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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.

9 of 495 comments (clear)

  1. GENIUS! by BiggestPOS · · Score: 5, Interesting

    These guys are brilliant. But what about the timing, or spacing between the "notes"? If I dial in a different rhythm is it the same?

    --
    What, me worry?
  2. That covers every phone number in existence by plaisted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Assume that phone numbers have at most 11 digits (ie 1-910-xxx-xxxx). Each digit has 10 different values. So there are 10^11, or 100,000,000,000 possible 10 digit phone numbers. Does that number look familiar? If the story is correct, they have tried to copyright every single possible 11 digit phone number

  3. what about... by Polo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    what about sampling?

    could I sample portions of seven notes of a "melody"?

  4. Copyright does not squash other independant works by rcw-home · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

    IANAL (and I know the whole point was to be funny anyway).

  5. Not what copyright was for. by Diashi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I kind of doubt this is what the idea of copy righting was for. Copyrights along with patents were originally made to promote scientific research. Protecting one's intellectual property is the whole idea behind copy righting.

    Some schmuck who starts to copy right tone sequences is totally not getting the point. He's not promoting scientific research, or protecting his intellectual property. He's just trying to make a quick $, through a loophole in the laws.

    Its as if suddendly the sequence of phone digits has been invented by this guy and he has to have the copy right to your tone. This whole thing is as rediculous as the guy who claimed to own all the land outside of the solar system, and thinks he's somehow going to get away with that. If your armies/people are using/conquered something, its theirs, and no one elses.

    --
    - Nuts and Gum, together at last.
  6. Re:prior art? :) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, it was a real problem according to VH1's "One Hit Wonders" show. Not only did the real Jenny get bombarded with calls (yes there was a real Jenny who gave her number to one of the band, and it was 867-5309), but everyone else in every area code as well.

    This absolute waste of bits known as pop culture trivia was brought to you by the letters L, O, S, E and R.

  7. music, not number by hagbard5235 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ah... but they have not in fact copyrighted the
    numbers. They have copyrighted the musical
    representation of these numbers as DTMF tones.

    Additionally, like hell numbers aren't copyrightable.
    What do you think an mp3 file is? It's a very
    large number. In fact EVERYTHING digital is a
    number. So if you can't copyright a number, how
    then is software, source code, digital music,
    digital video copyrightable?

  8. Re:Don't Check Your Number in their Database by unitron · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If they keep a record of every time someone tests a valid number, they could sell that list to telemarketers at a pretty good price, as the list contains verified numbers of computer-owning housholds. With a con game like that, who needs copyrights?

    --

    I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  9. How phone tones work by image · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wasn't sure what chords the phone tones actually were, so I went to over to howstuffworks and took a look. On page 2 of this article on telephones, it has a great section on the tones.

    In particular, I learned that "the dial tone sound is simply a combination of 350 hertz tone and a 440 hertz tone," and "if the number is busy, you hear a busy signal that is made up of a 480 hertz and a 620 hertz tone, with a cycle of 1/2 second on and 1/2 second off" and there is a great chart showing the tone for each button on the keypad. For example, the tone for "1" is a combination of a 1209 Hz tone and a 697 Hz tone.

    A little more research turned up this cool frequency to note converter and where I discovered that 1209 Hz is equivalent to D6 plus 50 cents, and 697 is F5 minus 4 cents. So basically the keypad one is an out of tune inversion of the D minor chord. (music majors feel free to Score: -1, Moronic)

    Of course, if you were into phreaking then you'd already know all that.