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Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits

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Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits

#61

Post by vbezhenar »

albertzeyer wrote: post #36

The code is written in Rust. The core algorithm can be found here: https://github.com/allthemusicllc/atm-cli/blob/master/src/ut... (Specifically the function gen_sequences. It basically uses multi_cartesian_product to iterate over all permutations.) Isn't it a bit of wasted space to store the generated data on archive.org ( https://archive.org/download/allthemusicllc-datasets )? I mean, as we see, it's trivial to cre…

You can trivially write a program which will enumerate all the possible byte sequences in the universe. So you can claim that this tiny program contains everything including god. So you can claim copyright for everything.

Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits

#62

Post by pishpash »

jcelerier wrote: post #38
pishpash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the legal principle that distinguishes methods of generation? Even if enumeration is definitely on one side, there is an infinite gradation from there to human generation.

Intent

Again, there is a gradation and you've not answered the question.

What is the intent if a human provided 1 bit of input by flipping a coin and chose all the odd numbered melodies? What if a human provided 1 bit of input by flipping an unobservable mental coin? What about 2 bits? N bits?

What if a machine generated all the "interesting" melodies via a neural network?

Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits

#63

Post by Chinjut »

reacweb wrote: post #60
willvarfar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. I think the focus has to be on the spirit not the technology. Saying to a lawyer/judge/jurist "hey, this script can generate every possible melody!" _feels_ quite different from saying "every single melody is already written down, on this hard-drive I am waving at you! Look!" Tangent: reminds me of the Hutter Prize for compression (hey, they prize pot recently increased to €500K and I submitted it to HN bu…

Takes any algorithm that can generates the digits of pi. It is proven that all the sequences of digits are present somewhere in these digits. Can you claim copyright on all the books of the universe because you can show the algorithm that can generate every possible books ?

"It is proven that all the sequences of digits are present somewhere in these digits"

This has never been proven for the digits of π. Of course, there are other digit-sequences for which it is trivially true. For example, just concatenating together every finite sequence of digits, in some suitable order.

Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits

#64

Post by tomlong »

I know it's many orders of magnitude more difficult.. but if I got a printer to print out one of every possible art and published it, CC licensed it, etc wouldn't that have the same legal status as these melodies... probably none?

I showed this article to a musicologist (in the UK) and he said:

> I assume that somehow lawyers can refer to a precedent of "this is too ridiculous to be taken seriously"

Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits

#65

Post by tomlong »

tomlong wrote: post #64

I know it's many orders of magnitude more difficult.. but if I got a printer to print out one of every possible art and published it, CC licensed it, etc wouldn't that have the same legal status as these melodies... probably none? I showed this article to a musicologist (in the UK) and he said: > I assume that somehow lawyers can refer to a precedent of "this is too ridiculous to be taken seriously"

Just to quickly add, I think the project is cool, it provokes interesting discussion and it doesn't need to be legally watertight or achieve what they say they set out to, to be worthwhile.

Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits

#66

Post by collyw »

albertzeyer wrote: post #36

The code is written in Rust. The core algorithm can be found here: https://github.com/allthemusicllc/atm-cli/blob/master/src/ut... (Specifically the function gen_sequences. It basically uses multi_cartesian_product to iterate over all permutations.) Isn't it a bit of wasted space to store the generated data on archive.org ( https://archive.org/download/allthemusicllc-datasets )? I mean, as we see, it's trivial to cre…

> Isn't it a bit of wasted space to store the generated data on archive.org

Could the algorithm be considered a form of compression?

Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits

#67

Post by cyphar »

tomlong wrote: post #64

I know it's many orders of magnitude more difficult.. but if I got a printer to print out one of every possible art and published it, CC licensed it, etc wouldn't that have the same legal status as these melodies... probably none? I showed this article to a musicologist (in the UK) and he said: > I assume that somehow lawyers can refer to a precedent of "this is too ridiculous to be taken seriously"

The other thing is that machine-generated works almost by definition do not reach the "creative" aspect of the "original and creative" requirement for copyright to apply.

Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits

#68

Post by code6fun »

collyw wrote: post #66
albertzeyer wrote: post #36

The code is written in Rust. The core algorithm can be found here: https://github.com/allthemusicllc/atm-cli/blob/master/src/ut... (Specifically the function gen_sequences. It basically uses multi_cartesian_product to iterate over all permutations.) Isn't it a bit of wasted space to store the generated data on archive.org ( https://archive.org/download/allthemusicllc-datasets )? I mean, as we see, it's trivial to cre…

> Isn't it a bit of wasted space to store the generated data on archive.org Could the algorithm be considered a form of compression?

Does the algorithm represent the Kolmogorov Complexity of the dataset?

Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits

#69

Post by zdragnar »

vbezhenar wrote: post #61
albertzeyer wrote: post #36

The code is written in Rust. The core algorithm can be found here: https://github.com/allthemusicllc/atm-cli/blob/master/src/ut... (Specifically the function gen_sequences. It basically uses multi_cartesian_product to iterate over all permutations.) Isn't it a bit of wasted space to store the generated data on archive.org ( https://archive.org/download/allthemusicllc-datasets )? I mean, as we see, it's trivial to cre…

You can trivially write a program which will enumerate all the possible byte sequences in the universe. So you can claim that this tiny program contains everything including god. So you can claim copyright for everything.

One could make the same argument for a mathematician with a typewriter. The fact that it could come up with a particular sequence is, I think, less important than whether or not ot actually has recorded a particular sequence.
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