4 ms·

Lists of facts, where there is no creativity or originality in the arrangement of those facts, are not copyrightable. (See, e.g., Feist v. Rural, U.S. 1991 [0][

Lists of facts, where there is no creativity or originality in the arrangement of those facts, are not copyrightable. (See, e.g., Feist v. Rural, U.S. 1991 [0][1] (which found that a telephone directory "white pages" that listed names and phone numbers alphabetically was not copyrightable). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R.... [1] http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep499/usrep499340/usrep499340.pdf http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep499/usrep499340/usr... Regarding David Slater's "Monkey Selfies", as far as I can tell, no court decided the question of whether the photo was copyrightable or whether the copyright belonged to Slater, only that it could not belong to the monkey.

gmiller123456 7y ago
Slater never filed a suit against anyone, so no court ever ruled on it. But he did request it removed from Wikimedia, and lots of experts weighed in. The WikiPedia page has summaries and links to lots of sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
SilasX 7y ago
>Lists of facts, where there is no creativity or originality in the arrangement of those facts, are not copyrightable. (See, e.g., Feist v. Rural, U.S. 1991 [0][1] (which found that a telephone directory "white pages" that listed names and phone numbers alphabetically was not copyrightable). Was there a reason you mentioned this? I don't see the relevance to the surrounding discussion.
- bdowling 7y ago
  A listing of all the possible melodies of a certain length is a list of facts. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
  - SilasX 7y ago
    In don’t think anyone mentioned a listing of all possible melodies either, and if you think something they did mention is functionally equivalent, it would help if you made that explicit. Algorithmically generated music is not such a list, and does not involve publishing such a list, as no one would want that. They typically involve a lot of selection and choices by the author. They’re only algorithm-generated on the sense that the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling was “brush-generated”.
    - bdowling 7y ago
      My comment was in the context of OP's video. The Youtube description of that video states, "I sat down to talk with Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin about their project to copyright every possible melody." (emphasis added) The video shows that the authors wrote a program to enumerate every possible melody up to a certain size, possibly narrowed by some criteria. A list like that should be as entitled to copyright protection as a list of the first million prime numbers. Where an algorithm is used as a tool for creativity, I agree that the resulting work should be copyrightable because an algorithm can be like a brush in the hands of an artist. Here, however, that is not the case because the algorithm used simply lists all melodic possibilities and there is no creative input whatsoever.
      - SilasX 7y ago
        >My comment was in the context of OP's video. The Youtube description of that video states, "I sat down to talk with Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin about their project to copyright every possible melody." (emphasis added) Your comment was replying to this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22301633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22301633 which makes no mention of any of those points, so I’m not sure I understand why you thought that was the right place to put your comment, or why the connection would have been clear. I think that would have been better as a top level reply, with the relevant part quoted, as you’ve done here.
        gmiller123456 7y ago

gmiller123456 7y ago

Slater never filed a suit against anyone, so no court ever ruled on it. But he did request it removed from Wikimedia, and lots of experts weighed in. The WikiPedia page has summaries and links to lots of sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...

SilasX 7y ago

>Lists of facts, where there is no creativity or originality in the arrangement of those facts, are not copyrightable. (See, e.g., Feist v. Rural, U.S. 1991 [0][1] (which found that a telephone directory "white pages" that listed names and phone numbers alphabetically was not copyrightable). Was there a reason you mentioned this? I don't see the relevance to the surrounding discussion.

bdowling 7y ago
A listing of all the possible melodies of a certain length is a list of facts. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
- SilasX 7y ago
  In don’t think anyone mentioned a listing of all possible melodies either, and if you think something they did mention is functionally equivalent, it would help if you made that explicit. Algorithmically generated music is not such a list, and does not involve publishing such a list, as no one would want that. They typically involve a lot of selection and choices by the author. They’re only algorithm-generated on the sense that the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling was “brush-generated”.
  - bdowling 7y ago
    My comment was in the context of OP's video. The Youtube description of that video states, "I sat down to talk with Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin about their project to copyright every possible melody." (emphasis added) The video shows that the authors wrote a program to enumerate every possible melody up to a certain size, possibly narrowed by some criteria. A list like that should be as entitled to copyright protection as a list of the first million prime numbers. Where an algorithm is used as a tool for creativity, I agree that the resulting work should be copyrightable because an algorithm can be like a brush in the hands of an artist. Here, however, that is not the case because the algorithm used simply lists all melodic possibilities and there is no creative input whatsoever.
    - SilasX 7y ago
      >My comment was in the context of OP's video. The Youtube description of that video states, "I sat down to talk with Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin about their project to copyright every possible melody." (emphasis added) Your comment was replying to this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22301633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22301633 which makes no mention of any of those points, so I’m not sure I understand why you thought that was the right place to put your comment, or why the connection would have been clear. I think that would have been better as a top level reply, with the relevant part quoted, as you’ve done here.
      - gmiller123456 7y ago