Sample libraries resale and music written with them

[hazenut]

What happens to your music written with the sample libraries when you do license transfer?

This is a question came to me when I was reading through ableton live's eula section 16.3: If the termination of this EULA involves Packs, Third-Party Content or other licensed materials (e.g., sound samples, loops, musical phrases, etc.), You may not redistribute or publicly perform, make available to the public, or otherwise commercially exploit music containing these elements after the termination of this EULA without obtaining a separate license from Ableton for such content.

This effectively means that you have to pull all your music published on every website containing those samples if you do resell, which is quite drastic. And it sounds to me like a tactic that they really not let you to resell if even resale is technically allowed. And obtaining a separate license around an occasion that all your music is at stake doesn't sound like a fair situation to negotiate anything.

What is the industry standard on this? I've searched the eula on NI, StudioOne, Omnisphere, VSL, Chirs Hein, etc, which allow resales and haven't found anything similar. Or maybe such thing is implicit? But then it strikes the question about professionals who resell the hardware synths, which a lot of them contain samples. I also see some sample libraries specifically said that music previously written containing the samples are still valid even after expiration, like Boom Library (which is under subscription model)

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[Jrides]

add this to the list of things I’ve never ever worried about. I think you might be overthinking this whole situation. Besides, instead of debating about it here, all of those developers have email addresses. You could reach out to them individually and find out what their perspective is on it. My guess is that you won’t find a developer that will come after an artist in this particular type of situation.

 

[hazenut]

But I'm more interested to know about the general case in this situation. What is the default interpretation? Is continuous use of previously written music an implicit agreement, or really no agreement but just devs not "going after". The difference will be (potentially huge) additional cost, and surprise. The thing is, I have contacted the customer service and it has been several days without reply. Also I would like to know more from user's experience, especially professionals who make a living with their music

 

[imusic]

It is a business expense- you got to keep it …

 

[Mike Greene]

If any developer were looking for a reason not to allow resale, this thread is it.

To use a library on tracks that make money (even if only potentially), and then want to sell that library may or may not be a violation of the written terms, but it certainly goes against the spirit of why a company might allow resale.

Especially given that purchasing a sample library grants the user a *license* to use the samples, not ownership of the actual samples or content. So it would be a little disingenuous to want to continue keeping the benefits of that license, but want to sell it, too.

 

[psy dive]

Only on VI-Control.

 

[Jrides]

If any developer were looking for a reason not to allow resale, this thread is it.

To use a library on tracks that make money (even if only potentially), and then want to sell that library may or may not be a violation of the written terms, but it certainly goes against the spirit of why a company might allow resale.

Especially given that purchasing a sample library grants the user a *license* to use the samples, not ownership of the actual samples or content. So it would be a little disingenuous to want to continue keeping the benefits of that license, but want to sell it, too.

So if a person bought komplete 11, for example, and used some of the stuff on Music that they uploaded to Spotify… then over the next five years, they realized that they don’t use this package anymore…. You consider selling the license an abuse of some sort?

if that’s your perspective, no worries. However, I think it means a lot of people probably misunderstand the spirit of license transfer privileges. TBH, if I were in that scenario, it wouldn’t have even dawned on me that I was possibly doing something that someone would consider wrong. I guess I’m lucky that so far, none of the licenses I have had to sell, were used on anything.

 

[jbuhler]

If any developer were looking for a reason not to allow resale, this thread is it.

To use a library on tracks that make money (even if only potentially), and then want to sell that library may or may not be a violation of the written terms, but it certainly goes against the spirit of why a company might allow resale.

Especially given that purchasing a sample library grants the user a *license* to use the samples, not ownership of the actual samples or content. So it would be a little disingenuous to want to continue keeping the benefits of that license, but want to sell it, too.

I guess I would say “sort of” and it depends on how you view the libraries. If a library is analogous to an instrument, then there’s nothing peculiar about buying (or renting) an instrument to make a recording and then selling it because you no longer need it. I think that’s the model those who buy a library make a recording and then want to sell the library are working with. We can talk about the legal status of libraries as recordings all we want but for most users they are thinking of libraries as akin to physical instruments so it’s not really a surprise they’d want to treat them that way when it comes to buying and selling. And I think they have a good case so long as they are only selling fixed songs that were made with the library and are not going back and reworking the material in any respect.

