5 ms·

If their legal argument is legit, it also means they just infringed upon the copyrights of most modern songs by attempting to release their melodies into public

If their legal argument is legit, it also means they just infringed upon the copyrights of most modern songs by attempting to release their melodies into public domain. Someone who owns the copyrights to a song should sue them for a paltry sum, just to see how things play out in court.

johannes1234321 7y ago
They could, but what's the consequences of the court ruling in their "favor"? - Consequence would be that those artists have copyright to all future music, thus the one who sued couldn't create anything new and claim copyright in it but would have to pay royalties
klyrs 7y ago
I considered doing something like this project, but this was too big a red flag for me to ignore. It seems tractable to go through everything in the library of Congress, if it's already digitized, but that took this from pet project to big hustle
wpasc 7y ago
What if a good actor who owned an infringed melody sued them with the intention of losing to set a good precedent?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- vidarh 7y ago
  Courts and bar associations tends to take a dim view of manufactured disagreements, so they'd better make sure to be good at just seeming incompetent. But it's also not likely to be very effective unless you manage to trick a judge into issuing an overly broad judgement and manage to get it upheld on appeal. The legally sanctioned version would be to seek a declarative judgement.
- bluGill 7y ago
  See vidarh's very good post which I won't repeat. A court trail is not much a precedent. The judge can decide to not allow you to mention it. Even if a sympathetic judge (meaning faking neutral but really biased) does allow it, it will be with instructions that allow the next jury to ignore it. To get a precedent you need to go to court. Then you need to appeal, and a court needs to agree to hear/rule on the appeal. Here you have a problem though: even if you conspire to lose, someone else can file an "Amicus brief" https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Amicus+brief https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Amicus+brief and make a compelling argument that you overlooked. A first round appeal may not get this, but by the time it get to the supreme court (probably not even you - it generally takes dozens of different cases before it gets that far) there will be a lot of interest and your attempt to lose can still win because those who want to win can pour enough into their briefs.
codeplea 7y ago
For there to be infringement, someone needs to prove that copying took place. Because of the algorithm these musicians used to generate this, they can prove mathematically that copying did not take place.
- calibas 7y ago
  So if an algorithm you wrote produces a melody identical to a copyrighted work, you can claim copyright of the melody too? I don't believe there's an objective right and wrong answer here, we're still figuring out how our legal system should adapt to modern technologies.
  - tebruno99 7y ago
    Part of the law is that the infringer has to have had access to the work that he/she is accused of "stealing" An Algorithm has no access and could have never heard the work in question..
    - mooman219 7y ago
      The individual writing the algorithm certainly can have access. If I copy a song, I can't say that the tool I used didn't have access as a defense because that makes no sense.
      - dwild 7y ago
        > The individual writing the algorithm certainly can have access. Sure he can have access, but looking at the algorithm you can prove without a doubt that the algorithm couldn't have access to it. > If I copy a song, I can't say that the tool I used didn't have access as a defense because that makes no sense. You could have given access to the song to the tools that you used though.
  - k__ 7y ago
    I think there is a difference in creating an algo that generates all possible solutions vs one that generates one specific solution.
ramshorns 7y ago
Well, maybe it's fair use to pull just the melody out of a full song, but it wouldn't be in the other direction since the original works here are just the melodies.

johannes1234321 7y ago

They could, but what's the consequences of the court ruling in their "favor"? - Consequence would be that those artists have copyright to all future music, thus the one who sued couldn't create anything new and claim copyright in it but would have to pay royalties

klyrs 7y ago

I considered doing something like this project, but this was too big a red flag for me to ignore. It seems tractable to go through everything in the library of Congress, if it's already digitized, but that took this from pet project to big hustle

wpasc 7y ago

What if a good actor who owned an infringed melody sued them with the intention of losing to set a good precedent?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
vidarh 7y ago
Courts and bar associations tends to take a dim view of manufactured disagreements, so they'd better make sure to be good at just seeming incompetent. But it's also not likely to be very effective unless you manage to trick a judge into issuing an overly broad judgement and manage to get it upheld on appeal. The legally sanctioned version would be to seek a declarative judgement.
bluGill 7y ago
See vidarh's very good post which I won't repeat. A court trail is not much a precedent. The judge can decide to not allow you to mention it. Even if a sympathetic judge (meaning faking neutral but really biased) does allow it, it will be with instructions that allow the next jury to ignore it. To get a precedent you need to go to court. Then you need to appeal, and a court needs to agree to hear/rule on the appeal. Here you have a problem though: even if you conspire to lose, someone else can file an "Amicus brief" https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Amicus+brief https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Amicus+brief and make a compelling argument that you overlooked. A first round appeal may not get this, but by the time it get to the supreme court (probably not even you - it generally takes dozens of different cases before it gets that far) there will be a lot of interest and your attempt to lose can still win because those who want to win can pour enough into their briefs.

codeplea 7y ago

For there to be infringement, someone needs to prove that copying took place. Because of the algorithm these musicians used to generate this, they can prove mathematically that copying did not take place.

calibas 7y ago
So if an algorithm you wrote produces a melody identical to a copyrighted work, you can claim copyright of the melody too? I don't believe there's an objective right and wrong answer here, we're still figuring out how our legal system should adapt to modern technologies.
- tebruno99 7y ago
  Part of the law is that the infringer has to have had access to the work that he/she is accused of "stealing" An Algorithm has no access and could have never heard the work in question..
  - mooman219 7y ago
    The individual writing the algorithm certainly can have access. If I copy a song, I can't say that the tool I used didn't have access as a defense because that makes no sense.
    - dwild 7y ago
      > The individual writing the algorithm certainly can have access. Sure he can have access, but looking at the algorithm you can prove without a doubt that the algorithm couldn't have access to it. > If I copy a song, I can't say that the tool I used didn't have access as a defense because that makes no sense. You could have given access to the song to the tools that you used though.
- k__ 7y ago
  I think there is a difference in creating an algo that generates all possible solutions vs one that generates one specific solution.

ramshorns 7y ago

Well, maybe it's fair use to pull just the melody out of a full song, but it wouldn't be in the other direction since the original works here are just the melodies.