DRM for 1'3" of Silence

jc42 writes "In the latest entry in the battle over Digital Rights Management, a fellow has blatantly ripped off a "tune" from the iTunes Store. "Tune" is 1 minute 3 seconds of silence. To compound his crime, he has posted the tune on his web site for anyone to download. I downloaded it to iTunes, and it played just fine (but now I suppose I'm a criminal, too). I wonder what John Cage and Mike Batt would have to say about this? Will lawyers for Apple or Ciccone Youth send a C&D letter? If I were to make my own MP3 silent tune of exactly the same length and put it online, would I be infringing their copyright?"

Comments

Well

[Realistic_Dragon]

At least that's one song who's lyrics won't offend the FCC.

Or do you think they mught just be committing quiet obscenities? Better ban it anyway just in case.

Re:Well

[pla]

Or do you think they mught just be committing quiet obscenities? Better ban it anyway just in case.

Why not? They went after The Kingsmen for "Louie Louie", taking its unintelligibility as "proof" that it has nasties in it...

Re:Well

[EngMedic]

and Frank Zappa's instrumental album, Jazz from Hell, got a "parental warning: explicit lyrics" tag, too. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

John Cage

[suso]

Actually, if it was John Cage, you would hear the performer turning the page.

Re:John Cage

[Anonymous Coward]

No, if it was John Cage he would shadow-kick your ass.

Re:John Cage

[Antibozo]

Moreover, John Cage would explain that 4'33" is not simply 4'33" of silence. He did actually write a score for this piece, note by note, and comprised of three movements. He then made all the notes tacet, and added up their time at a tempo of his choice to come up with the durations for the movements. If you knew what the original notes are, however, you could imagine the piece while it is performed.

In addition, the three movements are punctuated by the performer closing and then reopening the piano lid.

Re:John Cage

[Chundra]

Re:John Cage

[rune-bare-rune]

The representatives of John Cages estate appearantly thought Mike Batt infringed Cages copyright with a track on his 2002 album "Planets".

Quote:
"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."

Re:John Cage

[DigitalHammer]

No, he'd do the splits and shadow-punch you in the crotch.

Re:John Cage

[rwise2112]

Hmmmm..

Is that 4'33" of silence, your own creative work, or a picture of an invisible galaxy?

Re:John Cage

[Golias]

See the 1990 American Masters documentary on John Cage, in which he states explicitly, "4'33" was written note by note."

As with any dispute of fact, it's Google to the rescue:

4'33" was written in the summer of 1952 just after Cage returned to New York City from Black Mountain College, where he had been invited to participate as a teacher and composer in this rural, private-school environment, and worked with other important figures in the art world. It was here that Rauschenberg did his White Paintings (1951) and Cage first saw them, provoking 4'33". It was here that the first multimedia "happening" occurred, Cage's Theater Piece No. 1, in which many of the faculty participated. It was also here that Cage planned work on Williams Mix and first used the time bracket notation that became so prevalent in his later music.

4'33" is written for any instrument or combination of instruments. It is, however, usually done as a piano piece. This is probably because of the precedent set by the premiere performance, since the score does not specify a piano or any other instrument. The score is in three movements. Curiously, it has existed in at least six different versions (two different manuscripts and four different editions), although only two of these are different in performance.

The original Woodstock manuscript, dated August 1952, is now lost and was written in conventional grand staff notation, containing measures of silence. It is here referred to as the Woodstock ms. It was this score that David Tudor used for the premiere performance. Tudor made at least two reconstructions of this score for his own performances.

The original was on music paper, with staffs, and it was laid out in measures like the Music of Changes except there were no notes. But the time was there, notated exactly like the Music of Changes except that the tempo never changed, and there were no occurrences -- just blank measures, no rests -- and the time was easy to compute. The tempo was 60.

So there you go. No notes. The process of composition being described as "note for note" was just Cage's overcompensation due to his worry about his work being taken as a joke if he did not go out of his way to put effort into creating it.

This is just dumb.

[Slartibartfast]

Sorry, but no. As I seem to recall, there is a minimum number of notes required in order to copyright something. As a corallary, you could not write a "book" with the contents being the word "the", and then sue everyone for breach of copyright. In other words, raw, unadulturated silence cannot be copyrighted; it needs content.