I’d also say the more an instrument contains phrases and loops, that is, discernible performances rather than simple notes, the more it would seem you are dealing with more than an “instrument” and so one should retain ownership over the license to the library if you are going to continue to exploit the performance. Of course that means there’s a very fine line between those libraries one can sell versus those one can’t (even if transfer of libraries is permitted).

 

[NYC Composer]

I’ve only resold one library in my life (I bought Damage 1 and had it within Komplete as well.) that required a transfer and is a somewhat different situation. However, I have about 2000 library tracks out there. If I had only one copy of Damage, decided never to use it again because I felt it was overused and I sold it, I should go through 2000 tracks, find which ones used Damage and remove them from consideration??

Ridiculous.

 

[Robert_G]

These threads kill me.

Example....
I buy a race car. I enter into Nascar. I win $500k in a race.
I become famous. Now I'm earning residual income from sponsors.
I get old....can't win a race because I have to stop to pee too many times.
I sell the race car for 50% of what I paid for it. I'm still getting residual income from all sorts of avenues because I'm famous.
Are you going to tell me I can't sell the car that made me all that money?
Do I have to give all my further residual income to the guy that buys my car?

Absolute hogwash. That music is mine. I made it and I can do with it what I want. It's no different than renting a piano and making a whole album of piano music and then selling the music....I'm still selling my music after the rental period is over. The fact that I no longer am renting the piano means ZERO.

 

[Mike Greene]

So if a person bought komplete 11, for example, and used some of the stuff on Music that they uploaded to Spotify… then over the next five years, they realized that they don’t use this package anymore…. You consider selling the license an abuse of some sort?

"Abuse" is too strong of a word, but my personal opinion is that if you got to the point where you uploaded tracks to Spotify, then for me personally, I'd feel weird about then selling it. A Komplete license is what, 500 bucks? If it helped create a track good enough to get on Spotify, then it seems to me Komplete did its job.

If it were 5 or 10 grand, then that might be a different story. But given that any of these libraries is priced far lower than what it would cost to record live players for even one song, it seems a bit of a slap in the face of the developer to then cost them a sale they might have made to a future customer who buys from you instead. (Just my opinion, though.)

If I had only one copy of Damage, decided never to use it again because I felt it was overused and I sold it, I should go through 2000 tracks, find which ones used Damage and remove them from consideration??

If you have 2,000 tracks where you used Damage, didn't you *already* get your money's worth from it? Is it really the case that you then need to recoup part of that cost by selling it?

Again, if developers wanted reasons for why resale is a bad idea, this thread has it in spades. I can understand people believing a library wasn't what they expected. Or maybe they bought on impulse but never actually used it. But giving a reason of "I only used it 2,000 times, now I'm gonna resell it"? No developer is going to say that's what they had in mind when/if they decided to allow resale. It may or may not be prohibited by their EULA, mind you, but it's certainly not in the spirit of what was intended.

These threads kill me.

Example....
I buy a race car. I enter into Nascar. I win $500k in a race.
I become famous. Now I'm earning residual income from sponsors.
I get old....can't win a race because I have to stop to pee too many times.
I sell the race car for 50% of what I paid for it. I'm still getting residual income from all sorts of avenues because I'm famous.
Are you going to tell me I can't sell the car that made me all that money?

~sigh~ This is just silly, and ... no offense, but it's beneath the level of discussion for a thread where I'd like to participate, so please don't post further. I'll still respond, though:

Of course you can sell the car. It's a physical object, not a license.

Sample libraries aren't cars. They're not land or pianos or guitars, or any physical object. They're licenses. (And for people besides Robert, please, for the sake of keeping the thread intelligent, don't start claiming libraries delivered on DVDs or hard drives are physical objects.)

Here's how it works: People pay me $199 for permission to use Sunset Strings on their tracks. No "ownership," just permission, that I grant under terms that I decide, and where the user decides to accept or not. (By purchasing or not.) That's the deal that both parties accept.

If people want more of an ownership role (like with a physical guitar or piano) where they can buy and sell at will, then that's of course something I *could* do (since I get to decide the terms), but ... I wouldn't be selling Sunset for just $199 if that were the case. Because that $199 price factors in the fact that each serial would be limited to one person. That's important, because if the Classifieds and eBay are going to be flooded with "used" copies of Sunset Strings, then I'm going to be selling fewer copies, so I need to sell for a higher price.

