Canned rhythms etc

A friend asks a fun question for the theoreticians here:

> You know those kiddies keyboard things that they have in
> school where they play a reggae beat, a rock beat, a salsa beat
> etc and then you play your own stuff over the top?
>
> Are the basic beats that come with the machine subject to copyright?
>
>We've got some footage of some kids singing and playing their own
>song over a beat, it's great footage and I'm insisting on checking
>out whether the basic sounds are (c) before using it, my friend
>thinks I'm being ridiculous and that we should just use it
>without checking.

Jurisdiction is the UK.

My initial answer was that there's *almost* certainly an implied licence with these, and also with drum machines etc.

But... Received on Wed Apr 26 2006 - 21:25:31 GMT