Ok, here's 'my' 2 cents worth regarding the Yamaha styles issue: Many (most?) of Yamaha's styles did not orginate from Yamaha at all, but are copies of famous artist's styles. I really doubt that Yamaha paid the original artists (Beatles,Jobim, etc) for using these highly recognizable styles in their keyboard. In fact, this is the reason why Yamaha gave the song names in their 'Music Finder' cryptic names instead of the actual 'real' song titles names: ei "Sixty Four Years Old" for the Beatles classic "When I'm Sixty Four" or "All Shaken Up" for Elvis' hit tune "All Shook Up". Hmmm, Is Yamaha now applying a 'double standard' with us on this issue?

It was my understanding (from what I learned in the music writing class I took back in college) that typically a copyrighted song consists of more than just the style (rhythm) alone. Afterall, a song consists of an all essential melody & chord progression too. In fact this is one of the ways a number of classic jazz tunes got around the copyright laws; many jazz tunes (like "Donna Lee", which has the same chord progression as "Back Home in Indiana", or "Ornithology", which is based on the changes of "How High The Moon") used the same chord progression as a well known established copyrighted standard; jazz musicians would then improvise over the same changes creating a new melody and a new song.

- Scott