Re:This is just dumb.

[Pionar]

It has nothing to do with how many notes. It's whether it's marginally creative. In this case, I think it'd be up to a judge. A consumer would argue that silence is inherently not creative. A copyright holder would argue that it's not just the silence, it's the position of it on the album, the significance of the length, the "innovativeness" of silence as an expression of art, and so forth. Frankly, since the threshold for creativity is quite low (hell, you can copyright a directory of people just because you've ordered it in a certain way), I think Apple's got a pretty good case.

Re:This is just dumb.

[milgr]

If you have ever seen the score, it has several pages of rests of various lengths. Recordings of performances of this piece include the background noise - including the pianist turning pages of the score, frequently people coughing or shifting restlessly in their seats.

By the way, Cage's piece is "4'33" of silence" (and it does last 4 minutes and 33 seconds).

Not only does it bring up the question of what is Art, but what is copyrightable. There was a suit about this (The suit was settled with John Cage's estate getting a 6 figure settlement). See http://www.billboard.com/bb/article_display.jsp?vn u_content_id=1710115

Re:This is just dumb.

[bani]

depends. what's the key, b-flat?

You're Under Arrest!

[serutan]

You have the right to remain silent.

Re:You're Under Arrest!

[rookworm]

You have the right to remain silent.

But you must pay royalties to the copyright holder(s).

Infringing on the copyright?

[Corporate Drone]

If I were to make my own MP3 silent tune of exactly the same length and put it online, would I be infringing their copyright?

Well... you could always claim that your MP3 was a collection of 5 seconds snippets of the "tune", and plead Fair Use...

I looked into the RIAA's stance on this.

[bobdotorg]

But only got the message,

"Nothing to hear here. Move along."

Already Slashdotted

[BarryJacobsen]

Article is already slashdotted, here's the google cache:

I'm gonna preface this by saying that I love Apple and their products and I hate the RIAA and their shortsightedness. My only complaint with Apple is the restrictive DRM built into iTunes Music Store songs (also, those new G5s could be a little cheaper).

In protest, I've committed a real crime and documented the entire process. But it shouldn't be that way and that's why I've done it. Come and get me, Apple! Come and get me, RIAA!

It all started with a free song code from the Pepsi iTunes promotion. I tilted several Pepsi bottles at the local Ralphs (just look for random letters under the cap), found me a winner and scored a free song.

You may not know this, but there are several tracks that you can buy from that iTunes Music Store that consist of nothing more than total silence.

Here's one from Ciccone Youth (a Sonic Youth side project):

So I bought it.

Then, I wanted to play this song on another device other than my iPod (I own a Creative MuVo TX MP3 Player). No go. The Digital Rights Management (DRM) makes it impossible to transfer the song to my other MP3 player unless I go through some ridiculous steps which involve burning the purchased song to a CD and then ripping it. This causes a noticeable loss of sound quality due to the song being recompressed. Totally unacceptable. I want pure silence.

So I stripped the DRM using JHymn, a cross-platform application that unlocks your DRM'ed songs and keeps the original's sound quality. This is absolutely, positively illegal according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

One law broken, one to go.

One file is legal, the other one is definitely not. Can you spot the one that'll get me in trouble? I'll give you a hint: it's the one without the little lock over its icon.

There's just one law left to break. I'm offering this very file for download here on my website. So go ahead, download it (1.1 MB) and break the law with me. Right click, save as, and crank it up on your favorite portable electronic music player.

If this little stunt gets me in trouble, you'll be the first to know.

You can help stop the RIAA and their nonsense at Downhill Battle.

Find out more about protecting your digital rights online at the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website.

Silence is golden. Get involved.

|_

[GillBates0]

Re:|_

[Meumeu]

Do you realize you are infringing their copyright by writing the lyrics here?

thoughtcrime

[sum.zero]

it doesn't matter if they vocalize the words, we all know they are THINKING them.

sum.zero

Re:thoughtcrime

[TheViffer]

Thoughtcrime? Dont think so.

This is clearly a copyright matter. You just can't take Ashlee Simpson's works and post them freely on the internet. She needs to eat too.

