a flute, and I want them in the key of G at 90 BPM at 3/4 time, etc. etc. can 1) hire musicians to do that, OR 2) work it out on a synth, OR 3) use ACID loops OR 4) use music already recorded OR 5) some combination thereof.

In my mind the distinction begins to blur between a song you hear on a CD and want to use in a film, and PARTS of songs you can manipulate and combine in loop form, especially when actual human beings record the loops in the first place. The difference is, if I license a Rolling Stones song, they did it. If I create my own tune using loops someone else recorded, I did at least half of the work, IF I take care not to just slap the loops down haphazardly and call it a song. Chopping them up and reassembling them creatively can result in some pretty nice stuff.

I agree that many of the music tracks we hear created with loops can be pretty robotic-sounding, but they sure don't have to be.

I try to use the music of musicians whose work I like and can easily deal with. Emphasis on the "easily" part of the equation. Sometimes a local trio sounds every bit as good (to my ears) playing their original music as ZZ Top sounds to me (and I say that as an admirer of ZZ Top.) The difference being, ZZ Top is very famous (and therefore very expensive and complicated to work with, and we've all heard every *&($% song they've ever recorded a million times) while the local trio is simply really good, really original, and very easy to work with.

I am a no- to low-budget guy and maybe that colors my thinking, but I ask myself: Even if I could afford to license a Rolling Stones song, would I? Would it be worth the $$$? Money I could spend perhaps on a million other things that would enhance the project more? Would it make the film any better, REALLY? We all have to answer that for ourselves.

I have an idea that it's possible that a person who cannot play a musical instrument might still be able to ASSEMBLE bits of music in very creative and sonically pleasing ways. Not every person, surely, and maybe not 1 in 1000.

All methods and approaches have their place. My problem, I think, is that I simply cannot believe that the only good music out there is music it would cost an arm and a leg to liscense.

Thanks for posting on this; I always enjoy reading your comments.

Been there, read that!
Just got off the phone to APRA/ACMA. Very helpfull people but we do have a problem in my case.
We can sell CDs of my clients work for a small fee, roughly 6% of retail price to cover copyright of any works that they cover (around 10M titles).
Problem is this guy performs parodies and that means we need clearance from the copyright owners. Just for the record, I'm informed you can change key or arrange for different instruments before copyright clearance is needed, changing lyrics and you do need clearance or alter it in such a way that it's not immediately recognisable and again you do need to go back to the copyright owners.
The good news is that APRA have a research dept, they can find the copyright owners and will help negotiations it seems.
My suggestion to anyone with copyright issues is to contact a professional body, better still, part with a few dollars and join one. They do exist to help composers and perfomers earn money, they make money when we legitimately use their work, seems a simple enough concept to me.
Of course all of this only applies in Australia, I get the feeling that there's no such body in the US which is a pity. The vibe I picked up from APRA was quite different, it was more like speaking to someone who had something to sell and he was trying to find a way to get a sale for his clients, what a pleasant change.
Bob.

I didn't mean it as an insult. It just offends my senses. The term "Loop" in regards to music, sounds like a cheap short-cut and I don't believe people should get a clean ownership title to a song if they were helped. I think it would be appropriate to give credit to Sony or Sonic Foundry or whoever makes the software, and that when they won awards, they'd have to announce that the song was written by Joe Blow and Sony Acid. Equal billing and share your royalties too. I think they deserve this, to separate them from true talent. And I'm not saying talented people couldn't use the program, but you're being helped. And if you want to take a short cut, it should be announced loudly. Maybe that would inspire true talents to rely on their talent instead of making hastily made music. I really, truly don't need to see the day when somebody, who is tone deaf, gets an academy award for something they wrote with a machine/program. (I"m sure that hasn't happened yet, but.... how long?)
To me, most musicians are too robotic. Again, not said as an insult, because I fall into the same category, but said because that's the way most of them sound to me. So, no matter how cleverly you construct music with a 'looping' program, I can't imagine being entranced by that music for more than a few days (hours) before the 'patterns' would start sounding obvious. (No, I'm not counting the loops of one continuous note or bizarre noises where you can't tell where the beginning or the end of the loop is.) Like I said. It's an opinion.
Another for instance: I could get a keyboard and midi together a whole bunch of instruments, playing perfectly. But because I don't play a keyboard, it insults my intelligence to program it to play the music for me, Perfectly. I would rather buy a synth guitar and play it myself, just to feel that I truly created it from scratch, even though, on some level, it insults my intelligence to use a synth guitar. It's not that I can't or won't use these things. I just seems like cheating to a certain degree. I did end my original statement by saying there were some legitimate paint throwers.
The day will come, when you will not have to make a single adjustment on a highly professional camera. Just point and shoot. How much respect will you have for those cameramen, when you know anybody with sight can......? Well, they'll probably just be robots when they get to that point. When we get to that stage, some of you cameramen will start sounding like I do now. That doesn't mean talented people will refuse to point a camera. It just means that it'll be harder to know who to respect and why
A lot of people don't think there's anything wrong with baseball players taking Steroids. I think it's cheating. But guess what? Nobody seems to care. Just take that same stance towards my comments. It doesn't matter what I say, you're all going to do what you want anyway. I have my foolish pride and I'm stuck with it.

