copyright
Am I allowed to use other peoples instruments in my music?
<p>I'm new to creating music and trying to understand how everything works.
I have been trying to look for instruments I like and I just can not find any good download packs. I have even bought a couple expensive ones but it's just not what I want.</p>

<p>I have recently found out about "stems" and some songs I really like have some stems available to download. 
I would like to download these stems and take the instrument they use in it. For example If they use a trumpet I will take the trumpet track, cut out 1 trumpet note and re-pitch and edit it to however I like and put that in my song.</p>

<p>No, I do not want to make a remix. I am not taking the WHOLE track. I am ONLY interested in the instrument they use. If this is not possible then could I go onto youtube, download a video where someone plays their guitar, take one note they play on that guitar and edit it and put that in my song?</p>

<p>Is this legal? Do other people do this? </p>

<p>Your question is whether you can copy instrumental portions of recorded music, and modify it to create a new work, without permission. The answer is that this is illegal. This would be creating a "derivative work", and under copyright law, only the copyright holder has the right to authorize creation of a derivative work. Whether or not you have paid for a copy of a recording, you would still need a separate license to legally extract and use part of a recording. This includes taking just one instrument, and includes taking just a part of one instrument. Material on Youtube is subject to different licenses: in some cases items are free of restrictions, in some cases, you can't legally copy them at all. The standard Youtube license does not allow any copying.</p>

<p>Copyright infringement of music is rather common. Enforcement of copyright must be pursued by the copyright holder, and you would need to discuss your specific plans with a copyright attorney to determine your probability of getting sued. Ultimately, you might get away with minimal copying, relying on a <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/tags/fair-use/info">fair use</a> defense (you still get sued, but you might prevail and not have to pay). There are street rumors that there is an N-note threshold for copyright infringement, where people often pick numbers from 3 to 7, but in fact there is no clear rule. <a href="http://mcir.usc.edu/cases/Pages/default.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This resource</a> assembles relevant case law.</p>

<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2589269115679339204&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films</a>, in the 6th District, establishes the rule that any amount of copying is infringement, whereas <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/13-57104/13-57104-2016-06-02.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VMG Salsoul, LLC v. Ciccone</a> in the 9th District rejects that finding and allowed a case of .23 seconds (230 milliseconds) of copying. The "de minimis" doctrine is independent of "fair use" which has a statutory basis, but seems to have arisen from similarity doctrines which are involved in proving that copying took place.</p>

<p>This seems not to be actually about taking a tiny amount of music from a music recording, but about getting a sample of a music instrument. There are people recording say individual trumpet notes, likely in various degrees of loudness, and creating an &quot;instrument&quot; that can be used by a synthesizer so a keyboard player can create something that sounds remarkably like a trumpet.</p>
<p>If I create a record and want some trumpet music on it but not hire a trumpet player, I can pay for such an artificial &quot;trumpet&quot;. I pay a license fee, and that will give me the right to use this recording in my own music. The creator of the (digital) instrument has the copyright. My music recording is a derived work (with plenty of my own copyrighted components obviously), but with a proper license, so I am fine.</p>
<p>The OP isn't actually interested in a copy of my music. He wants to get the notes from the &quot;trumpet&quot; instrument. That's what he expressly said at the beginning of the post. Extracting the instrument will be copyright infringement, and it will be most definitely not &quot;fair use&quot; or &quot;de minimis&quot; because what he is doing is directly destroying the livelihood of the instrument creator.</p>

<p>I can fill out with more detail later, but the Sixth Circuit held in <em><a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-6th-circuit/1498816.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, 410 F.3d 792 (6th Cir. 2005)</a></em> that basically any sampling of a sound recording, no matter how short, is an infringing use. </p>

<p>Despite that, you may still be able to establish a fair use defense, but that's going to be very fact-specific.</p>
