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Copyright Battle Over Nothing
An Anonymous Coward writes: "In this story reported at The Independent is "one of the more curious copyright disputes of modern times." It appears that the key question is "which part of the silence was stolen." If only this was April First. This is a lawsuit suing over the sound of nothing, no sound, silence, nada, zilch, bupkiss.
Now I can be in trouble too... "............"
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls."
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.
corperate greed at it's best. when will the madness end!
If a tree falls in the forest..... is it liable for infringement?
"A good friend will bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, 'damn....that was fun!'"
simply beautiful. awe.
But mine was called 'Mic level left at zero'.
and it was the best one on the CD.
Isn't that always the way with cover songs?
I hereby copyright the sound of a tree falling in the middle of a forest when no one is around to hear it. This is in addition to my copyright on the sound of one hand clapping. These copyrights shall be persued by the fullest extent of the law.
...an avant-garde lawsuit?
Silence isn't the absence of noise...noise is simply the absence of silence. Uncork any bottle and you will likely release the trapped silence within. It's time people really started respecting other's property rights.
Ok...
...
Done? Ok suckers, that will be $1000 per person for infringing upon the silence copyright made payable to FU Attorneys At Law. Pay up or else!!
From the article: "But my silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence." Ah! My brain is melting!
Can I copyright the sine wav of silence?
How can the absence of something be called a copyright violation? Unless you're looking at the quantum superstate of blank media (which would mean that anything that can exist on blank media would exist on it until it was observed), which would further enrage the RIAA and push them to sue people who produce blank media.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
A wonderful passage (about different kinds of silence) from this classic novel can be found here.
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
I had a composition teacher who, while playing a new Cage composition in a small ensemble under the direction of the composer, was instructed to play a prepared piano filled with ping pong balls "until there are no more left. Then stop."
Would have made a great companion piece to 4'33".
Protege Posterioram Tuam
Don't shut your mouths up! You'll be in violation of yet another stupid copyright!
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Of course, when you think about it, can silence truly exist on Earth (outside of a vacuum chamber)? As long as it has a medium, sound will carry, and being a waveform, and motion will create sound. Seeing as how absolute Zero is impossible, that means there is always motion, thus always sound.
Of course, I never really payed attention in Physics...
Unless i am not reading the entire article, it doesn't say anything about a lawsuit...
its 4 paragraphs and only says "I've received a letter on behalf of John Cage's music publishers. I was in hysterics when I read their letter."
and the guy credited them anyways.....
fun fun
void main()
{
short silence[60*44100];
memset(silence, 0, sizeof(silence));
FILE * out = fopen("silence.pcm", "w");
fwrite(silence, sizeof(short), 60*44100, out);
fclose(out);
}
Music piracy at its worst, I tell ya.
Big noises at odds over the sound of silence By David Lister Media and Culture Editor 21 June 2002
'The Sound of Silence' may have prompted engaging harmonies from Simon and Garfunkel - but a more literal appreciation of the absence of noise has prompted one of the more curious copyright disputes of modern times.
Mike Batt, the man behind the Wombles and Vanessa Mae, has put a silent 60-second track on the album of his latest classical chart-topping protégés, the Planets. This has enraged representatives of the avant-garde, experimentalist composer John Cage, who died in 1992. The silence on his group's album clearly sounds uncannily like 4'33", the silence composed by Cage in his prime.
Batt said last night: "I've received a letter on behalf of John Cage's music publishers. I was in hysterics when I read their letter.
"As my mother said when I told her, 'which part of the silence are they claiming you nicked?'. They say they are claiming copyright on a piece of mine called 'One Minute's Silence' on the Planets' album, which I credit Batt/Cage just for a laugh. But my silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence."
by Requirement of Speech?
Won't people have to always be saying something or infringe on Cage's song without properly licensing the song?
As long as people are throwing out one-liners:
"You don't have the right to remain silent. Anything you don't say will be used against you in a court of law..."
What gets me is that these people can actually claim fans. If you go to a concert, do they sit quietly onstage miming shushing to the audience?
I have been pwned because my
...a BloodHound Gang Song? The Ten Coolest Things About NJ????
If you've not listened to that song, its on the Hooray for B00bies CD, and its worth a quick listen, believe me, its short... hehe.... and yes I'm from Jersey, and I'm humored not offended by it...
© gvonk, 2002, all rights reserved, etc.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
"The standard of originality for copyright is low, but it exists. - Feist vs. Rural Telephone Company.
Damn, I wish I could get a letter like that so I could sell lots of copies of empty mp3's. . .
as rediculous as this may sound, couldn't someone claim prior art?
"I've been silent long before that"
Or is that something that only works with patents?
If this [http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/news/story. jsp?story=310553] is anything to go by the quality of news from this site is very low.
Where are the mp3 versions of the 2 tracks in question? Perhaps then we can judge who's in the wrong here more acurately.
Well, i had a post i wrote when this showed up on the front page about 20 minutes ago.. then when i hit "submit", the story disappared from the front page and my post was lost. But i'll try again.
What i wonder is why they're going after this guy, but not, say, Boards of Canada. Their "Geogaddi" album from the end of last year ended with a track called "Magic Window" that is 1:47 of silence. Or Korn, for that matter. "Follow the Leader" began with 13 tracks containing 4 seconds of silence.
Perhaps it's because of just intent-- look at it this way. Magic Window (BoC) was there to make the album more inscrutable, and to bump the running time of the album up to 66:06 (Boards of Canada has been on a kick lately of littering references to Satan and David Koresh in their albums). The Korn album, meanwhile, had the silence there because they wanted to be "edgy", because they want to be like Nine Inch Nails and Tool (the "broken" EP contained a bunch of 1-second silent tracks between tracks 6 and 97, so that the two hidden tracks would be 98 and 99 respectively; Korn's "undertow" album pulled a similar trick, but it resulted in the hidden track being at 69), and because they hate their listeners (this should be apparent if you listen to the rest of the album).
The Mike Batt track, meanwhile, is there solely for ironic value-- the same reason for the existence of 4:33. In that way, the Mike Batt track is a rip-off of the idea of 4:33 in a way that the others are not. I guess the idea is that silence can say a lot, and all those other cases were saying something different than 4:33 was. The Batt track, meanwhile, was saying the same thing.
Anyway, i'm certain i've heard of many more instances of silent songs being tossed onto albums. The CD version of Absolute Elsewhere, for existence. So even were the copyright valid, wouldn't they have no legal leg to stand on, since they've in the past failed to defend this copyright? (Is that just an urban legend? Maybe we should come up with a new word for urban legends that are born and propigated via slashdot. "Slashdot Myth"? Nah, that sounds silly.)
Maybe this case is just because he credited Cage in the liner notes? If so, he should still be safe, since that would be satire.
I don't know. I can't honestly help but wonder if the estate of John Cage isn't pulling this as some kind of massive, destructive practical joke / performance art piece. It wouldn't be that far out of character; Cage was, after all, the man who did a live performance of Vexations.
