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Roland Backs Down On MT-32 Emulator
canadacow writes "This is a follow up to the cease and desist letter the MT-32 project received (Original Story). Roland, unable to find documentationg establishing a copyright on the MT-32's ROM, has yielded to the project and allowed distribution of the emulator to continue. On my page www.artworxinn.com/alex I've again posted the emulator along with the legal developments as they happened after the receipt of the initial C&D letter. This development was largely due in part to the legal support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
Before you all get excited about this, note that this is not a win for OSS -- not really. Notice that no legality was established. Roland simply gave up because they have not been able to find their documentation establishing copyright.
Company Lawyer: "You're violating our copyrights! We order you to cease and desist distribution now, or face your utter doom through further legal action!"
Corporate underling, walking in, sullen looking...
Corporate Underling: "Uh, sir, we may have a problem, uh, here, sir. We can't find the copyright information, uh, on our rom, uh, sir..."
Company Lawyer's face suddenly shows his confusion, wonder, and amazement about having to completely retract his previous statement...
Company Lawyer: "Okay. We'll continue to allow you to distribute this time, but be warned, young project, that we'll meet again, Oh yes, we'll meet again!"
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Horay. We get to use iformation that an organisation has no further need for and no longer uses yet stll jealously guards.
Not quite sure it's a major victory.
In a world where companies are always trying to squeeze every last marginal penny out of us "consumers", they usually want to do so by abandoning valid and proven technologies in order to force us to upgrade to the latest doo-hickey for the sake of upgrading. Musicians generally don't need "the lastest thing", much to the chagrin of big companies who are trying to get us to go digital. Tube guitar amps, transistor-based effects pedals, well designed classic style guitars from the 50/60's (Fender Stratocasters, Telecasters, Gibson Les Pauls, Martin acoustics), class A discrete mic preamps, pre-World War 2 German microphones, these items are still in use today and still built this way because quite simply, they work. Not to mention the quality factor. If companies had their way, they'd be making wood *veneer* electronics guitars a la IKEA instead of with solid ash/mahogany bodies. But oh, since it doesn't sound as good, they'll make up for it by putting in digital pickups and then running it through a mock tube circuit which really is just a little light show to trick the plebs. As a synthesizer player, I still like my old analog synths (Roland Jupiter, ARP 2600, Oberheim Matrix). Yet it's funny because these days, companies make these digital synths to emulate what was already done and call it "progress".
The sad thing is, this depends on so many technicalities, it is not likely there will be another "victory" like this for a long time to come, becuase the relevant laws have all been strengthened in the last 20 years. In the US, Copyright lasts (practically) forever now, with no registration or renewal requirements. Unless there is a major shift in the laws, there is nothing being produced today that will come this close to becoming public domain in 20-30 years.
So, while I'm glad the MT-32 emulation project can continue, I don't see much chance of any other more cheerful stories like this coming out.
The emulator won't work unless you have a copy of the required ROM file, mt32_pcm.rom
:-)
So, don't slaughter their bandwidth/server by downloading the emulator unless you've got this file. Since I already made this mistake, I thought I might try to spread the word and cushion their Slashdotting, if only a little.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
"Roland, unable to find documentation establishing a copyright on the MT-32's ROM, has yielded to the project and allowed distribution of the emulator to continue."
That wouldn't stop SCO. I mean, at this point, can you really imagine the following sentence appearing anywhere:
SCO unable to find any code in Linux that matches code in Unixware or System V, has yielded to IBM and the Linux community and will no longer threaten Linux users with suing. "We goofed," Darl McBride, SCO CEO, admitted. "Sorry about that guys. No hard feelings, right?"
A professional synthesizer module produced by Roland during the mid to late 1980s. It had 128 built-in samples, but could also store custom samples using LA synthesis based on the existing samples. It's most desired by fans of older computer games; many games, especially adventure games, prior to about 1992 were written specifically for the MT-32. Since no other devices (other than a few devices based on the MT-32, also by roland) can play MT-32 MIDIs properly, they're quite desirable especially to fans of Sierra and Lucasarts adventure games, as well as fans of the Ultima RPGs.
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
This is interesting. Note that restored works are only an issue in the United States, and the original copyright gained in Japan by way of Berne should still be legitimate not only in Japan, but in just about every other Berne signatory (the restored work issue results from US non-compliance with Berne).
This would mean an interesting situation that you could be considered in infringing copyright if you take your work outside the USA, or if anyone downloads your work from outside the USA (many of the similar ITAR issues).
Since they couldn't find the copyright of the ROM, it seems it can be freely distributed.
"This development was largely due in part to the legal support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
Let's hear it for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Without the EFF, there'd be much more doom and gloom on Slashdot than there already is.
Although, "largely due in part" is an odd statement.
Long live Schrodinger's cat...
It was a synthesizer module, not a keyboard. It can be attached to anything that can communicate via MIDI; I have it connected to my AmigaOne right now, but it would work just as well with a MIDI keyboard. As the above poster points out, there was also the LAPC-1, which was basically a Roland MPU-401 MIDI port and a Roland MT-32 in one ISA card. (They used the same idea later with the SCC-1, which is an MPU-401 and an SC-55 in one ISA card.)
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
It's not a keyboard, it's a sound-module. i.e. it's the part which generates the sounds but doesn't have any keys on it to play and is controlled by another MIDI device.
