On the surface it would appear that one of the things that most attracted me to Yamaha in the first place is about to be outlawed. Bob Gelman's Style Forum is very active with members who share EVERYTHING YAMAHA. This forum is also comprised of members willing to share operating and performance tips that might be considered "trade secrets"...but the end result is that none of us gets hurt by sharing...and, in fact, makes our presence and our performing abilities even stronger. I find it hard to believe Yamaha has lost keyboard sales to style swappers.

Perhaps Yamaha Corp will provide a more detailed explanation which will prevent some kind of public relations disaster for them.

Just one more thought: This particular forum with its ingenious and generous members has picked up a lot of slack left by Yamaha manuals that are lacking.

Eddie

What ARE the other companies' position on downloading styles? I know Korg makes some available on their website.
DonM

Hi All,
One or two years ago we had the same discussion on this forum.
Styles contain small fragments of songs and are NO songs themselves.
As stated before : Yamaha did NOT invent SAMBA, CHA, R&R, Blues or any other kind of music.
YAMAHA wrote the OS (= software) in which styles can be created or converted ..... sure, this OS has copyrights but styles are just input-data or output-data of the OS.

Roel

I think Yamaha is a BIG company and is flexing their muscle's .
I believe that it is OK to record a song using a style .
I think the only problem is the fact that another person could identify "how" your song was created . "Oh they must have used style such and such on the yamaha psr-whatever " .
Which musically isn't creating the style from scratch and there fore not being totally original !
BTW ......I believe that it's players who never owned an arranger keyboard ( and understund the functions)that give arrangers a bad rap ! If I record using a style , I make sure to edit or add to the styles ! Just like someone would edit a sample or edit a beat ! dano
my 2 cents worth .........

DonO,

I think what everyone here is saying is the style bossa nova or Samba or Rock is 'public domain' They may be trying to protect their styles from becoming 'common' which would make the styles not unique enough to be copyrighted, but I believe, they already are 'commonly' used names and styles that appear on every keyboard.

They did not create the bossa nova! Yamaha also stated that just changing a voice would not make the style different. How do you make a bossa nova different if not to change the voices etc? Still a bossa nova isn't it?

Interesting topic. I bought the keyboard cause of all the styles that were available for it. What a shame the company puts a cloud over their own products and causes hard feelings for their customers. Not very smart business.

Maybe they think they are fighting Napster ha-ha

-Linda

Whats next?.........

"Style Spies" in the audience just waiting to pounce on performers after a song, issuing a Subpoena to appear in court to answer charges of Style Copyright infringment? :>)

I heard that Al Gore may start making new styles for Yamaha !

[This message has been edited by DanO1 (edited 01-28-2002).]

This is an unfortunate, but inevitable step that Yamaha is taking. However, some members appear to be overreacting.

As I read the letter, Yamaha gives consent to the use of their styles in songmaking, whether in audio or SMF format. In addition, Yamaha gives consent to the use of their styles in original stylemaking--as long as the modifications are significant. Presumably, the songs and original styles can be posted on the Internet. What is prohibited is the posting of Yamaha factory styles and factory styles modified only to the extent to make them more compatible with target arranger keyboards.

If Yamaha wants to prevent posting of Yamaha factory styles, they can do so in a variety of ways. They can close sites almost at will and they can start to employ technological means to prevent saving of factory styles to disk. It does not even matter whether Yamaha has the legal right to prevent distribution of styles--hosting sites will not look that deeply into the issue before closing their customer's sites. I think Yamaha is currently acting in its own enlightened self-interest, but I would not push it.

For those who remember the slaughter of the SMF sites, it is likely that some sharing of factory styles will continue. I bet you can post requests and have your friends respond by email. I think that it is the full-scale free-for-all posting that companies like Yamaha see as a threat.


In my mind, the style sharing community has only itself to blame for the restrictions being imposed. If style conversion were limited to out-of-production keyboards, Yamaha might never have acted. However, what was Yamaha supposed to tell its CVP-209 customers when they found their $7k styles freely available on their friends PSR-2000?

The bad news is not over. Technics (I think) has already acted on the issue by requesting that EMC StyleWorks not provide for conversion from their keyboards. (I certainly think this is a less desirable approach than Yamaha's.) Eventually all arranger companies will assert rights over their factory styles and prevent posting in original and factory form.

There may be a silver lining here. Maybe more custom styles will start appearing. Simon Phillips has made original styles available on the web, both for-free and for $. Maybe efforts like his will blossom once the free styles are removed from the arena.

All I can say is, if Technics really did this, they have an awful lot of nerve because they INCLUDED style conversion software with the KN5000. As I recall, Yamaha was about the only brand you couldn't convert.
DonM

dnj,
thanks for posting Don Mason's entry to the styles forum. I want to put my two cents in as a "prospective" buyer, should Yamaha ever get to this growing thread.
I have been leaning heavily towards the PSR2000 for some time. In the event Yamaha prevents me from getting the most of my instrument, without actually selling styles, then I will look elsewhere.
As of now, I will be looking to Korg and hope this thread reaches out to the other vendors so we can determine who is going to be standing in the end as far as trade and exchange of exciting and useful styles. My guess is Roland will open the flood gates and let musicians do their thing.
With the incredible turnover of models, I dont see why we should be restricted, does anyone here actually sell the styles for profit? Can someone identify why this puts a hurt on Yamaha? That was a pretty stern message give their customers (duh, just who makes yamaha anyway?). Strong enough to make a rebel out of me, break out the bell bottoms!
thanks
tgalf