Posted by Ming on July 05, 1999 at 07:18:39:
I must say that this debate is frightening me a bit. The original question was that pepole stole other pepoles work of art and called it their own. That is a violation of almost every national law, and of international copyright agreements. Such things should be fighted with frenzy.
The dude who stole Melcoms (or was that Maelcum?) tune actually commited a crime. Both to the law and to the scene. But this board have overreacted, and panicked into sample-protection and protection coding of music modules. Why?
Re-using samples from a mod is IMO not a bad thing. Instead, I encourage pepole to use my samples, it makes me proud to seethat I have created something useful for someone elses work. Eggbird is right there. Do not take the opportunity away from this free society of ours to do that. The samples are our instruments, the patterns are the music, and itīs the music that we shall not steal.
Itīs the music that should be protected. And you canīt do that in any technical way, except preventing pepole from listening to it. I could re-record Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and claim I wrote it, for all itīs worth.
I say the best way to do this is to form a network of pepole in the scene that the rest of us listens to. Like MisterX with this site, Kosmos of UT, some regular at the usenet newsgroups, Mysterium, Hecktarzuli...help me fill out this list. If copyright violations gets reported and the violators get hung out on every major corner of the scene, it just might discourage pepole to think they can get away with it.
But first, letīs define what is stealth and what is not. I claim sample ripping is definitely NOT stealth, and that free use of samples should be encouraged.
pax
Ming