(Well, OK, or this is a silly record company thing by nonsentient biological humans who are aware of no concepts other than profit motive. But that's such a dull explanation!)
--super ugly ultraman
- My silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence.
There you go. We're talking (hopefully not too loudly, mind you) about two completely different silences here. There was no stealing of silence involved.As stupid as this is, let's hope no-one gets any brighter any time soon. Heh - follow me here...
Let's say they apply one of thier DRM methods on that track. If my thinking is correct, overlaying any DRM data on silence means the DRM scheme is laid bare. Instant hack, and Linux is now hapilly playing music encrypted with the DRM scheme. Sound plausible?
Awww, c'mon. Somebody speak up. The silence is deafening... *rimshot*
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Honestly, I would like for more artists to go through and record silent tracks on their cds, they would give us a welcome break from that crap they call "music". I actually remember a cd that my sister has, it has about 12 silent tracks at about 5 seconds a piece, so I guess the artists that recorded that should run like hell, now the lawyers will be after them.. the next question would be what can you do that will not break copyright laws?
The song (both versions) is one of my favorites. It's so catchy. I've had it stuck in my head whenever I didn't have another song stuck in my head... ;-)
I'll just copyright white noise by releasing a CD with a one minute track of white noise. Then I can sue all the TV manufacturers and cable networks for royalties, after all, they are playing my works on hundreds of channels, 24 hours a day.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Let me say that again, What?
(Imagine this post is blank. I tried to do it, but slash won't let me. It thinks it knows better than I do what I'm trying to say. No, the cat doesn't have my tongue.)
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
I could not find the Silence Pattern in my GOF book.
Table-ized A.I.
Wrong.
Silence isn't nothing, at least not on a CD. The infringing track is sixty seconds of silence, which is not sixty seconds of zeros. (Which would still be something, mind you.) In any case, the track in the suit is 5,292,000 '0111111111111111's on the CD. (60 seconds, 44100 samples per second, 2 channels, at "zero", but recall digital audio is signed so that's 2^15-1 = 32767.)
Even if one of the two decided to use 32768 instead, the prosecution could argue there was a DC bias...
This isn't over the idea of silence, it's the idea of making a track of an album - a "song" -out of silence, and then naming the track with the length of time (thus indicating, to arty people, that the silence is what 4 minutes 33 seconds sounds like). It *is* an original idea. And Batt acknowledged he copied the idea when he jokingly credited the track to Batt/Cage (Cage being the original author).
I don't think it's worth suing over or anything, but the argument isn't totally without merit on at least moral grounds. Batt *did* copy an original idea from Cage - moreover, someone who did want to pick up a copy of Cage's original experimental work could be confused and think this new album was related.
Also keep in mind this piece was premiered in an open air theatre in the forest. There would likely have been much more than silence heard.
And this isn't even getting into the idea that it is impossible to actually hear silence.
This is a link to a site with links to other sites that have information on absurd patents. I know it's not coopyrights, but it will have to do.
Wacky Patents
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
Any Cage recording would have been from the analog days... all that has to be done is to demand that the representatives produce the original master recording... crank way up until the noise content which is there regardless of what Cage's intent was is plainly audible, and run a copy of the noise-free recording that's allegedly in breach of copyright.
Silence A != Silence B. Of course, there are even more sophisticated ways to differentiate the two, depending on the conditions that were used to generate the respective "silences".
End of case, and hopefully start of new case where Cage's people get countersued for damages.
One can copyright the concrete expression of an idea. Nobody can copyright an idea, and it looks to me like Cage's people are trying to claim copyright of the idea of silence in the context of a musical composition.
Tech Public Policy stuff
If he can get the first suit to stick, then watch out for the second suit he brings -- now with precedence ;-)
Letter To Iran
I hate to make a big tsimmes out of this, but it's spelled bupkis (or sometimes bobkes) in English.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
It's time for the Trappist monks to sue Cage's publisher. (For that matter, you'll recall the final track, "The Monks' Vow of Silence" on the Chantmania CD. If Cage's publisher didn't sue the Benzedrine Monks of Santa Demonica, then clearly they have not been vigorously protecting their copyright, have they?)
My grandmother frequantly tried to get her children to compose a song much like it. something titled "SHUT UP, before i have to spank you!" though it rarely was sung for more then a minute....
i'd say i sing it every night for ~8 hrs, but then i snore... and it is not very silent....
so paintings painted on a blank canvas are just derivitave works from my copyright on "Ode to nothingness" which stikes an uncanny resemblance to a blank canvas.....
-------
Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
Slience? Human ears are crappy compare to other ears. If you hear nothing, that doesn't mean it doesn't have any sound, it just means that your ears can't pick up those frequencies.
:)
So what is slience here? nothing nothing, or nothing for humans?
I heard from somewhere that absoulte slience could drive people insane, may be we could shove that gun and his lawyer to try that out
kawai
I think the theory behind John Cage's 4'33" is not so much that it's a silent piece, but rather to get the audience to listen to ambient "noise" around them. The music is produced by the environment, not by the piano. You could call it conceptual art. There's a good article here.
With this in mind, I wonder what direction the legal case should take...
John Cage's piece, 4'33", was actually very clever and quite a novel idea for its time.
One of the themes of his work is to let sounds be themselves. To that end, he composed a piece which involved a pianist holding his hands over a piano keyboard for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The music was not silence, but rather the sound of the audience slowly realising to what was going on.
As such, this piece can never really be recorded (unless you actually record an audience listening to it, and even then, it's not the same thing; once the sound is recorded, it is no longer the same kind of performance), and claiming that a recording of silence is even close to being the same thing as 4'33" is ludicrous.
Mike Batt's problem is crediting Cage on the album. Yes, he did it for a laugh, but by doing so, did he inadvertantly claim legal liability?
Personally, I think John Cage would have gotten a real kick out of the whole proceedings. It would have appealed to his sense of whimsy.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
So it looks like this was just a standard form letter that was sent out because Batt jokingly credited cage as a composer.
I henceforth copyright the entity known as 'whitespace', From now on, anybody who utilizes this so-called 'whitespace' as a breaking symbol in between words, numbers, and/or other symbols, and is of the color 'white', and has not licensed such use, will be used for $1000 per cm^3 of the previously defined 'whitespace'.
I hereby copyright the sound of a tree falling in the middle of a forest when no one is around to hear it.
Dear AmigaAvenger:
I produced this before you did. Unfortunately I have to witnesses for obvious reasons, but I have a recording--which, by the way, and not obvious to the casual listener, is NOT a copy of John Cage's 4'33" or any track from Mike Batt's album. You are hereby requested to turn over all rights licence fees to me and cease and desist any new licensing of said work and claims to rights of said work.
buffer overrun!
Weren't George and Jerry going to make a show about this?
Do we still have the right to remain .... silent? Or will that right now cost us royalties? At least until silence is in the public domain?
-jhon
If famous musician's consider silence worthy to be a track on a cd, I can sell that stack of blank cd's I got for a fortune!
Judge: So you say he stole what?
[...silence...]
