Copyright law is a joke and this is the perfect way to demonstrate that.
Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits
131–140 of 340 posts
Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits
#132I think it's an interesting idea, however, wouldn't this also risk generating already-copyrighted melodies? Putting archive.org at risk of getting massively sued ?
Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits
#133It's about fourteen kinds of ridiculous, as summarized in other threads. No rhythms, no meter, no tempo, melodies are longer than 12 notes, it's diatonic, single octave, no concept of underlying harmony, the headline is literally false, etc. Some of the copyright lawsuits are dumb and this is effective satire or performance art but that's all it is.
The code actually can produce every possible melody in MIDI. They simply have not stored every possible melody explicitly (uncompressed) on a hard drive (which is impossible, as the size is infinity). However, if you interpret the program itself as a self-extracting compressed archive, they actually have stored every possible melody (in a compressed way). So the question reduces to how much the type of compression ma…
Gotta love programmers.
> So the question reduces to how much the type of compression matters here
If you compress, you can copyright the compressed bytes.
If you don't compress, you can copyright the uncompressed bytes.
As far as that copyright extending to derivations, e.g. decompressions, the answer indeed situation-dependent. For example, converting a copyrighted font from TTF to WOFF does not remove the copyright. But converting a copyrighted font from TTF to screen pixels to WOFF removes the copyright. (Sorry I don't have a reference; probably findable.)
The "self-extracting zip" derivation would probably fall into the latter category; that is, the copyright would not transfer.
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But even if the copyright were maintained during your advanced decompression, one could argue that editing down to very specific portion of that extremely large body of work was a substantive/transformational derivation, which they could then copyright themselves.
Transformative works are very common in art. The most famous example is Duchamp simply adding a mustache to a print of da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and copyrighting that. [1]
Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits
#134I’m just gonna jump in and say how cool this is. I get that it’s not perfect but it’s sort of a middle finger to “the man”.
Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
The code actually can produce every possible melody in MIDI. They simply have not stored every possible melody explicitly (uncompressed) on a hard drive (which is impossible, as the size is infinity). However, if you interpret the program itself as a self-extracting compressed archive, they actually have stored every possible melody (in a compressed way). So the question reduces to how much the type of compression ma…
Gotta love programmers. > So the question reduces to how much the type of compression matters here If you compress, you can copyright the compressed bytes. If you don't compress, you can copyright the uncompressed bytes. As far as that copyright extending to derivations, e.g. decompressions, the answer indeed situation-dependent. For example, converting a copyrighted font from TTF to WOFF does not remove the copyrigh…
Is uncompression a derivation?
Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's definitely satire, but it's satire in the face of comical law. That's the point. If copyright lawyers want to argue originality based on an arrangement of notes in a 12 tone scale, and in a limited number of bars, then this is a completely valid argument against such a weak argument. The reality is that many number one songs can be tonally compared to many classical pieces, or even pieces from the last 40 years.…
So I can write a program which can generate your name and your sexual preference (among a lot of garbage data). Does that mean this can no longer be considered private information subject to privacy laws? You can use a ridiculous argument for many things.
Ha! It does not work however, as a person's sexual preference is a fact, and a statement that either guesses or spits out all recognized variants is not a source of factual information -- no-one is any the wiser afterwards than before.
Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, of course it means that. I might randomly generate data to test with. Doesn't mean it's private and needs to be treated as such if I accidentally and unknowingly stumble across real info.
You could be helpful and provide a means for people to request their accidentally reproduced private data be redacted. See example below[0]. [0] https://github.com/danielmiessler/SecLists/pull/155
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Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's definitely satire, but it's satire in the face of comical law. That's the point. If copyright lawyers want to argue originality based on an arrangement of notes in a 12 tone scale, and in a limited number of bars, then this is a completely valid argument against such a weak argument. The reality is that many number one songs can be tonally compared to many classical pieces, or even pieces from the last 40 years.…
So I can write a program which can generate your name and your sexual preference (among a lot of garbage data). Does that mean this can no longer be considered private information subject to privacy laws? You can use a ridiculous argument for many things.
The garbage data makes all of the difference. Said accidental generation would make it legal as the only way to pick out the data is to know it already. Otherwise what separates your real name from "Name: Seymoure Butts Sexual Orientation: Mayonnaise".
The fact there is no garbage data at all shows that they are doing judgement on a nakedly wrong level in music - even by the standards of copyright.
Selling "Harry Potter but with the capitalization inverted" to dodge book copyright nor even "this key and this very long block of data which happen to decrypt to the complete works of JK Rowling, don't decrypt because that would be infringement wink wink nudge nudge".
Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, of course it means that. I might randomly generate data to test with. Doesn't mean it's private and needs to be treated as such if I accidentally and unknowingly stumble across real info.
You could be helpful and provide a means for people to request their accidentally reproduced private data be redacted. See example below[0]. [0] https://github.com/danielmiessler/SecLists/pull/155
Ironically that would be a way to disclose your very real data by omission.
Re: Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits
#140It's about fourteen kinds of ridiculous, as summarized in other threads. No rhythms, no meter, no tempo, melodies are longer than 12 notes, it's diatonic, single octave, no concept of underlying harmony, the headline is literally false, etc. Some of the copyright lawsuits are dumb and this is effective satire or performance art but that's all it is.
> No rhythms, no meter, no tempo, melodies are longer than 12 notes
I am not a musician, but which of these are copied in the Tom Petty / Sam Smith case that motivated this exercise? To my untrained ear, I do hear some similarities in the relative lengths of the notes (meter?).
I found a side-by-side comparison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YflFw9T77FQ