Worried you may have to delete 2,000 tracks later on? Then don't buy from companies with the crazy notion that you already got your money's worth from those 2,000 uses.

 

[P3TAAL]

add this to the list of things I’ve never ever worried about. I think you might be overthinking this whole situation. Besides, instead of debating about it here, all of those developers have email addresses. You could reach out to them individually and find out what their perspective is on it. My guess is that you won’t find a developer that will come after an artist in this particular type of situation.

I agree. I wouldn't loose 1 seconds sleep over it to be honest. I've sold few libraries I've used here and there.

 

[jbuhler]

Here's how it works: People pay me $199 for permission to use Sunset Strings on their tracks. No "ownership," just permission, that I grant under terms that I decide, and where the user decides to accept or not. (By purchasing or not.) That's the deal that both parties accept.

Yes, this is legally how it works. Legally what you get when you "buy" a license for a sample library is the right to use the recordings. But that is not the conventional understanding most think when using sample libraries set up to resemble instruments. It feels more like playing an instrument than playing back recordings, so the basic analogy runs in the direction of the physical instrument, not a set of loops and one-shots that you've purchased as with a phrase library. That is, I believe most users think of libraries as instruments like physical pianos or guitars or whatever. That's how I generally think of them when using them even though I know perfectly well that legally that's not what they are.

 

[mussnig]

but it's certainly not in the spirit of what was intended.

You might be right about that (and you for sure know this business way better than I probably ever will) but how would you know what various devs intended when they decided to allow reselling libs?

 

[NYC Composer]

Mike-you misread. I didn’t say I have 2000 tracks out there that have Damage 1. I said that the idea of going through 2000 tracks, figuring out which have Damage 1 on them and removing them from various libraries is risible. Not happening.

Meanwhile, as I said I don’t resell or transfer, or hardly ever.

 

[MaxOctane]

For developers that don’t allow resale this is a non-issue to begin with.

But for developers that do allow resale, what would the point be if you then had to de-monetize your previous works? Then library resale would only be viable for non-commercial users. I would consider that an uncommon interpretation.

 

[Mike Greene]

In the interest of keeping the thread focused, I'm deleting tangential posts (I mean a LOT of posts, since this topic has already been argued to death in previous threads), including posts about what people think software laws/rules should be, as opposed to what they actually are. (With all due respect, it's beneath the sophistication level of the forum to continue arguments that a guitar sample library should be treated the same as a physical guitar.)

I realize that's harsh, but on a topic like this, where it would be nice if people with actual insight on the topic (developers, etc.) might chime in. (To answer @mussnig's question, for instance.) So it's best if the thread doesn't devolve into ten pages of pitchforks before they even get here.

 

[hazenut]

Is there anyone actually had an experience of negotiating anything under similar circumstances? (I'm pondering some high profile producers/composers) I would imagine such stuff were seldomly brought upon when one do resell. If things are really that high stake, then at least they would have communicated and should be on the same page. It also intrigues me about professionals saying that they resold theirs hardware synths. As Mike says, if they contain samples, then technically they are not that different from sample libraries from law's perspective. Were they going to pull their old music from streaming services as well?

 

[QuiteAlright]

Interesting question. I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice, but based on my understanding you would no longer be able to distribute your music containing those samples unless you were explicitly given permission.

VSL's website actually has this question inside of their FAQ, but then they don't answer it:

Is it OK to sell the product to someone else if I’m finished with the project that I needed it for?
License Transfers will be handled on a case-by-case basis as a special customer service. It will be necessary to announce a license transfer to us, and both you and the new licensee will have to agree to the license transfer. A nominal fee will be charged per transferred license.

 

[Digivolt]

But I think it's hard for developers who allow transfers to say you can sell this but only if you stop selling any music you made previously with it. That’s tantamount to declaring the library something other than an instrument. Basically they are saying you can only return the library but only on the condition that you find a new buyer for it and act as though you never owned the license. That seems a most peculiar condition to impose and no wonder users don‘t generally understand it and those who do bristle at it.

What happens to library music or you ghost produce for somebody or a company ?

You sell your music to the library company/entity they pay an upfront fee to own that music, isn't that technically a breach of the eula because they're now profiting off the music made with sample libraries that they don't own the licenses for ?