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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.
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!'"
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.
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!!
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?
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.
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..."
© gvonk, 2002, all rights reserved, etc.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
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... ;-)
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...
No wonder I never understood the piece...I listen to it using a pair of those noise canceling headphones...
It seems like the new FreeBSD Logo is violating a copyright also.
Table-ized A.I.
Ah... but at what frequency will you be generating this zero-amplitude silence? My patent is pending on `0 * sin (2 * pi * 256)' (middle C) so watch out.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
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!
But, but, but ...
I've patented the concepts of making silence through (1) not making any noise, (2) failing to record said noise, and (3) a catch-all that covers anything that might not be covered by the first two.
I asked my lawyer if I had missed anything, and when he paused for a second, I had him arrested for violating my patent. Maybe that was a bad idea?
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
Oh wait this is Slashdot, no one will get that.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Former US President Richard Nixon can claim prior art on this. He recorded 18 and a half minutes of silence back in the 70s.
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
That means that when we aren't making noise we're violating the DMCA !
La la la la la la shok shok la la
Watch out, the record company are probably distributing dummy mp3s with the first 15secs repeated over and over ...
Regards, Ralph.
"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
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.