IP or Intellectual Property in general- Something between yourself and/or a couple others is not usually a problem. It's when you mass distribute without permission from, or pay licensing fees (royalities) to the holder of that IP property. 

  That's what got Napster in trouble eight years ago. If it was in public domain, it wasn't a problem. It was when music that was still under copyright and mass distributed beyond the boundaries and scope of the "fair use" clause that Napster got sued. Had they not been taking advertising dollars for profit, or ads the would lead to someone other than the IP holder making a profit, it would not have problem.

Csound is open source, but if you were to create a product that used Csound code ie- a digital synth using Csound at its core, and the licensing fees weren't paid, there might be a problem. I remember seeing something on the site itself about licensing requirements, cicumstances and fees for licensing Csound.

When in doubt, check it out.

- Partev 
Happy hunting.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



--- richarddobson@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:

From: Richard Dobson 
To: csound@lists.bath.ac.uk
Subject: [Csnd] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: maybe OT- patents etc
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:07:11 +0100

Eric Lyon wrote:
> I think that you would still be considered to infringe a patent if you 
> distributed at-risk work for free. If I code up some DSP algorithm that 
> happens to be patented and put it on my website, I could be in trouble. 
> People have been prosecuted for free distribution of music judged to 
> violate someone's IP, notably John Oswald v.s. Michael Jackson. More 
> have been threatened with legal action. I agree with John Ffitch that 
> this is a most unsatisfactory situation. 
> 
> Any coding you do in the privacy of your own home is probably safe, for 
> now. The same might even be true for composition :^)
> 
> Eric
>  
> 
I'm kicking myself because I read not so long ago (a month, maybe) 
~somewhere~ that the "original patents" on waveguides had expired. I 
totally cannot recall where I saw this (it will probably trurn up when i 
am looking for something esle). I took it as meaning (if true) that 
instruments based on "simple" waveguides (but possibly not the later 
"commuted" incarnations) are very likely safe these days.

Richard Dobson





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