Judge: Do you think I have all day?
lawyer: I just told you!
Judge: So what did you say he stole?
lawyer: He stole...[silence]...
Judge: Cat got your tongue?
...
"In mathematics, it's not enough to read the words -- you have to hear the music"
Track 6 on their first album "Slow Deep and Hard" is called "the misinterpretation of silence and its disasterous consequences" and it is 1:04 of total silence. What an appropriate track name. It also appears in remix form on their greatest hits CD.
My source on this is a bit of trivia mentioned by Mr. Top 40 himself, Casey Casem on one of his shows.
Miko O'Sullivan
Has Batt heard Cage's piece? If not, he may have just independently implemented it from the spec.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
From the article: "They say they are claiming copyright on a piece of mine called 'One Minute's Silence' on the Planets' album, which I credit Batt/Cage just for a laugh. But my silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence."
This sounds very silly, but maybe there is a valid point to be made. Mike Batt has a silent track on his album, apparently in something of an homage to avant-garde, experimentalist composer John Cage. To reinforce the connection he even co-credits Cage on the track (but presumably isn't giving out any royalties).
If he simply left a minute of silence on his album (without the credit) then I'd definitely think that there's nothing there. However, by crediting Cage (even as a joke or a tribute) he has opened himself up to charges of copyright infringement and/or misrepresentation.
Without even "listening", one would get the impression (from his liner notes) that his work either draws from Cage, or is co-authored by him. This goes beyond copyright - for instance, even if Mickey Mouse became public domain, no one using should ever be allowed to pretend to be either Disney or to be authorized by Disney (without their permission).
IANAL, but to me there are two valid reasons for IP laws. The first is to encourage dissemination of ideas by rewarding creativity. This is the one that is generally criticized, since the method of reward (monopoly etc.) is somewhat arbitrary and frequently abused. The other reason for IP protection is to prevent misrepresentation. This concept should always be upheld, even regardless of whether a copyright, patent, or trademark has expired.
I appreciate the subtle satire achieved by crediting Cage, but in this case it leaves the potential for confusion and the impression that Cage has contributed to and is getting reimbursed for the work. The lawyers might not agree, but Cage should either pay up, remove the credit only, or (my preferred choice) clearly identify the work (including the credit, which has artistic merit) as a non-derivative tribute/satire.
PS. Sorry about the pun's (unintentional, honest).
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
King Crimson's first album In The Court Of The Crimson King also include quite a long silent moment. And they made this album in 1969!
Korn's Follow The Leader album has first 12 tracks with no sounds.
Cage's 4'33" (4 minutes, 33 seconds) was mostly an experiment into the nature of silence.
Cage actually spent a lot of time researching Zen teachings. His research into silence eventually led him to Harvard University and a visit to its Anechoic Chamber - a closed environment supposedly complete free of noise.
"While he literally expected to hear nothing, after leaving the chamber, Cage explained to a nearby engineer that he had heard two sounds in the chamber, one high, and one low. The engineer told Cage that the high sound was his nervous system in operation, and that the low sound was his blood circulating"
The point of 4'33" was to state that there is no such thing as silence. For more info, check out this paper by Andrew Schulze on the subject.
--
Disclaimer: The above statement probably includes half-truths, because real truth is too complicated.
I've set up a Paypal account so you all can pay me for reading this.
...their 1998 album "Follow The Leader" featured 12 tracks of silence before the music began.
Observe.
Obviously this is going to be thrown right out. Interesting though is the "composer" of this particular "silence" credited Cage's 4'33" (see this post). Coudl that alone do it? IANAL...
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
As a former employee of Pat Obriens in the French Quarter in New Orleans I can let you in on a little known fact.
They have the phrase "Have Fun!" copyrighted. So I guess you cant say it or have fun without dire results.
If you check their web-page out, look at the very bottome and you can read it in the blurb there.
http://www.patobriens.com/havefun.html
Just thought of something, if we slashdot their box, it is almost the equivalent of what their booz has been doing to people for years.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Oh no! It seems that I've already pirated this song and that I've been listening to it for quite some time! I hope the RIAA doesn't find out. I guess I have to buy the CD if I want to listen to nothing now. Damn you RIAA!
~Ben
Cage is cool, but this completely fucked up. Will any lawyer support this kind of harassement? What are these people on? It's a different quantity of silence, does that make a difference. Does John Cage hold a patent on silence? If so, I bet he could make billions over the WTC tragedy! WTF???
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
From the article:
Moral of the story? Don't put jokes in your legal info! There's always someone who doesn't find it that funny, or who is ready to one-up your abilities by creating a comedic artistic performance known as "Litigation".
It's the same idea as saying that your P2P audio distribution system is for avoiding RIAA fines. Considering how horrible the system is for artists anyway, putting in additional names of people that don't exist certainly doesn't help licensing matters. What if someone wanted permission to put your performance in their silent movie? They would go out searching for this Cage fellow and never get anywhere! Then they'd be forced to fill their silent film with white noise instead. (And of course they'd make sure that's its unique from other white noise performances)
I design user interfaces for a free network management application,
How does this bode for CD's with a "secret track" on them? I'm talking about the CD's where on the last track, after the main song is finished, there is about 6 minutes of silence and then some more music or a clip of the band talking and hanging out. Do all these CD's infringe on the copyright?
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
Supposedly, the original idea behind 4'33 was that the "music" in the piece was supposed to be the sound made by the audience shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
I have heard that from multiple sources; i do not know if it is true or not.
And it's a piece intended to be performed live, the musician plays nothing but the audience is moving in their chairs, whispering about what's going on, coughing, sneezing etc. and this is the beauty of Cage's piece. It's different everytime.
Mike Batt's lawyers have advised him to keep silent and avoid saying anything further that may incriminate him!
47 Meelion Dollars!?! I'm the cat!
In other news, the price of Sketch Pads has increased by %.27 cents a page. Artists across the country are furious over this ridiculous price increase after a reputable modern artist copyrighted a blank canvas and demanded licensing fees for the reproduction of his work. His work, "A Polar Bear Blinking in a Blizzard", caught the art world by storm through his originality and artistic efficiency.
"Derp de derp."
is easily the most enjoyable of any John Cage compositions
It appears that the producer actually makes reference to Cage in the credits - in fact, gives him credit for the track. In that light, this would seem to be at least somewhat derivative. Still absurd, but not quite as absurd as it would seem otherwise.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
These people should be locked in a room for 10 years force to listen to new silent track repeatedly, not the original "4'33". I'm sure they would consider canabalism to be a blessing in this situation.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
It seems like the new FreeBSD Logo is violating a copyright also.
Table-ized A.I.