Precedent

[alphakappa]

What kind of legal precedent would this create if it ever came to court? On one hand he has probably violated the DMCA by circumventing the copy-protection on the song. On the other hand, all he has is a song that is devoid of any content. (Could you compare it to a thief who broke into a house only to find it empty - would it not be a crime, if he knew beforehand that the house was empty?)

Plenty of questions to be debated here..

Copyright

[ojthecat]

The only problem with this is that Microsoft has just been issued a patent for a method of producing no sound via a mp3 data stream.

Old news

[thebra]

This has been done.

Still dumb, but I'll answer, anyway.

[Slartibartfast]

White noise has content. So, sure, go ahead and copyright -your- white noise. But, so long as someone else didn't mimic yours (which wouldn't be too hard -- or even desired, what with white noise being essentially random), they'd be fine. In other words, as Hunter S. Thompson would say, "Just put your TV between channels, pump up the volume, and listen to the wonderful white noise." And not sweat the copyright.

Re:Still dumb, but I'll answer, anyway.

[darkpixel2k]

I guess we should all observe about a minute of silence then...

DRM vs. Copyright confusion

[That's Unpossible!]

If I were to make my own MP3 silent tune of exactly the same length and put it online, would I be infringing their copyright?

No. First of all, no one has a copyright on any length of pure silence. You can copyright SOUND RECORDINGS. Pure silence is the absence of sound, and is therefore not copyrightable.

However, you could record yourself sitting in front of a piano (ala Cage) and the various ambient sounds recorded would technically be a unique work, and as the original author you would own the copyright on that SOUND RECORDING.

This guy is violating the DRM agreements that Apple set forth, so Apple could pursue him.

As explained above, the pure silence is not copyrightable, so the RIAA has no beef.

If the guy forgot to remove the album artwork from the file, then he is infringing the copyright of whoever owns the album artwork copyright, and they could sue him.

What is he really trying to prove? The point is lost on me due to his ineptitude.

But it may be a DCMA violation.

[L-Train8]

Well, it may not be copyright infringement, but if he cracked the DRM to access the silence, it is indeed a crime under the DCMA. Which is one of the big problems with the DCMA. Even if you have a legal right to the material that is copy protected, you cannot crack the copy protection without committing a crime.

Re:But it may be a DCMA violation.

[serutan]

Exactly. The issue isn't copyright per se but copy protection. It doesn't matter if the thing being protected is copyrighted or not, because the protection itself is protected. You could get in trouble for breaking DRM even if the content is public domain, because Congress says the imaginary box containing that individual copy is sacred.

If you think about it, DRM is like a privatized turbo version of copyright. Copyright infringement is a civil matter between two parties. DRM breakage is a federal crime involving fines and jail time. Pretty sweet deal to have the government investigate and prosecute your lawsuits for you for free! How did we let the entertainment industry get away with this?

Huh?

[el_gordo101]

One foot three inches of music?

RIAA's new tactic.

[bobdotorg]

I'm offering this very file for download here on my website. So go ahead, download it (1.1 MB) and break the law with me.

Letter to plasticbugs.com from the RIAA:

Dear PlasticBugs,

It has come to our attention that you are hosting copyrighted material on your website. In the past we have dispatched goons. Unfortunately this takes up to a week.

In order to more effectively destroy your ability to distribute copyrighted material, we have decided to destroy your server by providing a link to its content to a very popular website's front page.

We wish your server well in its next life.

Sincerely,

JC42

Um ... okay?

[Durandal64]

Let me get this straight. Someone makes a "song" that's 1m 3s of silence. Some other guy makes an audio file that is 1m 3s of silence. He's daring someone to sue him, and everyone here is already screaming about it? No one's done anything! Apple hasn't sued. The artist hasn't sued. The RIAA hasn't sued. What's the big deal?

Re:Um ... okay?

[LesPaul75]

But, the point is that because of the ridiculous copyright laws in this country, someone could sue. And they might even win, based on the precendents set by the RIAA's other lawsuits (e.g. suing 14 year olds and winning).

I think this is a fantastic example of just how nonsensical DRM, the RIAA, and the music industry in general are. Kudos to the guy who thought of it.