OK....I'll accept your argument at face value.
that said then....
Douglas Spotted Eagle, Audio Technican, Sony Vegas, WAVES plugins won some Grammy and Emmy Awards together.

Eric Clapton, Martin Guitars, Countryman, Sony DASH, GHS Strings, and all other 80 people won a Grammy and Oscar last year.

Michaelangelo and Earthground Paint and Patina won the contract to paint the Sistine....

Musicians record loops, but I'm not sure what that has to do with robotic, non-original/creative, or anything else. Loops are no different than instruments. You can sound like a total hack with them, or you can be a virtuoso. Any kid can pick up a guitar and "play" but only someone with talent can make it "sing." Loops are like this.
Mick Fleetwood, Rudy Sarzo, Nuno Bettencourt, Aliya, and a few other famous musicians are playing on a project I recently completed. But it was my "mastery" of the loops, the way I arranged them, and what I played over top of them with a few MIDI and real instruments, that made it all come together as a song. Mick Fleetwood playing on the loops means nothing. No one would ever pay to see Mick just play drums. The rest of the group should be there, because that takes it from the realm of mechanics to music.
Composing with samples is still composing. "Sampleposing" is an artform when presented in it's highest regard.

Painters don't credit paints, sculptors don't credit clay, metal artisans don't credit acetylene, and pianists don't credit piano strings. Yet others labored to make these components of great art available to the artisan. Sony and other ACID loop providers offer the loops as instruments to be used as parts of the whole, or the sum of the parts. Musicians know this when they make loops, and musicians know this when they buy loops. There are SOME loop libraries that require credit, and where/when they do, credit is due, but it is so very, very, rare that anyone pays attention to that. Almost every one of the SonicFire Ethnic libraries has some of my ACID loop sounds in it, and my library requires credit because it was a QUp Arts library. Sonic Fire didn't credit the libe. A little irritating, but quite common. You didn't see my name in TombRaider or TombRaiderII either, but it contains my loops as the main bassline in the main theme. Irritating, but common.
On the other hand, none of the Sony libraries require credit, and thank heaven for that, if you used say....20 of the over 120 libraries available.

Obviously, you're entitled to your opinion, but ACID loops are instruments just like anything else. It's how you "play" the loops/notes/riffs that makes them turn from being a snippet to a composition.

>Obviously, you're entitled to your opinion, but ACID loops are instruments just like anything else. It's how you "play" the loops/notes/riffs that makes them turn from being a snippet to a composition.

Yeah. Well done Acid work is a far cry from the old electronic drum machines or anything like that. Just another way to manipulate sounds.

I used it to put "boom" single shot sound effects on the beat for a track where military guys were firing mortar rounds. Could have done it without Acid with a bit more work. But that example is trivial. The main thing it does is let you layer sounds. Amazingly powerful what can be done with just the tinyest musical instincts. And some loops from good musicians.

