Keyboard Styles and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

[Nickt5]

On the subject of copyright - its a pity Yamaha (and other manufacturers) don't enforce Intellectual Property Rights over their styles.
I am fed up of seeing lots of styles advertised on eBay and the like which have been ripped-off and then resold as something 'new'. One such seller even says they create all the styles they sell using their own professional musicians in their studio which is absolute trash! On eBay theses styles are sold as brand new which really means the USB stuck they are sold on is brand new - not the styles - using this tactic they get round eBay selling rules on IPR and copyright infringement.
I have taken this up with Yamaha who said they would investigate but nothing happened and they are still being sold on eBay. I have also complained to eBay about IPR and copyright but they failed to do anything about it.

What does the forum think?

[DrakeM]

hmmmm ... I have about 300 song specific styles that I have made up from others styles, it sounds like I need to post them on Ebay maybe.

[EileenL]

Well I say more fool people if they want to waste money on chancing stuff from EBay. We have all had experience of the rubbish that is sold on there. If we don't buy it then these people can't make a living ripping you off.

[andyg]

If I can paraphrase what I wrote in Keyboard Player Magazine many years ago (after talking to several manufacturers including Yamaha). I have a feeling it may have been in a review of EMC Styleworks or perhaps one of the keyboards with style conversion software built in.

Manufacturers are pragmatic about style sharing and style conversion. It's not hard to do, and even 'protected' styles can be cracked (I'll emphasise that I did not and still do not condone the cracking of good quality, legitimate original and third party styles). It's going to happen and they don't have the time or resources to prevent it, even if they wanted to.

But there is now a lot of rubbish out there 'for sale' on the net. So called 'song specific' or 'custom' styles that are clearly just tweaks or remixes of in-built styles and so on. Caveat emptor, as they7 say!

[SeaGtGruff]

There are always going to be people who will try to make money by selling people stuff that can be freely or more cheaply obtained elsewhere, and eBay or other online sales platforms are going to be littered with such people's trash because it's such a convenient place to sell stuff.

Some years ago my ex-boss was telling us a story and mentioned a "goat cart," which I'd never heard of, so I looked it up online-- and one of the search results was for an old, beat-up, non-functioning goat cart that was being offered on eBay for a ridiculous amount of money on the basis that it was a "rare antique." If it had been evaluated by The Antiques Road Show and found to be a very valuable antique then that's another matter, although I seriously doubt the owner would then turn around and try to sell it on eBay.

The best thing to do is to avoid eBay entirely, or at least refuse to buy anything that isn't reasonably priced-- and in the case of style files, I'd say "reasonably priced" should be based upon the cost of the USB thumb drive or CD-ROM that the style files are being sold on, so anything over a dollar or two is probably just a blatant rip-off.

[Seagull29]

Hi,
There is this site on which we find a lot of Song Styles, some very well done:  http://www.songstyles.nl/

Regards
Seagull29

[DrakeM]

Yep, I saw someone posting 10,000 styles for sale at Ebay today there, really.

They ripped off that many from somebody for sure. I wonder if any of mine are in that 10,000?

[panos]

They probably are Drake 
Someone is selling over 220.000 Yamaha styles for 18.29 euros with 50% discount.

I remember that I have downloaded some free song styles from that site, Seagull29.
Nice songs there.

[Nickt5]

Ebay clamped down on pirated music and films a few years ago probably because the big film and music companies threatened them - and they had the money and clout to insist. If only the keyboard manufacturers would do the same but if they don't have the appetite then the situation will continue.

[Antonio]

Unfortunately, the temptation is strong, but enough in the pinch of intelligence to understand, what to give filth and stupid food in the Genos, which will throw up everything on you.
Use only original material !!!!!

[Gunnar Jonny]

..... Use only original material !!!!!

Genuine 3.rd party software works well too, but a good 'thumb rule' is to buy software from serious producers and sellers.
By act the legal way, we can support and keep up the developement and production of new and exciting stuff. 

[EileenL]

So True,
  If we do not buy styles there is no money going into developing new ones. But if we buy and then put on forums for hundreds to download free we are taking away some ones living as well as the prospect of getting good quality new ones.

[Dromeus]

Someone is selling over 220.000 Yamaha styles for 18.29 euros with 50% discount.

I'm absolutely sure that the vast majority of those "styles" are just plain crap that I wouldn't even feed into my Genos if they were free... Let's assume there are some good ones, how do I find them? Maybe preview those styles for about 30 sec each? With 220.000 styles this takes 110.000 min = 1833 hours. Doing this 5 hours/day (if you could tolerate this) you would finish this work in a year.

Come on guys, stay away from that sort of crap, which certainly violates someone's copyright, too. I spent a considerable amount of my money for a high quality keyboard, but certainly there are a few Euros left for high quality styles...

[Antonio]

you seem reasonable ........

[DonM]

I wonder what the difference is in worrying about someone stealing or sharing styles, and people freely sharing copy righted music and fake books? 
I also wonder why anyone would ever need thousands of styles. 

[Wouter1972]

220.000 Yamaha styles

That's on average over 600 different styles to sort out and use EVERY day for a YEAR next to the already existing styles. Who'd want that or has the time to do that!?