I copyrighted the note "F" some time ago, and almost successfully sued Britney Spears for using it without my permission, except her lawyers found a loophole, claiming that she wes really singing "E#." Fucking lawyers.
c-hack.com |
IANAL, but:
Unless I am mistaken, res judica (variant of collateral estoppel) says that if a claim in one court is upheld, it is assumed to be legitiment. In other words, in this case, let's say Mr. Batt's lawyers make a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that you cannot copyright sounds that occur naturally. And let us further assume that he loses that motion. Under res judica, lawyers in other such suits could then argue that because the judge dismissed the motion and allowed the case to proceed, it is assumed you that can in fact copyright sounds that occur naturally. Then, everyone who has ever included ocean sounds, or wind, or flowing water on their album could be sued. Is there something wrong with that line of thought?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
How can these clowns hope to copyright silence when I've already obtained 3 patents on it?
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
While this is true... my God... that's just the epitomy of ...(there is no word to describe how stupid!) Enough with the frivolous lawsuits...atleast on Slashdot.
-1 Troll, -1 Flamebait
You have the right to remain silent, except where excluded by the copyrights of others.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I'm trying to get ALSA working with the 2.5.24 kernel and now I'm going to have to pay royalties on all of the silence. AHHHhhhhhhh!!!!!!
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
John Cage himself has been silent on the issue.
Have you ever heard a more blatent admission of IP theft? Lock him up now, I say!
P.S. Please ignore this post if you didn't grow up in England in the 70s/80s...
Before I existed, I made no sounds.
We're gonna make a fortune when telepathic aliens come to earth.
That I bet the RIAA is all over it!
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
My proposal:
Mic feces and recorded it in a studio. (Make sure the acoustics of the room are just right and EQ out any reflected sound).
Every time somebody claims that music playing on the radio sounds like shit, sue the band's asses off!
"That sounds very similar to my piece 'Fecal Matter in D Minor'! I am insensed! I'll settle for $3,000,000 out of court. Ta"
:)
Abstract Painting, No. 34, 1964
Your tax dollars at work.
People back then called it lup syncing.
Fight Spammers!
Well, my school has a nice 'moment of silence' which is conviently one minute, coincidence, i think not! They did not give any citation to Cage, therefore can be sue'd. Copyright infringement should not be taken lightly! They must take action, now!
Does this mean that when buddhists answer questions with nothing, they are breaking the law? and wouldn't that also mean they are having their freedom of religion infringed upon?
I want to do it...
It certainly seems funny enough to laught at...
Wish I could see this as some silly situation seen in a movie...
But I can't...
It's just downright scary how common stupid acts have become in our legal system (the system that governs our society behavior)
according to my studies on fair use and copyright, media can be used legally under fair use if it recontexturalizes something or uses it as a commentary (koons vs. art rogers)
http://www.pdnonline.com/pix/isay/0800.html
however, since silence is the absence of sound (no sound), it's hard to see how you can recontexturalize nothing. but at the same time it's hard to claim nothing as your own...
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
Isn't that the guy from Mortal Kombat?
(in darth vader voice:)
*Fatality...*
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
The array silence is declarced at local scope.
In the unlikely event that your implementation can allocate an automatic variable of 2,646,000 * sizeof( short ) bytes, those bytes are not initialized to any particular value, but have whatever "random" values are left over on the stack or whatever else you implemenation uses to allocate automatics. Did you mean to declare array silence at global scope?
Perhaps your composition might better be entitled "White Noise"; "Silence" it clearly is NOT.
PS: Perhaps you also meant your subject line to be "I'll write your copy?"
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Did ya here that. That was my original composition. I call it beans and onions. If you fart and do not give me credit, I will sue.
My guess is that there really *is* a big difference at the barest levels. Chances are good the original 'silence' was an analog recording, which wouldn't sound the same as digital silence. The media to playback the original would have been tape/vinyl/whatever. This current silence was either recorded or just reproduced digitally, probably intended for CDs primarily. Look at a sonic meter thingy analyzing Cage's silence and the Batt silence. I'm sure there's a *big* difference.
creation science book
Johnny Cage's "Four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence." Written in 1952.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Damn, I wish I had my points back - excellent issue you raise! This might not seem such a big deal in the socialist UK, but it's blatantly obvious to us yanks. :)
creation science book
What about my "Best of Marcel Marceau" LP, copyright 1955?
That is retarded.
:O
The original piece of work, titled 4 minutes 33 seconds, was not silent at all. It was recorded right smack in the middle of the street. A piano was set up, a large crowd gathered, and the tapes were rolling.
It was avant garde in how it was showing how musical -the sounds of the city- were. He never touched the piano, so the only noise you hear are people yelling, horns blaring, and wind blowing. It sure as SHIT isn't supposed to be silent.
If whatshisface had a SILENT track on his CD, it sure as hell isn't anywhere near what Cage recorded.
I should know. Now watch as I get moderated into oblivion!!
HaikuSpank
Hey, all you canucks out there - no need to pay blank media taxes on cd-rs... they're not blank. they're simply recordings of a cover of 4'33" :-)
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
"which I credit Batt/Cage just for a laugh." Joker: Hahaha, using this Bat Cage, I will make Batman silent for MUCH longer than 4'33"!
I have no idea why I even bother...
Have you perchance noticed the line:
memset(silence, 0, sizeof(silence));
Hmm... I wonder what it does. Set's the the memory array, pointed to by silence to zero? Up until the size of silence?
Why do people post replies before they read the original posts?
I have just finished downloading this 60sec's of silence. And it sounds great. But you can still hear that the quality suffers from the MP3 compression.
But I could do without all those farting noises coming from behind.
care to explain why that memset wouldn't work (assuming there's enough room on the stack for the array)?
And I believe "right your copy" was a play on copyright.
Or were you just trying to seem intelligent?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...the sound of one hand clapping, right?
Suncoast Linux - Sarasota, FL
Well, really its pretty darn funny.
I as was Batt, was in hysterics reading the article.
It is pretty darn funny really... I mean attorneys are dumb, and people certainly are sue happy lately.. which is sad.. but its just funny
just laugh..
It is just a 1Hz sine wave. You can't hear it but it is sound!
What is music but a particular wave form? Is a copyright dependent on the devices and methods by which the wave form was created? Is there any difference between copyrighting a wave form of Enter Sandman by Metallica and copyrighting a flat wave form that represents silence?
I'm not saying one should be able to copyright silence, I'm saying there is something wrong with the idea of copyright in general.
They have a song called "Silence is Sexy" which isn't ALL silent, but it's close enough for deaf lawyers to confuse it with 4'33"
I really pitty the deaf-mutes...to think everyday of their lives they are listening to copyrighted silence without paying for it, and reproduce it without permission.
The horror.
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
NASA and their team of astronauts are being sued for contributary copyright infringement; In space, no one can hear you scream.
May I be the first to say that I hope John Cage's publishers die a slow and painful death, including bleeding from all of their orifices. I might even give them a few extra to work with.
Love and Kisses
AC
Now what am I supposed to do during the marketing presentation when I am usually SSS (Skeptically Sitting Silently).....
Hey this stuff compresses wonderfully down to zero bits with my new MP3000 patent-pending compression technique. Take that Fraunhoffer and your crappy MP3's.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
The Louisiana band Better Than Ezra has a track at the end of their album "Deluxe" that includes a long period of silence. The track starts with the song "Coyote", which is followed by a very long silence, a minute or two, then there is what can only be described as a nonsense song which has the refrain "Der pork und beans mit saurkrauten". So why didn't John Cage's minions get upset over that - merely because it's not listed in the credits as a separate song?
