NI Library and copyright: Vimeo

Plasmazone

Hi. I have read the NI usage terms but would like clarification on a copyright issue.

I am a movie maker and write my own music to accompany my movies. 99.9% these are my own compositions / improvisations but from time to time I have used the Maschine library, from my Ultimate collection, usually as a color 'metronome' to build on. These movies are hosted on Vimeo.

Last week I received a letter from them claiming I was partaking in copyright infringement in one of my movie soundtracks. I was surprised as I take care not to engage in copyright infringement. They referred me to the work of the complainant so I was able to research the conflict. The track is the NI Halcyon Sky / Morning Star. Looking through the complainant's music site it appears he pastes up NI library tracks as-is. Could these then form the basis of copyright claims?

I appealed to Vimeo with a link to the NI HS/MS page but they declined this and removed my video. Vimeo has 'form' when when it comes to this - see their Trustpilot page - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.vimeo.com

I am now going to de-platform myself from Vimeo but what I would like to ask is what is generally the position viz-a-viz these circumstances. Does this mean the NI Libraries are only usable to the first person that uses them and then claims copyright?

D-One

It's a messed up situation because as an owner of a music product you are free to use anything you make with it commercially, however, if someone registers something too similar 1st you now have to deal with copyright laws that are external to NI and often function very badly online.

I don't think people can go and register a demo song as-is from an expansion that cames prepackaged as their own original work but maybe @Jeremy_NI or @Matt_NI can elaborate here.

But even if the above is true someone with shady intentions can just tweak small little things, register it then claim your version is a copy of "their work", it can just be the same sample, or overall too similar of a song, which of course is highly subjective. The fact that often this sort of claim system can be automated doesn't help, a bot decides your song is too similar and you just get flagged, the system tends to always favor the person/entity claiming the copyright strike (major labels pressured social sites a lot for this to happen) so they're often abused.

I'd leave Vimeo too in your shoes, and probably also blast them on socials, which often gets the attention of someone in the office to get it sorted.

Sunborn

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/30057/ni-library-and-copyright-vimeo

Hello,

As long as you legally own an instrument or a library, you should be able to use it in your products (even commercially), otherwise why should any artist buy all this stuff, if not for using it?

However, while you can use the instruments and files from the Halcyon Sky, you probably can not use the Halcyon Sky / Morning Star, since it is a demo song, made by someone else, thus Vimeo flagged it, because you used a part of it as is.

I am pretty sure about the above (since I'm also an artist and relatively familiar with similar legal issues), however to be 100% sure, let's wait the admins mentioned in D-One's comment above, to confirm this (or not).