[SeaGtGruff]

Yes, surely many of those styles would be duplicates or near-duplicates that simply have different file names. You'd want to play each one to see what genre it falls under, move it into an appropriate folder ("Country," "Rock," "Soul," "Gospel," "Traditional," or whatever), then use some sort of utility to compare them so you can remove any duplicates. And then you'd possibly need to use a utility to convert them from SFF2 to SFF1 (if you're using a model that can't use SFF2 styles), not to mention revoicing them to use your particular model's best-sounding voices, as well as tweaking the other settings as desired (Channel Volume, Pan, Reverb Type and Depth, Chorus Type and Depth, etc.). If there are some genres which you simply aren't interested in, you'd be lucky if 25% or less of the styles ended up being something you'd actually ever use.

In my opinion, it would be far better to buy the style collections that are sold here on the main site, because some of that work (removing duplicates and categorizing the styles) has already been done for you.

[SciNote]

You have to be careful of any online purchase from an unknown seller.  As I am considering gigging in the future, I am keeping a look-out for a used PSR-E433 for a good price so that I have a spare in case mine zaps out right before a performance (and I'd need an exact PSR-E433, and not a newer or older model, so that I could quickly and directly load my registrations and other data from my existing flash drive without any modification).  Well, on my local Craigslist, there is one for sale.  He was originally trying to get $300 for it, claiming he bought it for $500!  Yeah, in what universe!  Even with some accessories, that keyboard was nowhere near that price in stores when new.  He has since dropped the price to $250 -- which is what I paid for a new one!  But someone who isn't familiar with the model and doesn't do any research might think it's a good deal.  Additionally, he mentions how it comes with warranty papers -- which I find interesting for a keyboard that came with a one year manufacturer's warranty and hasn't been produced in four years!

I've also seen those eBay ads that claim to sell tens of thousands of styles, and I always figured it is best to take those ads with a grain of salt.  Somewhere, I read that there is a lot of duplication among the styles.

EDIT:  I read the Craigslist ad again, and the writer claims that the PSR-E433 was originally $500 when new, not specifically that he bought it for that price.  Maybe you can make that claim concerning the MSRP, but certainly not the US street price.

[EileenL]

Probably most of these styles have been downloaded from forums like this. They are the ones that never say Thank You.

[keynote]

Remember that people need a Yamaha keyboard to play these "third party" styles with. Yamaha realizes that they also benefit when people buy these "third party" styles too because these people also need an appropriate Yamaha arranger keyboard in order to play these styles as they were meant to be heard. People who buy these "third party" styles may wind up purchasing a Genos or Tyros 5, etc., and if that is the case then Yamaha's own bottom line is boosted in the process. In other words Yamaha would actually be the primary benefactor since people who buy these styles need to purchase a Yamaha keyboard if they don't already have one. 

Mike

[whataguy]

Who was it that said "you get what you pay for"?

[EileenL]

If you have not got a Yamaha Keyboard why would you buy the styles in the first place. You would not be able to listen to them so how would you know.

[keynote]

If you have not got a Yamaha Keyboard why would you buy the styles in the first place. You would not be able to listen to them so how would you know.

I understand your point Eileen. As we know there are all kinds of third party styles sold on the internet. Some styles work better in specific Yamaha arrangers. Some styles were made for high end arrangers like the Genos and Tyros series and they wouldn't sound good on a lower end Yamaha arranger as you can imagine. So, let's say, a person has a low end Yamaha arranger but he has all these higher=end styles he purchased on the internet, along with a lot of low end, cheap sounding styles no doubt too. Wouldn't that be an incentive to consider upgrading to a higher end arranger in order to make use of the higher end styles? I know I would consider it if I was in a similar situation. Anyway, Yamaha realizes this potential side benefit and that's why I think they are somewhat hesitant to clamp down on such practices. By the way, there is really no need to purchase these "third party" styles because most of them can be obtained for free with a little elbow grease. But the theory still applies in either case. Everybody wins. The person buying the styles wins. The person using a little elbow grease wins. And finally, albeit primarily, Yamaha also wins because it gives people an incentive to upgrade and thereby increases Yamaha's bottom line. That's how I see it anyway.

Mike

[andyg]

Remember that people need a Yamaha keyboard to play these "third party" styles with. Yamaha realizes that they also benefit when people buy these "third party" styles too because these people also need an appropriate Yamaha arranger keyboard in order to play these styles as they were meant to be heard. People who buy these "third party" styles may wind up purchasing a Genos or Tyros 5, etc., and if that is the case then Yamaha's own bottom line is boosted in the process. In other words Yamaha would actually be the primary benefactor since people who buy these styles need to purchase a Yamaha keyboard if they don't already have one. 

Mike

And of course that works equally well for other manufacturers, and is probably the prime reason for their pragmatism over conversion of styles from make to make. For a Yamaha owner who buys/downloads converted Korg styles, there will be a Korg owner who does the opposite. As I said, it was all discussed some years ago. 'Hacked' versions of 'Premium' styles and their equivalents? You won't be surprised to know that they weren't happy about that at all!