7 ms·

The code is written in Rust. The core algorithm can be found here: https://github.com/allthemusicllc/atm-cli/blob/master/src/utils.rs https://github.com/allthem

The code is written in Rust. The core algorithm can be found here: https://github.com/allthemusicllc/atm-cli/blob/master/src/utils.rs 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 https://archive.org/download/allthemusicllc-datasets)? I mean, as we see, it's trivial to create them. The code above is kind of a self-extracting archive, so it's just the same thing but in compressed form. And I guess it should not matter (legally) whether you store it compressed or uncompressed (or less compressed).

nck4222 7y ago
By that logic, the library of Babel owns the copyright on every piece of literature that could be written, which would be a terrible idea. https://libraryofbabel.info/ https://libraryofbabel.info/
- virgilp 7y ago
  They don't pre-generate all the "books", right? So they can't claim the copyright (it's not "affixed to a physical medium")
  - danbruc 7y ago
    So what is the difference between a program that views some text by reading it from a huge file and a program that views the same text by generating it on the fly? Especially if the file is generated by the very same process that happens on the fly in the second case? Why would you even have to actually build one of the two programs, enumerating all possible character sequences of some given length is a somewhat obvious idea and actually implementing that idea, especially if the text is only generated on the fly, does not bring the text into existence substantially more than just pondering the idea. I guess for matters of copyright you have to produce a specific artifact, just blindly enumerating all possible artifacts is not good enough. Which would also mean that the existence of all those MIDI files will not make a difference.
    - afiori 7y ago
      There is something missing here. If I were to write a "random book generator" that just regurgitate infinite text then I can copyright a pair starting index and length, but not simply all possible finite sequences of letters.
      - danbruc 7y ago
        I would argue writing a book, composing a song, or inventing a device should be viewed as a search process. You are wandering around in the space of all possible books, songs, or devices looking for one that is interesting to read, pleasant to listen to, or useful to use. Your work is mainly identifying special items in the vast space of possible items, making it physical once identified is only secondary, at least for the purpose of this discussion. So writing a computer program to generate all possible songs is finding a specific and - at least somewhat - useful program among all possible programs and - ignoring its triviality and the general questions about copyright - seems copyrightable to me. On the other hand using this program to turn the space of all possible songs from something in your head into a huge pile of MIDI files on a disk seems not copyrightable to me because you do not single out interesting songs. Finding a good song did not get significantly easier, searching through and listening to a sea of MIDI files instead of playing all possible combinations of notes on a piano and judging the sound of it.
  - sandov 7y ago
    By that logic, you wouldn't be able to claim copyright on works that are distributed compressed or encrypted.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  Nice link; thanks!
hobofan 7y ago
I'm not sure if it would hold up legally anyway, but with it already being generated I can see it working out a bit better. If you only provide the code as a means of generating any melody, you could just as well replace it with any music instrument and claim you can generate any melody with it.
- arketyp 7y ago
  Ad absurdum (or maybe not so much?), any universal Turing machine can be programmed to list every possible program, specifically the one generating every melody. So the copyright claim could then just as well point to Conway's game of life or rule 110.
willvarfar 7y ago
At the very beginning of this excellent interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXn_ecH5Rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXn_ecH5Rw that I found in the comments here, they explain this. Apparently, for this to work, they have to "affix them to a physical medium". Strongly recommend watching that video! Excellent info.
- albertzeyer 7y ago
  Hm, they don't really explain this, or do they? They just say "by saving those melodies to a hard drive they have affixed them to a physical medium which is all that is necessary to copyright them". So, by the same argument, they could copy the self-extracting archive to a hard drive, and then have the same thing, or not? They even say that they already store it in a compressed form on the hard drive. What if some future compressor (future ZIP format) is clever enough to see that you are going to save all possible permutations of something, and then saves this is a much better compressed way. Then suddenly when compressors do this, it means when you use such a compressor, you do not have copyright on the data anymore?
  - willvarfar 7y ago
    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 but it didn't get any votes http://prize.hutter1.net/ http://prize.hutter1.net/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutter_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutter_Prize).
    - reacweb 7y ago
      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 ?
vbezhenar 7y ago
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.
- zdragnar 7y ago
  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.
- phonebucket 7y ago
  > 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... Not to get too far off topic, but even an infinitely long byte sequence cannot represent all numbers. It's possible to construct something not representable by that sequence via Cantor's diagonal argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    All the possible byte sequences contain all the possible programs. All the possible programs can receive input of infinite length and output bytes of infinite length depending on input. So if we can supply any input to any program and treat its output as part of result, does this argument still work? Is there such a number that can't be constructed by some program receiving some input?
    - paulddraper 7y ago
      > All the possible byte sequences contain all the possible programs. Correct. > Is there such a number that can't be constructed by some program receiving some input? Yes. Most numbers are not representable by a program...unless you allowed a program to be infinite length, in which case the first statement is no longer true. There's nothing particularly unique about a digit-based encoding for Cantor's diagonal argument.
collyw 7y ago
> 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?
- code6fun 7y ago
  Does the algorithm represent the Kolmogorov Complexity of the dataset?
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Of the "all possible melodies" dataset? Yes. Of the "all possible melodies humans would conceivably consider music, and nothing else" dataset? Not at all.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Yes, mathematically. But copyright requires copying, strictly speaking, so you need a copy from which to have copied. An algorithm that generates all possible English sentences doesn't demonstrate that I copied this sentence from it, and the balance of probabilities (used in tort cases) suggests that I came up with the sentence, run-on as it is, rather than performing that algo and then selecting that sentence. Moreover 17USC (102? sorry I don't recall) says that media needs to be "fixed" to acquire copyright; so me having to perform the algo makes it no impediment to my owning copyright of a sentence that, if performed, the algo would by expected produce (which is sensible really, perhaps the algo is errant and can't make this sentence, maybe it only forms grammatical sentences ...
eb0la 7y ago
I guess you need it stored somewhere to claim it existed on a given date... If someone is using archive.org for this purpose, please consider donating :-)
anonsivalley652 7y ago
Yep. They could've used that space for rainbowtables. I'm old enough to remember when someone from shm00 had rainbowtables available for download, but I guess the network bills added up or the feds threatened them.

