Music Composing Programs and Copyrights

[tfunch24]

I recently bought a program called "Techno eJay" and a collection of Royalty-Free .Wav musical samples and sound clips to compose music for my short films. The former allows you to create music by mixing together over 3,000 professionally recorded samples (you can import your own .Wavs, if you want).

In general, are the samples that come preloaded with Techno eJay (and other similar music composing programs) in the public domain or are you only allowed "private use?" Techno eJay's liner notes and online licensing agreement aren't clear on this matter.

I did a search on the archive and found a discussion on how to get copyright clearance for songs that have already been released but nothing on the generic samples that came preloaded with music composing software. I think the thread was titled "Using Copyrighted Music without Paying $$$."

I'm not planning on releasing any of my films professionally, but I would like to upload them to the internet.

Tom

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 20, 2003 10:39 PM: Message edited by: tfunch24 ]</font>

[c_77]

I think your fine. You may want another opinion...

[rollemfilm]

You answerd your own question; "Royalty-Free"

[tfunch24]

No, I did not answer my own question.

Just to clarify, I bought TWO programs:

1. A music composing program that comes preloaded with 3,000 samples.

2. A royalty-free sound collection.

Obviously the royalty-free sound collection is in the clear. I asked if the 3,000 samples that came preloaded with the music composition program were copyrighted or not.

Tom

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 21, 2003 07:42 PM: Message edited by: tfunch24 ]</font>

[c_77]

I don't mean to sound flippant but maybe you would be best served by asking the company itself? That would be the best way to handle this...but if it's a software company be prepared to wait for an answer.

I use a program called Reason to compose some of my soundtracks. It is an amazing collection of studio software. Among its collection of softsynths it contains a sampler with many pre-fab loops by various artists - and if you can use them in a song you are cleared. I think that's how many of these products work. Many third party manufacturers sell additional loops that can be used in songs. These are great if you love techno but i don't.

http://www.propellerheads.se

[tfunch24]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by c_77:
I don't mean to sound flippant but maybe you would be best served by asking the company itself? That would be the best way to handle this...but if it's a software company be prepared to wait for an answer.
</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'll do that. Thanks. The company's name is Voyetra and it looks like they specialize in this type of software.

I'm not a big fan of techno, either, which is why I also purchased the collection of royalty-free samples. The collection encompasses rock/pop, dance, classical, new age, hip-hop, as well as techno. There are 10,000 samples (including sound effects and various vocals) on eight CDs.

Until I find out otherwise, I'm just going to use the royalty-free samples.

Tom

[c_77]

Email them and you'll have it in writing!