The silence always fools me into thinking that the music is over - which is probably what it's meant to do, being at the end of the CD. It's especially confusing when I'm listening to a bunch of randomized mp3s; I hit that silence and "What, my playlist is over already?" If I'm coding or something, I just tolerate the silence, thinking I'll start some new tracks at the next compile. Then the "hidden" song starts, and I realize I've been fooled again.
The Cage estate should sue BTE and make them recall all those nasty hurtful fooling CDs. More lawyers! Litigation solves everything!
BTW, Tom Petty put a little CD-only track into the middle of his "Full Moon Fever" CD many years ago. It was a spoken bit, with the studio musicians in the background making barnyard noises, and Tom says "Hello CD listeners! We've come to the point in this album where those listening on record or cassette will have to stand up, or sit down and turn over the record or tape. In fairness to those listeners, we'll now take a few seconds before we begin side2... Thank you. Here's side2..."
Am I offtopic yet?
--Jim
...it's just an easy way to add an extra track to the CD.
> John Cage's piece, 4'33", was actually
> very clever and quite a novel idea for its time.
Yes, he pretty much invented silence. Silence didn't really exist before John Cage. At least, not silence that lasted exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Which, as everyone now acknowledges, is the ideal length for silence.
Also, compared to most of John Cage's songs, 4 and a half minutes of silence is a clear improvement.
John Cage is the composer. Johnny Cage is a character from Mortal Kombat.
Wherever there's a will, there's a motorway.
'Cause they want to impress people with how 'leet they are, even if it means flaming something that was obviously a joke.
It's a standard reaction from someone who's done a couple of semesters of C programming classes and thinks they know All There Is To Know about programming. Some of these guys would argue with dmr himself.
P.S. to the original poster: It's not a good idea to declare main as returning void.
Someone had to have copyrighted silence or silent parts in songs before. I would think you could argue previous works that have entered the public domain.
The only other thing would be to chalenge the duration. if the judge doesn't throw it out which hopefullyu he does.
I'm not sure when Cage's peice came out.
It appears to have been standard practice or common practice with LP's in the sixties, to distribute them with a blank second side. The LP Life with the Lions was compared unfavourably with this. It is an avant guarde LP.
I am not a lawyer, but I think there is established prior art on silence, and the only new peice that one could suggest is that if the silence is "intended for" some rememberence or some other significance. That is, the a given significance of the silence might be copyrightable, not the silence itslef.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
Hush, little baby, don't say a word, momma's gonna sue for reckless prosecution...
One minute of silence is a traditional way of showing respect for someone's death. Now is everyone going to be sued because "one minute of silence" is copyrighted?
It was a joke. In most civilised countries, the right to caricature and satire is recognised by the legal / judicial system.
Americans really need a bit more common sense and less laws (and lawyers).
Oh wait this is Slashdot, no one will get that.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
I wonder if Cowboy Neal is copyrighted?
>
Former US President Richard Nixon can claim prior art on this. He recorded 18 and a half minutes of silence back in the 70s.
Not "bupkis." Means "beans."
Make me aerodynamic in the evening air
I'd go on a rant about how inaccurate Slashdot stories usually are (for examples in just the last two days, see the story about Microsoft changing its EULA when it didn't, the report that Mandrake was the first distro to say thay'd support the Hammer, and the dotGNU "we think the dates are wrong, but we're giving them to you anyway" piece), but I won't. In the interest of not being moderated down for being off-topic, I'm wondering about how this particular story got hosed in the translation.
The actual story only mentions a letter sent from Cage's publishers... there is no lawsuit, contrary to the header on the story. Who knows? For all we can tell from the actual story, the letter may have been just as much of a joke as the credit Batt gave Cage on his album.
So why was it reported as being a lawsuit? Is it just the usual Slashdot sloppiness in following a link before they post it, or are people so lawsuit-happy that we assume that where there's a letter, there's a court battle?
Paul Simon was embroiled in a copyright dispute for years with Martin Carthy over his use of Carthy's arrangement for "Scarborough Fair/Canticle"
DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
This refers to advance copies made available for reviewers. Normal retail copies were always double-sided. One of the reviews of the LP refer to these blank sides.
I'm not sure when Cage's peice came out.
The peice came out in 1952. None of this 1960's practice, or Lennon's 1969 peice were challenged, even though this has been pointed out on a number of occasions.
On the other hand, Lennon's 1969 song "Come Together" was challenged for copyright infringement. Lennon put Ya-Ya on the LP Walls and Bridges as part of the settlement.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
This page intentionally left blank.©
Imagine this: you have machine that show different outputs on the screen selected by one controlling byte. The byte is the program. Program can be copyrighted
So:
EULA {bla bla bla}
Copyright (C) 2001 John Doe
0x2f
Then I can file a lawsuit about usage of 0x2f in your programs/texts/etc...
This shows the absurdity of "copyright".
I have a strong feeling that idea of copyright is completely flawed and should be abandoned in favor to idea of public domain of all published and being published information.
P.S. to the original poster: It's not a good idea to declare main as returning void.
Maybe he isn't a *nix programmer. windows doesn't need a value returned.
you have the right to remain silent, just not the copyright to remain silent. Anything you don't say may be used in a DMCA case against you.
Double Hmmm... "We have ways of making you talk". It may be decision time: testify against yourself, or face the rats nest that is a copyright/DMCA case against you. Either way you're screwed.
:)
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Since Cage's name was mentioned in a context that usually indicates authorship credit, but without permission, Cage's estate is presumably saying that Batt is trading unfairly off Cage's name by implying (misrepresenting) that the track in question has something to with Cage.
If Batt had simply acknowledged Cage in the liner notes somewhere, the same issue would not have arisen, since there would be no misrepresentation.
Batt is simply trying to make the issue go away by making fun of the silence aspect, but Cage's estate does in fact have a point, legally speaking, which has nothing to do with a copyright on silence.
Taking a copyright on silence seriously, or taking silence as art seriously. Either one is a joke. I wish people could just have a nice laugh and move on, without adding crap like this to an already abused court system. I'm picking my nose right now. I hereby copyright it. If you also are picking your nose right now, I order you to cease and desist!
The sound of one hand clapping is being smacked in the face.
If it's not there, ignore it.
- - -
"The sixth sick shiek's sixth sheep's sick."
The track about nothing!
No TiVo and no caffeine make me something something...
In April, 1991, MGM released on vinyl The Best of Marcel Marceau. There were 19 minutes of silence, followed by thunderous applause.
That has nothing to do with it. The spec says that main returns int, not void.
You might get away with it on some systems (in fact, you probably will) but there's always that one where it will cause problems. See the comp.lang.c faq,
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q11.12.html
The same holds true for (e.g.) blindly assuming that sizeof(int) == sizeof(void *).