I'm surprised B.B. didn't jump in on that. As I said, there are some good, legitimate paint flingers. What you don't like, is the term. The only thing that bothers me about all of this, is that you don't really know where the machine/software leaves off and the person begins. Also, like I said, I'll be pissed, when somebody that's tonedeaf gets an academy award, or an emmy for using a 'cheat'. That statement doesn't include everybody that uses this type of software. But the day will probably come, when a complete musical idiot wins a fantastic award for some music composed in software, and I will probably be pissed, but nobody will care one way or the other. I'm just surprised, that nobody else agrees.
I don't expect you to understand my point. You're totally involved with this type of programming and maybe you're being insulted by my comments. That's not my goal.
Today, special effects in movies are better than ever before, but I have no idea of the real complexity of a persons input towards this art as opposed to how much is just created by computers. It looks so much better now, but I can appreciate Ray Harryhausen a lot more than computer programmers, because nowadays, you can't really tell how much of it is "computed" and how much of it is "man". (not that figuering that stuff out can't be appreciated too) And it's not that I don't appreciate todays computer involvements. I just don't know where man and the software separate when experiencing the finished product.

How much have Steroids played into helping the incredible Home run records of the last 10 years? I don't care what kind of boost if gave to that industry. What? You could care less about sports?
Doesn't that seem like cheating, even if you don't care? And doesn't that bug anybody? Am I in the twilight zone here?

>Trademarked notes, such as the Intel or Microsoft sound, may not be used even in parody or commentary.<

I remember seeing a funny example as the result of this policy. I think it as a few years ago when TVLand (cable channel) was resurrecting "I Dream of Genie" reruns, and they had a commercial with a current video clip of Barbara Eden (still beautiful!) doing her "fold the arms and blink" gesture, but the sound effect accompanying the gesture was definitely NOT the original "biyrinrk" (my lame attempt at spelling that sound...).

Technically speaking, it would have been a trivial amount of work to get a copy of the original sound for the new commercial, so I just assumed there was some kind of legal barrier to doing so (ie, more work to create a new sound).. If you grew up on "Genie" like I did, the difference was a little disorienting....

"I'm surprised B.B. didn't jump in on that"...

I haven't because I think most people are sick and tired of copyright issues in a video editing forum. No matter how you feel, nobody is going to change anything and everything that's been said, has already been said countless times already.

Who wants to talk about Vegas?

Nuno??? I thought he had quietly sank into teaching and composing orchestrial stuff and wasn't playing on things. You have magic powers Spot!

Sorry but I don't think your argument holds up. Using steroids is cheating simply because the rules say you cannot. If you do use them I'm told you gain an advantage over someone that abides by the rules.
There are no rules about how you create media, so long as you don't misrepresent what it is. Running a doco that uses recreated scenes but letting your audience think they're real is cheating, you've broken a contract with your audience. Creating a ghost in a scene either by putting a sheet over an actor or using every tool that CGI has to offer is in no way cheating, you're not representing it as real.
Same goes for music, guy gets up on stage with an acoustic guitar and plays it, fine, next guy gets up using an electric guitar, is he cheating, no way, we know what he's doing. Guy sells tickets to live concert but when we get there it's all mimed, that's cheating.
The whole point of the arts is to evoke a response, the art is in evoking the response, how what evokes the response was created is irrelevent.
Your argument I think holds water when it comes to performance, is that really a human playing that flute or some very clever piece of software making the sound. Well it's usually pretty obvious when it's a live performance. When it's a recording we probably deserve to be told. But then again isn't a recording a mechanical device, think of how much that has nothing to do with the original performance goes into recording it, isn't all of that also 'cheating', isn't any form of recording 'cheating', we perhaps want to feel that we're there, in that auditorium when we listen to it even though we're clearly not.
And what about using harmonisers. I used to consider that very much cheating until I learnt the main reason they're used. Now I appreciate the fact that I can hear a recording that combines the best facets of a singers abilities. I listen to music for how it makes me feel, that's quite different to watching althletics, art isn't a race.
Bob.

Gr8Steve, thanks again for some interesting points.

I agree with you about what I think of as the "time / space / human disconnection" that is not only possible nowadays, but evidently common. For example, I downloaded a song. I liked it quite a bit and contacted the guy, who lives in Belgium, and asked him if I could use a portion in a video clip. He agreed and seemed to like what I came up with (I showed it to him before posting it for the public, for his approval.)

I told him: "When you think about it, this is a kind of odd way to collaborate----without knowing in advance about you, discovering your work via the Web, and probably not ever meeting face to face, no matter how many times we work together." He told me it was even weirder than that, because in the process of creating his song, he had collaborated with an Italian drummer---in Italy, via the Web. The Belgian guy supplied a click track along with his instrument tracks and the Italian guy drummed it out for him.