Wow Compression

[jfried]

man 1.1 MB for just silence you would think nothing would compress down to almost nothing.

Realy take a look, whats hard to compress, variance.
The song is the same the entire track. so realy that could be compress quite nicely. no need stereo is silence after all. no need for a bit rate, its silence.

Frankly I am a bit disapointed in the compression.

Re:Wow Compression

[Leto-II]

Even if you use VBR (variable bit rate) compression, the algorithm still tries to average a certain overall bitrate, so the result is the same. It would be nice if you could just say "compress this song using as many bits as you need to make it sound good," but unfortunately the phrase "to make it sound good" is very subjective. The algorithm doesn't know what sounds good.

Bzzt. Wrong. VBR schemes in formats such as OGG, MPC, and others are based on "quality" as opposed to bitrate. There's certainly a correlation between the two, but the idea is to have compression levels linked to quality as opposed to size.

Even with MP3 you can have VBR encodings that go down to 32 bps during silence. Check out LAME's "alt-preset" (just preset in recent revisions) command line options for damn good quality based settings.

See Hydrogen Audio for more information than you could ever want.

i should add...

[sum.zero]

that any ashlee simpson song consisting of silence would be a vast improvement over those with noise.

sum.zero

Re:i should add...

[Ravenrage]

A moment of silence for his web server

Re:the flipside

[OECD]

it is dumb to sell "songs" that are actually nothing more than silence. i think that is pretty ridiculous.

Not at all! Have you never been talking in a bar when the jukebox starts blaring? I would have loved to been able to buy a minute of silence!

There is a precedence for this...

[Sloppyjoes7]

As evidenced by Mike Batt being sued by the John Cage Trust, people have been sued for copying silence.

Apparently, his minute of silence "infringed" on the late John Cage's 4'33 of silence.

No joke. No legal precedence was set, as the matter was settled out of court. (I wonder how much the trust got out of suing someone for copying silence.)

It's not the same tune at all!

[raygundan]

This version is an old-school hip-hop track, consisting solely of short, reordered samples from the original, with the addition of turntable scratching with the mixer volume turned all the way down.

I guess the track could be worth a listen

[GMFTatsujin]

But on the other hand, I'm kind of getting sick of cover versions...

Re:OMFG

[jbarr]

Yes, it does sound absurd, but I really don't think this is splitting hairs because it is specifically addressing the extent to which the DMCA can be enforced. This could very well become a "test case" that might prove to be important.

Then again...

DMCA does not have jurisdiction

[bill_mcgonigle]

but if he cracked the DRM to access the silence, it is indeed a crime under the DCMA

Not so. The DMCA forbids circumventing technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. In this case, since silence does not qualify for copyright, you'd be circumventing technological measures that control access to uncopyrighted works, which would not fall under the DMCA.

Not true

[bill_mcgonigle]

the Digital Rights Management (DRM) makes it impossible to transfer the song to my other MP3 player unless I go through some ridiculous steps which involve burning the purchased song to a CD and then ripping it. This causes a noticeable loss of sound quality due to the song being recompressed. Totally unacceptable. I want pure silence.

So I wondered how the various codecs handle silence. That seems like an easy optimization for the codec implementor. Here's what I did:

1. created a 10-second silence sound file in Sound Studio 44.1/16/stereo
   
2. exported it to AIFF
   
3. opened it in QuickTime player and re-saved it as AAC/128/best quality
   
4. opened that file and re-saved as AIFF
   
5. encoded that file to MP3/192/joint stereo/best quality in Audeon
   
6. opened that file in QuickTime Player and saved it to AIFF
   
7. opened that file again in Sound Studio

I zoomed all the way in on the digital waveform, maximum magnification, and scrolled through all 10 seconds. All the bits were pinned at 0.

So, while the guy is right in almost every case, he picked a really bad example to make this particular argument on. If he had burned to CD and ripped, assuming is CD-ROM drive is good he'd have pure silence in the re-ripped soundfile.

There must be something in the iTMS that's public domain that would make a better example.

Re:I want a silent MP3!

[brianosaurus]

Ha!

Use it as your ringtone. Piss off everyone who tries to call you when you never, ever answer.