The silly thing is, Cage's 4'33" is not intended to be four minutes and thirty three seconds of TOTAL SILENCE. Cage intended for peripheral noise -- the audience's nervous coughing, the scuffing of seats on the performance venue's floor, passing cars, etc -- to be an integral part of the composition. The wit of 4'33" is that Cage was creating a unique piece of non-reproducible art, in which the audience were active performers, every time the piece was performed. To claim that all recordings of total silence are an infringement of copyright is to completely miss the point of Cage's composition.
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
All this in an attempt to be clever in displaying your knowledge of C, and you wound up missing the tiny fact that there is a memset immediately following the declaration. [sigh]
This is a bit of an overreaction, but given how quickly lawyers tend to "overreact," one could really pervert this case.
See, Cage's 4'33" was intended to be an insight into what we perceive as "music." It is typically performed in 3 unbroken movements of specific time-lengths (down to the 1/1000th of a second) and can involve as many or as few players as is necessary. The "silence" is not actually silence at all - it is the ambient sound in the hall, the room, or enclosure it is performed in. It really is quite remarkable if you think about it long enough. Then again, this piece is from a man who used the I Ching and a bunch of sticks to determine how he composed music.
The implications, sadly only begin there. By allowing Cage's 4'33" to be perceived as silence or ambient noise and then copyrighted, a lawyer who's gone completely off his rocker could theoretically sue every person on the face of the planet, including himself, for violation of IP rights - because silence and ambient noise are used by everyone in everyday life.
The rational human being would state that silence and ambient noise are a natural part of everyday life and thus cannot be copyrighted - and if the Cage estate really really really whined and groaned enough, someone might say that 4'33" is indeed copyrighted, but only the instances where it has been recorded (someone might argue that it's whenever it's been explicitly performed, but just about every performance everywhere has been recorded in some way or another).
It just goes to show that lawyers who deal in copyright suits tend to look for every instance they can to sue someone and justify their overinflated paychecks.
[insanity]Incidentally, this is copyrighted, using any of the above words (with the exception of prepositions), reading this post, or looking at its headline is a violation of copyright and is strictly prohibited under copyright law.[/insanity]
--
This case is absurd. I've looked at the sheet music, and Cage's music is in 7/8 and composed of consecutive eight note rests. Batt's piece is in 4/4 and uses only whole rests. Case dismissed.
You're right, I missed the memset.
Thanks for correcting me. I'm even more embarrassed I missed the void return.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
I can name that sone in zero notes.
I was in a punk-rock band and we used to cover this song. It was the only song we could play well.
ahh good times.....
This song was covered by the blood hound gang.
They titled it: The best things about New Jersey
It was a minute long and silent.
to email me: take my
The tradition of calling for a Moment Of Silence at the death of Famous individuals and others, has been occuring for centuries. That means that if the one composer who died in 1992 could not have been alive to have covered all moments of silence. Heretofore let it be known that "Silence" is in the Public Domain.
:-P
So there!
Your actions in life will determine your children's future.
Does this mean the RIAA is violating a copyright, by uploading blank mp3's to various P2P networks?
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
should be the Bloodhound Gang, for thier track "The Ten Greatest Things about New Jersey", which is ten seconds of silence.
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
Hey does anyone have that mp3? I'd like to download it and crank up the volume so the silence drowns out all the noise around here.
I don't know why, but this is the funniest thing I've read in a long, long time.
Kudos.
if this is held in court, wouldn't it mean that silence on other media would also be copyrighted by him. if so, what about blank cds.... btw, this post is at least as nonsensical as copyrighting silence.
(The whole idea behind lossy formats like mp3 is to throw out unimportant audio data for a smaller file size)
[geeky aside] so i reencoded it as .ogg at only 33k.. w00t
That means that when we aren't making noise we're violating the DMCA !
La la la la la la shok shok la la
...of that guy who put together a compilation of "1-minute silences". He just got the audio recordings of all the respective happenings (Lady Di memorial, whatever) and cut out the 1-minute silence period which by definition was not quite silent - you would hear distand police sirens, people couging, whatever.
Back when I read about it, I thought that it was way too ridiculoud to be topped. Well, this story got me.
+++ath0
f = open("silence.pcm","w")
f.write("\x00\x00" * (60 * 44100))
f.close()
-- What do you need?
-- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
John Cage's estate would make a fortune.
slainfu
"I can't be a terrorist if you're sucking my bum."
Nearly all CDs have about 2 seconds of silence between songs. Would this be considered "fair use?"
Please laugh.
Just my $0.04 (adjusted for inflation)
Absence of data does not mean absence of information. For example, call a friend. If they don't answer, have your received any information? Yes. You now know that they are not home or do not wish to speak to you.
No news is good news, i always say.
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
Im sure that infringes on the people who cough, and did he get permission from the police to use a 'trademark' sound in his production? Also, certain TV and radio stations might have been given exclusive rights. What if he copied it off the TV - thats rebroadcasting the signal.
:)
On another note im interested to know how he managed to set the equipment for the full dynamic range - if he recorded it at the normal level, the samples on the cd would peak at a few percent or less! that would be a complete waste of data especially for the 16-bit depth. Although this level wouldn't allow him the end of the silence since normal wispering would just clip
Copyright law is messed up
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Totally silence is totally impossible. Background static (if detected) is non-reproducable.
Unless someone is deaf, of course, but will the RIAA sue deaf people? Hmm...
Besides, I'm sure your deity/belief of choice will cite Prior Art.
If I could patent 'white noise' by stating total random sound... then that would include all music ever made.
If someone wanted to copyright white noice (or total *cough* silence), then they would still be infringing on all music ever made, or all music ever made when the volume is set to zero.
In my opinion, this cannot be done.
But whadda I know anyway...
:)
No reason to throw insults around. Maybe it's part of the joke? Ya know: silence, void, ...
Say no to software patents.
And the reason John Cage's piece is 4'33" is because that is 273 seconds, and absolute zero is -273C (near as makes no odds). It all makes sense now...
Oh yeah, didn't the Bloudhound Gang do a track called "The Ten Best Things About New Jersey" which was 10 seconds of silence?
Baz
My signature makes sense!
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
"...experimentalist composer John Cage.."
Yeah and when Cage's side is about to win and the judge will give the verdict we will hear "FINISH HIM!!!" we get to see a decapitated head then... "JOHNNY CAGE WINS! FATALITY!"
You for got the cliping from 0 volts to -1 volts at the begining and the -1 to 0 at the end.
You need to add a little compensation.
short silence[60*44100+1];
fwrite(silence, sizeof(short), 60*44100+1, out);
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Batt said last night: "I've received a letter on behalf of John Cage's music publishers. I was in hysterics when I read their letter.
I've heard enough of the crap that John Cage sold the marks to know that he was no more a musician than Jackson Pollock was an artist.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This sounds to me like the good old dry British sense of humor at work, not some US style "you farted in my airspace" whacky law suit.
"For the words of the profits
are written on the studio walls,
and concert halls,
echo with the sounds of salesmen."
