Slashdot Mirror
Copyright Claimed on Telephone Tones
awful writes: "Two composers in Australia have copyrighted over 100,000,000,000 phone tone dialing sequences. They state in the article that they are lampooning copyright laws that protect big business rather than artists. Their website has more info and explains how they did it. You can check your number and make sure it hasn't been copyrighted by these guys. They have already recieved one offer of money - from a guy who wanted to purchase the copyright to his number so he could stop direct marketing firms from calling him." Somehow I don't think the inventors of DTMF envisioned this. Update: 10/04 14:11 GMT by M : There's a US mirror available.
Jenny, Jenny who can I turn to
You give me something I can hold on to
I know you'll think I'm like the others before
Who saw your name and number on the wall
Jenny I've got your number
I need to make you mine
Jenny don't change your number
8 6 7-5 3 0 9
Well, now I'll have to get a rotary cell phone so I can call home without paying royalties!
Ooo!Ooo! I know what these guys can do for us - sue Hillary Rosen or any RIAA member when they have to call each other in order to make thier little cabal plans. Could you imagine the scowl on her *cough*lovely*cough* face?
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I just copyrighted all the possible combinations of pulse dialing tones too... ahhahahahhah... you all owe me 0.05 cents per use... I'm rich!! I'm rich!!! ahaahhahahha
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I forsee the following dialouge:
:-)
Me: hello?
Tele-solicitor: Hello would you like to buy-
Me: You have just infringed on national copyright hangup now or I will seize all your assets!
Tele-solicitor: *click*
Ah finally a good use for copyright
Good thing I'm not six years old anymore and no longer so easilly amused; I'd hate to have to retain a lawyer just to determine if I could do that; especially on a six-year-old's allowance.
So, who wants to help me encode all these 100,000,000,000 possible ringtones and put them on Morpheus?
Reading the site, it's pretty much clear that it's a hoax/joke. A pretty funny one:
I think you're right.
Crap! There goes my evil little plan to copyright any sequence of four numbers, where each number is between zero and 255, when separated by periods.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
STEP 1: Place hand 3 inches above head and 3 inches in front of head.
STEP 2: Briskly move hand from previous position to 3 inches above head and 6 inches behind head.
Hammer of Truth
Tommy Tutone be warned. Prepare to be sued by some rich guy with a lawyer waiting to
serve him that owns the patent to the phone number 867-5309 that you illegally sang
back in the 70s.
You will be sued, resistance is futile!
So we're cool.
If a million monkeys type out the source code to MS Office, Microsoft can't sue.
The problem is that you'll need 256^{size of MS Office in bytes} monkeys to get MS Office. Phone numbers only required 10^11 monkeys, so it was possible to simulate the process with a computer.
Well this means that every online yellow/white pages directory is now in violation of the DMCA.
And while we're at it, we'll have to dispose of our phonebooks since they are now vulnerable to lawsuits of patent infringement.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone were to patent IP addresses.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Yes, because they only have telephones in the USA.
If a million monkeys type out the source code to MS Office.
Isn't that how it was written in the first place anyway?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
If a million monkeys type out the source code to MS Office, Microsoft can't sue. Likewise, if you happen to create a series of dual-tone meta frequency notes using a touch-tone phone using non-copyrighted material (a phone book, your memory, etc), then that's an independant creation. Now if a telemarketer overheard you dialing, and recorded it (made a copy), then you might have something.
According to this, I think, if I check to see if my number or somebody I know's number is in there, and it is, and then I use it I'll have gotten help from copyrighted material to dial that number. I'm infringing their copyright every time I dial a number after I see it there. Q.E.D that website is a trap to make you infringe their copyright! Don't be fooled!
No sig for you.
If you were smart, you'd copyright those instructions. ;-)
Sheesh! Next time, you'll be seing DTMF tones on Napster or your favorite P2P service, and they get to after them and shut 'em down.
Oh wait....
People don't seem to have noticed that finicky little disclaimer under the score of their telephone number:
e t.html#c2)
"Notation is an approximation only of the real pitch."
(See: http://www.magnus-opus.com/number_check.html)
The Equitempered Scale (or Equal Tempered Scale, depending on who you talk to) has pretty much been the standard for musical notes for the last 200 years, although the standard for A4 was only ratified as 440Hz in 1939.
The frequencies used for DTMF tones don't exactly match notes on the Equitempered Scale. I have tabulated the differences here:
Matching against the Equitempered scale:
(Based on http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/music/
DTMF_tone Closest_Note %-error
697Hz F5, 698.46Hz +0.2095%
770Hz G5, 783.99Hz +1.8169%
852Hz G5#, 830.61Hz -2.5106%
941Hz A5#, 932.33Hz -0.9214%
1209Hz D6, 1174.6Hz -2.8453%
1336Hz E6, 1318.5Hz -1.3099%
1477Hz F6#, 1480.0Hz +0.2031%
1633Hz G6#, 1661.2Hz +1.7269%
As you can see, there are some considerable differences from a "purist" point of view.
This begs the question: Have the Magnus-Opus musicians actually copyrighted DTMF tone sequences, or just an approximation of them?
Another question worth asking: Even if the copyright holds-up, is it the end-users who are liable for infringement, or the Telco's who are on-selling the numbers as their own property?
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Eletus99
Whenever one of these crazy copyright/patent stories comes up I am reminded of the story Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeros.
If it had been done at random by monkeys there would be fewer bugs. Now aplogise for insulting the monkeys.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Map makers used to put in little false details here and there to make sure their maps weren't being copied. A street here or there that didn't exist in real life.
I always thought that was fiendishly clever.
I wonder if they still do it - I've always suspected that Montana doesn't really exist...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
I award this article the Worst Slashdot Lawyers Ever award. Not a single legally valid opinion is ranked above 3. Several utterly uninformed opinions are ranked at 4 or 5. Half the replies miss the point. Absolutely amazingly horrible. A record high noise/signal ratio. Wow.
Please for Gnu's sake don't whip off a letter to your Congresscritter based on this article; most posters have already looked stupid enough.
(Oh, in case you're wondering, the subject of this article is a funny-chortle, but no more. It has all the legal force of a Taliban edict in this country.)
Where else but slashdot does a person get to make a post like mine and have someone step through the crowd and say "I'm a cartographer..."
Sometimes I really like slashdot.
Thanks -
Jim in Tokyo (IANAC)
-- My Weblog.
A million monkeys could type out all of Microsoft's source code?
Ha! So that would explain [insert MS product name here] !
{BTW, all possible software-product permutations of this joke are hereby copyrighted, so this IS on-topic.}
My phone number in 1980 when that song was big was an anagram of Jenny's number. I always wondered if I would get a call from some dyslexic rock fan.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
It doesn't cover the 'international' form of the number, so people can dial me from abroad royalty free!
eg: 00 44 1234 123456 (which is 14 digits)
These people are evil.
Nick..
This suggest a whole new business/income model. Perhaps we should patent it before some corporate monster does
1) Copyright your number, including dial tone.
2) Allways complete your phone-number on forms, and request for information. Include notification that use of your number is by licence only.
3) Receive call(s).
4) Charge abusers licence fee.
Hey, all those tv commercials (call 1800 collect) use the dial tone in their commercials. that's clear infringement!
You just wait until P. Diddy starts sampling these tunes.
I bet He buys J-Lo's new number.
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Microsoft have licensed the tones for thier support line numbers. The cost will be added into the support costs and made retroactive for 10 years.