For all I know, it's possible that the Italian guy sub-contracted a guy in India to do the drumming for him!

So this disconnection in time and space is a pretty bizarre thing to wrap one's mind around, but it is also a godsend for people like me who can now connect creatively---if not face to face---with others across the planet.

Giving credit where credit is due, I feel like I should say something like: "Music created by (me) with Sony ACID," or some such, in projects in which that is the case. (And, of course, "Video edited on Sony Vegas 5.0.") I agree with what I think you're saying----a lot of people work hard to create small portions of something that later becomes something big---like bricklayers on the Empire State Building project, or something. Only a dummy thinks the architects ever laid a brick in their lives---but that's who we remember, and in a way it IS kind of unjust.

The lines between human and machine are getting pretty blurry, but in the end a machine is just a tool. Bring a monkey in and see if he can edit on Vegas or play a Strat. Whatever the tool, it ends up requiring a pretty smart or creative or intuitive "assembler of the bits" to result in something watchable / listenable.

I also agree with you when I see twits win awards, but it doesn't bother me what tools they use. Only that someone more deserving (IMO) didn't win.

You sound like a purist, which I use as COMPLIMENTARY term. If I understand your point, you believe that doing things in certain ways results in a higher quality project, and that machines cannot provide talent. I agree with that. I've got some of those same feelings about other things in the video production realm, and I've long ago learned that nobody else sees it my way! At first it was kind of frustrating for me but now I wear it as a badge of stubborn pride.

I hope nobody thinks I'm saying they SHOULDN'T use popular music in their projects. I was just trying to suggest that we live in a pretty interesting time, creatively, that offers all of us some astounding alternatives to the norm. I can see why Yoyodyne or anyone else might want to use all of, or a portion of, or a parody of, a song to trigger off certain desired reactions in the audience, or to have fun with a bit of the cultural landscape.

Thanks again for the food for thought.

---John

It's mostly me blowing off steam. The thing everybody doesn't understand is I'm not complaining about anything except the artificial intelligence involved with creating music. Not the loops, not using a keyboard to simulate another instument. I might have my own preferences when it comes to my own stuff, but for anybody else, I don't mind that they use keyboards or electronic drums to get whatever sound they want. I don't mind that they hire other musicians or pay royalties to use other musicians creations. I may have a problem with having the computer (midi) play the music for you, but that's personal opinion and I'll let that slide on somebody that doesn't play anything. It's the ability to create music, even though you're tone deaf and have absolutely no rhythm. And I don't really mind that they can do that. What I mind is that they may be able to do it well enough to win awards for it. That's the Steroids of the music world. There doesn't have to be a written law for it to be illegal to me. But I'm wasting my time arguing this, because the Steroids aren't going away either.
No, I don't expect to see a monkey get on Vegas 6 or a Strat or even Soundforge or ACID. But, if he gets on a casio, can he make music? Is it possible that that monkey may start some patterns that may be interpreted as music? Can that monkey hit one key and change the pitch of the song? Can that monkey accidently get a drum and rhythm backdrop playing along as well? And just how many years before a monkey can accidently make music that a man can't tell if it was man or monkey? It could probably be done now, if something was built specifically for a monkey.
I know plenty of tone deaf drummers, who'll be and are infiltrating the market with "original" music. And these guys do consider themselves as Music writers now. Although, when they write, it sure sounds to me like the instrument is making 'suggestions' to these guys and then their 'originality' is to make a choice of which patterns of notes they like best.
At least the drummers have rhythm. Just more garbage to sift through.

>>>No, I don't expect to see a monkey get on Vegas 6 or a Strat or even Soundforge or ACID. But, if he gets on a casio, can he make music?<<<

Oddly enough, I think I heard just such a thing this morning on NPR, in a piece titled:

DJs Face Off with Laptop Compositions

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4559395

They offered samples of the competitors', uh, STUFF. The difference between the "winner's" entry and the rest of it was too subtle for me to grasp. As the promoter of the event noted happily (but it saddened me) the place was packed with spectators / listeners.

What's good about iconoclastic purists (I put myself in that category, though I'm only a purist in a very narrow sense, on a few issues) is that our work might eventually stand out from the other stuff in part BECAUSE we do things differently enough (Old School?) that it's unusual.

If music sounds like a robot crapped it out, dead silence would be preferable.