Steve Harder raised, among other questions, one concerning the
legality of inputting a QRS roll into a MIDI database. Assuming
that he has bought a copy of the QRS roll and is inputting the
music only for his own use, I would think that he is on safe
ground morally and legally: QRS has not been deprived of a sale
that it would have otherwise made and Steve is not exploiting
QRS's work for his own profit.
If I bought a copy of somebody's DOS manual and had it rebound,
interleaved with blank pages for my use in making notes on the
text, I would not be depriving the text's author or publisher of
the fruits of their labor since I purchased their text. Likewise
if I bought a book of poems and recorded someone's recitation of
them for my own private delectation, I would not be defrauding
the copyright holder; I might be doing so, however, if I made the
recording from a BORROWED text, since that would deprive the
author of one potential sale. The "fair use" section of the
copyright law allows certain uses of copyrighted material under
certain conditions.
Warning: this advice is worth only what you are paying for it.
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