- from "The Spirit of Radio" by Rush, 1980
(this is not a
The memset line sets the whole array to zeroes, which results in silence when played back from pcm format.
Every *nix distro is in violation of this copyright, since they all ship with a copy of this work.
/dev/zero
It's called
www.eFax.com are spammers
because they cannot believe that some people are FUCKING UNABLE TO SPELL!
/. editors get it right?
I mean, spell it wrong once, OK. You missed it. Things happen. But three times? Consistently? When even the
dd bs=44100 count=120 /dev/dsp
-- What do you need?
-- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
The Boston Symphony Olawyera to perform
silence court summons in 4 parts. Each part
to be read at a rate decided by a function of
the skin temperature of each performer (the
colder the lawyer, the slower the reading).
2 of the performers shall read the summons
from end to start, 1 performer shall read
the summons as normal, and the remaining shall read each 7th word of the summons.
... at the end of a record, before you take the needle off? Everyone seems to copy that.
My fear is that we will all have to have something on all the time to avoid plagiarizing the silence. Actual my fear is that it will be Celine Dion.
Coderz 4 Life
Looks like we have to re-think that "You have the right to remain silent" thing...
Secondly, (quoted from azstarnet)
One would imagine that Blatt's silence would be a digital silence - no noise, a silent file he generated and slapped on a CD. Cage's silence (not that it is silence as outlined above), since it is much older, would probably have at least white noise in it on a recording. Clearly since Cage did not believe that silence could exist neither he nor his estate could claim ownership of silence.
F4+80y +1++135
FatBoy Titties - (aren't I l33+
Will the ghost of John Cage sue the gost of John Lennon for Lennon's song "Nutopian National Anthem," which was also silence?
Since both Cage and Lennon are dead, I want to see the court testimony, particularly Cage's and Lennon's testamony.
The cross examination of these two witnesses will be amusing...
steve
Springfield Fragfest
. . . and then sue Hammermill. (Suggestion gleaned from Cyberia).
It's not spelled "coopyright", it's "Pootyright"
Let me see if I understand correctly. Not only is nothing now something, but someone owns it, and will sue if you use it. I hope this lawsuit will point out to legislators and courts worldwide how copyrights, patents, and other "intellectual property" laws no longer stimulate innovation or creativity, but have become nothing but a money grab scam. The following sentance used to be a double-negative, but is now perfect english. Don't buy nothing from the recording industry.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
it's actually 455%. 4 min 33 sec is 273 seconds, which is 455% of 60 seconds, not 433%. :)
Actually, Cage's ideas about 4'33'' changed several times during his life. Of particular interest here is that, when he first thought of the idea of a silent piece in 1948, his intent was to sell it to Muzak (so he could get some peace & quiet in elevators, I suppose). So the notion of collecting royalties on it now just brings the piece back to its beginning ...
Some self-described "composer" who doesn't even write real music you can hum along with is suing the man who wrote "THE WOMBLING SONG".
--
E_NOSIG
4'33'' was not originally intended to be silence. The idea was that the piece would be come any and all sounds that passed within that time period. It's originaly performance was earth shattering. The majority of the piece came from the crowd itself, discussing, muttering, trying to figure out what was going on. The sheet of music he released was indeed blank, but the idea was that it was being left blank for the entire hall to fill with music. I'm very shocked that people who consider themselves representatives of the man would misunderstand the intent so aimlessly just to be able to catch another person in a lawsuit.
It sickens me, the man deserved much more respect and reverence then this!
I've been getting similar letters over the sound of flatulence in one of my tunes. Luckily, I have a scratch-and-sniff spot on the CD for those who'd like to check for originality.
InKonu
Does this mean that all music that contains parts of John Cage's 4'33 is covered by DRM? What are they gonna replace it with? The sound of one hand clapping? Oh great, you mean we get stuck with elevator music ALL THE TIME? ;-)
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I wasn't going to enter a response to this article, but I was afraid of receiving a cease and desist order if I remained silent.
Track 3 on the Mind Games album. 3 seconds long, 3 seconds of silence. The album was released November 1973.
I'll buy 20kHz but not 25kHz. But since you didn't capitalize 'H' in kHz, it could be that it is another unit of measure. Or are you're a bat?
Sounds of a piano not playing, a clarinet not playing, a drum not playing.
basically stillness. Various stillnesses sound the same to the casual observer but mean quite a lot to the more in depth listener.
For example, consider the stillness of your child as she sleeps silently in a crib.
or the silence of the crowd as the basketball player gets set to shoot the game winning free throw. Or golfer sink the putt if basketball gym doesn't seem silent enough for you.
Or the silence in your heart when you see your lover kissing another.
They may all sound the same on tape, but each is quite unique.
not to mention timing and key. Silence in c major, silence in 2/2 time, 4/4 time.
fun topic. thanks.
If DRM had been employed on all recordings of the original silent track, none of this ever would have happened. Obviously. ;-)
------------------------------------
Spiral out... keep going.
open("silence.pcm", "w").write("\x00\x00\x00\x00" * (60 * 44100))
The file is closed after writing since the handle's reference count hits 0 (or something like that).
Even the lyrics are the same! Compare: The Planets' lyrics and John Cage's lyrics.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
IsupposesomeasswillsettheDCMAonmeunlessIrespectyou rcopyright.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Nope, because each of those tracks were under 8 bars, or whatever the time limit is
If the alleged infringer doesn't have money for a legal defence, then the plaintiff sets the time limit. For instance, George F. Handel's publisher was able to win a court case over four notes.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Jefferson did not write the constitution. He wrote the Declaration of Independence (which was later revised by congress). He was in France when the constitution was written.
This is a subject line post. I am violating the copyright of Subject Line Troll.
IN TEH FUCHAR, LITERSY WLIL EB OPSHANAL!!!!!111
Tell the judge if he seriously wasn't going to throw it out of court for being asinine, the song was actually covered under fair use... It was a parody!!!
I had a sucky sig.
Think of all the prior art for silence sitting on the shelves of your local music store in the form of blank audio casettes!
20kHz is the average upper limit of human hearing
I didn't say that it wasn't, I said that I would buy the poster's claim if it were 20kHz. I have difficulty with the assertion of 25kHz.
stupid party tricks like complaining about TVs that are left on with no video signal feeding them
I hate to disappoint you, but what one hears under those circumstances is the oscillation of the television's flyback transformer at a frequency of 15756 Hz or 15.756 kHz (NTSC) or 18750 Hz or 18.750 kHz (PAL). Either is significantly below 25kHz.
we were doing audio interference experiments
I hope you weren't fooling yourself and hearing beat frequencies (interference) or harmonics. Since the test setup that you would have had was not designed for the express purpose of testing human hearing, the anecdotal evidence presented does little to convince me.