nck4222 7y ago

By that logic, the library of Babel owns the copyright on every piece of literature that could be written, which would be a terrible idea. https://libraryofbabel.info/ https://libraryofbabel.info/

virgilp 7y ago
They don't pre-generate all the "books", right? So they can't claim the copyright (it's not "affixed to a physical medium")
- danbruc 7y ago
  So what is the difference between a program that views some text by reading it from a huge file and a program that views the same text by generating it on the fly? Especially if the file is generated by the very same process that happens on the fly in the second case? Why would you even have to actually build one of the two programs, enumerating all possible character sequences of some given length is a somewhat obvious idea and actually implementing that idea, especially if the text is only generated on the fly, does not bring the text into existence substantially more than just pondering the idea. I guess for matters of copyright you have to produce a specific artifact, just blindly enumerating all possible artifacts is not good enough. Which would also mean that the existence of all those MIDI files will not make a difference.
  - afiori 7y ago
    There is something missing here. If I were to write a "random book generator" that just regurgitate infinite text then I can copyright a pair starting index and length, but not simply all possible finite sequences of letters.
    - danbruc 7y ago
      I would argue writing a book, composing a song, or inventing a device should be viewed as a search process. You are wandering around in the space of all possible books, songs, or devices looking for one that is interesting to read, pleasant to listen to, or useful to use. Your work is mainly identifying special items in the vast space of possible items, making it physical once identified is only secondary, at least for the purpose of this discussion. So writing a computer program to generate all possible songs is finding a specific and - at least somewhat - useful program among all possible programs and - ignoring its triviality and the general questions about copyright - seems copyrightable to me. On the other hand using this program to turn the space of all possible songs from something in your head into a huge pile of MIDI files on a disk seems not copyrightable to me because you do not single out interesting songs. Finding a good song did not get significantly easier, searching through and listening to a sea of MIDI files instead of playing all possible combinations of notes on a piano and judging the sound of it.
- sandov 7y ago
  By that logic, you wouldn't be able to claim copyright on works that are distributed compressed or encrypted.
paulddraper 7y ago
Nice link; thanks!

