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Copyright Claimed on Telephone Tones

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ode-to-dtmf dept.

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.

4 of 495 comments (clear)

  1. Nice idea, but won't work by Gorobei · · Score: 5, Informative
    Copyright is concerned with COPYING work. It does not apply if someone else independently (usually defined as "was not exposed to your work") recreates the thing in question.


    So, even if they have a phone number in their melody database, you don't infringe if you dial that number, because you created the melody independently.

  2. Re:Copyright does not squash other independant wor by charon_on_acheron · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, phone books are copyrighted. You can't legally copy lists of names and phone numbers from the phone book to make your own phone book for sale. Same for maps, which I always thought was the stupidest thing. A basic outline of the US is copyrighted. It is just a shape. A really bumpy shape. But if it is in a child's coloring book, it is copyrighted.

  3. 321-2333, not 312-2333 by dirtyhippie · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's 321-2333, not 312-2333. Unfortunately, if you want to play the whole melody on the phone, there is no way to accurately represent the 5th (the 12th and 13th notes in the melody), but hitting 8 comes close since you hear (the 852Hz component of the 8 is heard as a fifth below the second, which is at 1336Hz - see the DTMF tutorial for where I got this info). Of course, its pointless for someone to waste their valuable time sitting there and trying to figure this stuff out like I just spent the last 20 minutes.

    3 2 1 2 3 3 3
    Mary had a little lamb
    2 2 2
    Little lamb
    3 8 8
    Little lamb
    3 2 1 2 3 3 3
    Mary had a little lamb
    3 2 2 3 2 1 1
    Whose fleece was white as snow, and

    3 2 1 2 3 3 3
    Everywhere that Mary went
    2 2 2
    Mary went
    3 8 8
    Mary went
    3 2 1 2 3 3 3
    Everywhere that Mary went
    3 2 2 3 2 1 8 1
    Her lamb was sure to go-o-o

    DH
    "Fsck you dirty hippie!"

  4. Re:Copyright does not squash other independant wor by lazytiger · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can attest for sure, as a cartographer, that ALL map companies do in fact still produce inaccuracies, and quite intentionally. If you actually went to the trouble of comparing street maps to an orthorectified image (a.k.a., terraserver.com) of the same area, you would see that the map practically looks made up. Map companies, if they went to the trouble of checking, could easily tell if one of their maps had been copied. By the way, if you're looking for accurate maps to copy, USGS topo maps are far more accurate than any other maps available. They are made from the aforementioned orthophotos. And they are all in the public domain. They're not always up to date, however.