I believe that the generally accepted range for human hearing is 20 Hz to 20 kHz with age and sex-related dependencies. I would probably buy someone who (as a teenager or young adult who never listened to grunge or heavy metal) claims to be the exception and hear up to 22.5kHz, but I still have difficulty with the original poster's claim of 25kHz. Then again, my guess is that he just tossed that number out. He says:
The whistle was hardly silent on the vinyl (at least back in the days when my hearing went up to 25khz)
While he/she is not offering the statement as direct evidence of their amazing hearing by suggesting that the whistle was very close to 25kHz (it wasn't - see below), one could incorrectly infer that. I must point out that vinyl records were not capable of frequencies much above 21kHz (the so-called RIAA* equalization curve was in fact spec'd to 21kHz
By the way, I remember the tune to which the o.p. refers and that it hurt my ears, (and I could never hear to 25kHz). It was on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" Google it yourself (I don't want the fellow slasdotted) but a 'reliable source on the Internet (;-)' says the following:
The short burst of unintelligible noise after the end of A Day In The Life - nonsense chatter, recorded, chopped up and re-assembled at random - was taped by the Beatles on 21 April, and it originally appeared in the concentric run-out groove on the 1960s pressings of the vinyl album. Before this, there appears a few seconds of a 15 kilocycle whistle added, at John Lennon's suggestion, especially for any dogs that might be listening.
(for you metric types, 15 kilocycles = 15 kHz.)
*Footnote: In those days the RIAA was often thought of as a body that, amongst their duties, governed technical standards. The corruption, collusion, extortion and anti-competition departments were much smaller then.
Clear Channel has picked up both tunes and have put them on Maximum Rotation! Expect to hear these soon on your local affilliate!
I seem to recall a similar piece entitled "The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Regan"
It seems that this joke dates at least back to the 1980's
Prior art?
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
I listened to it and it wasn't completely silent... I could still hear the ringing in my ears...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
2) How large an MP3 does it take to encode 1 minute of silence?
Hopefully this will be dismissed before the actual hearing under the pretext of no sound substance in the case...
VKh
I'm sorry (yes, I know that "I'm Sorry" is a song) but you cannot use the word sorry without permission any more(8=>).
Ok moderators, take me to the basement.
"No talking!"
"...Okay..."
whip cracks
"No listening! You hear me, Boy?"
"I have nothing to say, and I'm here to say it"
should have been
"I Have Nothing to Say and I Am Saying It"
the first quote is from something else entirely.
While we can all applaud John Cage for this attempt to introduce even more surrealism to the copyright debate, I might also mention that back in the 80's AT&T made, in all seriousness, a copyright claim on blank lines.
/bin/true program, which along with /bin/false is part of every unix system library. It's a bit of trivia, but these commands are needed for some scripting applications. The "true" command is a command that merely exits with a successful (zero) status. Its most common use was for a "while true do ..." infinite loop.
...
This was in the
The script actually contained no code, since its behavior is the default action of a shell script if there is no code. However, it did contain two significant pieces of text.
It contained a blank line, and an AT&T copyright notice.
I had a bit of fun at the time posting the program in its entirety to several newsgroups, pointing out that I was openly and knowingly publishing the full source code for an AT&T copyrighted program, and I challenged their lawyers to sue me for infringment.
I never heard from them. This is a bit strange, since, although they might not have been following any of the tech newsgroups, they almost certainly would have received copies of my message from a lot of readers.
We had several good discussions of whether we should go through all our files and delete all the blank lines to comply with the AT&T copyright.
It wasn't clear whether AT&T was claiming ownership of only the blank lines in shell scripts, all programs, all files, or all documents (on disk or paper). If I'd ever heard from any AT&T lawyers, I would have asked them.
Maybe we can actually get such things resolved now. I'll predict that the Cage folks will be happy to discuss the issue with us
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It seems not to be widely known that Mr Cage went on to publish a piece entitled "0 minutes 0 seconds", described by the composer as being playable "by anyone, at any time, on any instrument, anywhere". Provided one has the permission of the copyright owner, of course ...
I know John Lennon released a song of just silence...and he died in 1980. So if anything he is the true owner of silence. I do not remember the song name or the album, but seeing as John was tragicly killed seems like Yoko Ono would actually own the rights to silence... why couldn't she have shut up about 30 yrs ago and let the greatest band continue instead of breaking them up.....
How do you take a picture of the best moment of your life?
To be able to trace pirated copies of silence we need a research project for watermarking the silence ...
Reminds me of the Melvins' track off "Prick" entitled "Pure Digital Silence." Basically, it's just a guy saying in a gravelly voice, "And now, pure digital silence," followed by a minute or so of silence.
Or their cover of John Cage's 4'33" which they retitled "Shit Sandwich (and you just took a bite)" because they also released it on a limited pressing of vinyl. They've been performing this "song" at shows recently... it's sort of a different reaction from the crowd of a rock show than it is at a classical concert!
Now hang on a moment. John Lennon and Yoko Ono had a track called "Two Minutes of Silence." I could have sworn that Victor Borge did a bit where he introduced a song as a length of time (IE, "I call this one 'One Minute Forty-Four') and just sat at the piano doing nothing, and eventually checking his watch.
This is one of those absurd examples of Copyright law gone seriously awry that I used to use as a joke. Seriously, I used to ask people if I could be sued for distributing John and Yoko's "Two Minutes" in MP3 format, and if I would get in even more trouble if I just made a program that switched off someone's speakers for exactly two minutes, therefore making it a purer silence of higher quality than the original.
Looks like it's high time for the legal system to start beating itself up.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
Soulfly's new album has a track called "9-11" that is one minute of silence. I wonder if they could be in trouble for this as well.
I also find it hard to believe no other artist has done a minute of silence on any of their albums either.
Your moral rights (as in the Paris treaty) include two very important rights: you can claim to have written stuff that you have written, and no-one else can claim you have written stuff you didn't write.
that fell in a forest when no one was around that wants in on the lawsuit.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
If it's on CD there is sound. That nice 44100 tone is what is there.
i don't know when this "planets" recording came out, but dave allen's 1996 album _the clutter of pop_ features just such a "1:00 of silence". maybe just crediting it to john cage would have done the trick. :)
The average person may not hear above 20 KHz, but many people with asthma can hear above that. There are some who can hear all the way up to 30 KHz.
Take_this,_sucker!
Oh yeah, didn't the Bloudhound Gang do a track called "The Ten Best Things About New Jersey" which was 10 seconds of silence?
You can also get a book entitled "Everything Men Know About Women", same joke.
someone once told me that they would go into honky-tonk bars, load the jukebox up with quarters and play 4'33" over and over and over again.
apparently this would result in a rise in temperature.
Liberty uber alles.
I would be really mad, if someone take silence of when i am sleepping. (kill all audio & lights)
Maybe it was their song "Enjoy the Silence"? :)
-273C, not 273C. 273C would be a medium hot oven.
If they can sue for this ,then I should have copyrighted that little pause one takes between breaths. I could have made a fortune!
----- All Hail the Monkey Lich...now fetch me some undead bananas!
What if the silence was longer? IIRC Covenant's Unites Sate of Mind has a track called you can make your own musik that is about 4 minutes of silence. Is that infringing?
*Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
*/