you are so confused in your reasoning Genesys and AFG its just not even funny.

Copyright is about protecting an authors right to intellectual property. Bear that in mind in your examples.

The guy that made the guitar (lets call him Les Paul) has no copyright on the guitar unless he made and designed the original guitar (like a few hundred years earlier) Les Paul can only claim copyright if the guitar he made is so distinctive and unique that it can be claimed to have features that are original, unique and its author is easily identifyable as Les Paul. So for example it may have a distinctive shape or design that is unique to Les Paul's guitar. Thats the intellectual property he could protect. Not the sound the guitar makes. If that guitar design is unique and has features that distinguishes it from other guitars , the image of the guitar cpild be copyrighted and if someone took an unauthorised picture of it they could be breaching copyright but read the judgement below.

example http://www.mi-pro.co.uk/news/1092/Gibson-lawsuit-ends-with-PRS-victory

the guy who samples the guitar (lets call him James )has the copyright of the sample he made of the Guitar Les Paul made. The intellectual property is the recording and all the chopping and looping and stretching that James did to make his property sound the way it does. Note he does not have the copyright of the sounds the guitar makes just the sound he sampled and worked with ie 'the work he wishes to have protected' That electronic sample or data is his work and he has copyright over it. This is the intellectual property he wishes to protect. Not the sound of the guitar but the electronic data he has made. Copyright will not prevent anyone else who wishes to sample a guitar because the sound is not copyrighted , just the electronic sound data of the individual sample which has an identifiable owner !

The guy that clones the electronic sample (lets call him Dom )owns nothing. He illegally copies the electronic data of James and then sells or distributes pretty much virtually unaltered to whomever he chooses illegally. His work consists of a copy of James intellectual property . Remember it is not the sound that is copyrighted. It is the electronic data.

I hope that clears it up a little bit.

[This message has been edited by spalding1968 (edited 06-18-2010).]