It was an important product in it's day since it was the first multi-timbral (hence MT) synth meaning it could play more than one instrument at a time (e.g. piano and trumpet). The 32 refers to the maximum simultanous voices of the device. Each instrument uses between 1 and 4 voices, so the actual polyphony was between 8 and 32 depending on the instruments you were using. If you had two MT32s you could daisy chain so overflow notes go to the second device.
As others have mentioned they were supported in various games, like the Sierra adventures. My personal fave was X-wing with the MT32 (music) + Soundblaster (effects) setting.
MT32s are pre-GM (General MIDI) so the instrument mappings are non-standard (luckily the drums are the same). Various MIDI devices will have a MT32 mapping mode, so MIDI files will sound about right but for the real effect you'd need the real device.
The tone generators were a hybrid of FM generation (i.e. sawtooth waveform etc.) plus a limited amount of sampled data.
I saw one of these things, in the beginning of the 90s, at a friend's house. It was really high end... and he used "Leisure Suit Larry" to demo it (!). Anyway, this MT-32 emulation effort will probably be interesting for running the golden DOS-era games (many abandoware, check Home of The Underdogs).
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
True for creations past a certain date. Before that, creations had to be registered to be protected. Unlike bogus copyright extensions, this change is not retroactive. I suspect that this is exactly the case here.
I recently pulled a Roland MT-32 that I paid way too much money for back in the early 1990's out of the closet and played for a while.
What a disappointment. The instruments are mediocre and very noisy. The MIDI implementation is unnecessarily difficult and poorly documented. The editor programs still available are awkward to use and impossible to alter (no source code anywhere for MT-32 editors).
The unit has no backup battery inside. All modifications to any sounds are lost at power-down. The internal firmware writes the mediocre internal voices over whatever is in RAM so just adding a battery to the RAM's VCC won't save your work.
The internal synthesizer is just a square wave and a sawtooth with a gritty filter, amplitude envelope, and pitch tweeker (fire engine siren generator). So-so reverb and precussion patches. That's the whole thing.
Of all the synthesizers to select to emulate, this would be my last pick. Fifteen years ago, when it was released, it might have been impressive. But not now.
In fact, of all the synth tone modules from that period, the MT-32 sells for the least amount of money on Ebay. Someone is always trying to unload one for $40-$50 US.
The only thing cheaper is the Yamaha FB-01. In my opinion, the FB-01 is a 'better' synth because you can at least get some really metallic industial sounds out of it, along with fair orchestral instruments. For a $50 Ebay synth, get a Yamaha TX-81Z. It's the same price as a Roland MT-32, but far more fun and flexable to play with.
I wish I could say this is a cheerfull story for me. I am certainly happy that the MT-32 project was able to go on its merry way. I am certainly happy that the author was able to continue using his spare time to make a positive contribution to both the culture and humanity. I am really not happy this played out in the usual way.
Consider the general case of legal intimidation.
1. The little guy undertakes a project/enterprise/undertaking that somehow threatens/annoys/provides a scapegoat for someone at a large company.
2. The large companies officers/representatives/agents meet with their legal representation and proceed to formulate an attack via the legal system.
3. If the activity isn't sufficiently profitable or the defendant doesn't have sufficient disposable personal resources, they either have to obtain pro-bono legal representation or face judgements that may economically devastate them.
4. Even if the defendant can defend themselves there is no assurance a victory ends the matter.
5. Even if a final victory is obtained by the defendant it is in only the most loose sense of the terms a victory. The only thing they have gained is the right to proceed in their business unmolested, they have lost a great deal of time, energy and usually financial resources to have things restored to status quo ante bellum.
I know its been said before, but the legal system is a cruel joke. To expect a class of people to place the pursuit of justice ahead of their personal profit is insane. Too allow anyone with a hair up their rear to bring suit indefinitely without the presumption of their being wrong and the built in provision for compensation is insane.
I believe that the MT-32 Emulator is a worth while project - But I am confused as to why the ROM needs to be copied at all. Why not record your own samples instead? It is not like those original samples are that great anyways. If the open source community (me included) recorded and processed our OWN samples, then none of these issues would have come up. The copyright on the originals would not be an issue at all.
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
If you want a good synth, these days they are cheap and plentful the cheapest and most flexable for the money I can think of is the SoundBlaster Live. It's a real, no-shit, sample based MIDI playback device. Now it doesn't sound all that impressive with the included samples (better than the MT-32 but not great) but the cool thing is that you can find free and commercial samples in Creative Labs' Sound Font format all over the net. Get yourself a better one, and you are rocking. Along those lines, you aren't limited by the orignal GM spec. You can load your own instruments at your own locations to your hearts content. Quite a powerful editor for Sound Fonts too. Now, given that SBLives have be had for as little as $30 brand new, the MT-32 in no way competes.
This isn't even to mention the new synthesizers that Roland offers (under the name Edirol now) or more professional versions of the Live/Audigy hardware that Emu sells (Proteus).
The point of emulating the MT-32 is vintage sound. Many games were composed to it's unique sound. Hence if you want the true sound of old games, it's desirable to have one. So the emulator is for enthusiasts, not professionals.
This was back in the day when copyright was NOT an inherant thing. You had to actually file for it. IF you failed to do so, you had no copyright. The law was later changed so that copyright was inherant, at the moment of creation. All you had to do was make something and you had the copyright.
Since the MT-32 was made before that date and since Roland didn't file, they have no copyright.