hobofan 7y ago

I'm not sure if it would hold up legally anyway, but with it already being generated I can see it working out a bit better. If you only provide the code as a means of generating any melody, you could just as well replace it with any music instrument and claim you can generate any melody with it.

arketyp 7y ago
Ad absurdum (or maybe not so much?), any universal Turing machine can be programmed to list every possible program, specifically the one generating every melody. So the copyright claim could then just as well point to Conway's game of life or rule 110.

willvarfar 7y ago

At the very beginning of this excellent interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXn_ecH5Rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXn_ecH5Rw that I found in the comments here, they explain this. Apparently, for this to work, they have to "affix them to a physical medium". Strongly recommend watching that video! Excellent info.

albertzeyer 7y ago
Hm, they don't really explain this, or do they? They just say "by saving those melodies to a hard drive they have affixed them to a physical medium which is all that is necessary to copyright them". So, by the same argument, they could copy the self-extracting archive to a hard drive, and then have the same thing, or not? They even say that they already store it in a compressed form on the hard drive. What if some future compressor (future ZIP format) is clever enough to see that you are going to save all possible permutations of something, and then saves this is a much better compressed way. Then suddenly when compressors do this, it means when you use such a compressor, you do not have copyright on the data anymore?
- willvarfar 7y ago
  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 but it didn't get any votes http://prize.hutter1.net/ http://prize.hutter1.net/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutter_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutter_Prize).
  - reacweb 7y ago
    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 ?

vbezhenar 7y ago

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.

zdragnar 7y ago
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.
phonebucket 7y ago
> 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... Not to get too far off topic, but even an infinitely long byte sequence cannot represent all numbers. It's possible to construct something not representable by that sequence via Cantor's diagonal argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  All the possible byte sequences contain all the possible programs. All the possible programs can receive input of infinite length and output bytes of infinite length depending on input. So if we can supply any input to any program and treat its output as part of result, does this argument still work? Is there such a number that can't be constructed by some program receiving some input?
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    > All the possible byte sequences contain all the possible programs. Correct. > Is there such a number that can't be constructed by some program receiving some input? Yes. Most numbers are not representable by a program...unless you allowed a program to be infinite length, in which case the first statement is no longer true. There's nothing particularly unique about a digit-based encoding for Cantor's diagonal argument.

collyw 7y ago

> 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?

code6fun 7y ago
Does the algorithm represent the Kolmogorov Complexity of the dataset?
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Of the "all possible melodies" dataset? Yes. Of the "all possible melodies humans would conceivably consider music, and nothing else" dataset? Not at all.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Yes, mathematically. But copyright requires copying, strictly speaking, so you need a copy from which to have copied. An algorithm that generates all possible English sentences doesn't demonstrate that I copied this sentence from it, and the balance of probabilities (used in tort cases) suggests that I came up with the sentence, run-on as it is, rather than performing that algo and then selecting that sentence. Moreover 17USC (102? sorry I don't recall) says that media needs to be "fixed" to acquire copyright; so me having to perform the algo makes it no impediment to my owning copyright of a sentence that, if performed, the algo would by expected produce (which is sensible really, perhaps the algo is errant and can't make this sentence, maybe it only forms grammatical sentences ...

eb0la 7y ago

I guess you need it stored somewhere to claim it existed on a given date... If someone is using archive.org for this purpose, please consider donating :-)

anonsivalley652 7y ago

Yep. They could've used that space for rainbowtables. I'm old enough to remember when someone from shm00 had rainbowtables available for download, but I guess the network bills added up or the feds threatened them.