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Music From DNA Patented
stm2 writes "Two lawyers have patented generating music from a DNA sequence. According to the patent, it covers 'music generated by decoding and transcribing genetic information within a DNA sequence into a music signal having melody and harmony.' A comment to the blog post mentions DNA-derived music being performed at a conference in 1995."
So I suppose as long as it's heavy metal it should be safe from litigation ;)
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
This is the kind of invention that would be worth protecting if it protected only the specific device the inventors produced to do it.
But as it happens, the patent as granted would protect them from competing with me, and anyone else whose DNA codes their bodies functionality to play a musical instrument with melody and harmony.
It's a joke, it ruins "science and the useful arts" in the name of "promoting" it, and it ruins the actual narrower right of authors/inventors to be protected for a reasonably limited time from competition stealing their investment just in time to compete with them.
But no one is talking about replacing it with something Constitutional. That would be a great invention, based on the original prior art, that should be as widely copied as possible.
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make install -not war
And what happens when the music generated from my OWN DNA is a #1 hit?
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
I cannot find a source, but I too can attest to this being done many years ago. My 9th grade Biology teacher played it for us in fact. And now Im 21.
Prepare to meet prior art you two.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Didn't Clifford Pickover's Mazes for the Mind (1994) book have a chapter on this?
(on vacation and don't have my copy handy to check...)
-Chris
It's in the end of the patent... Not that it makes much sense to me... I guess there could theoretically be a minority market for it. :-S
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The music signal generated from the genetic data can be used in a variety of consumer and industrial products and methods. For example, novelty products such as greeting cards, genetic music CDs, and the like can incorporate a person's individual music generated from their own sample of DNA. The specific DNA sequence can be provided to a company for generation of the genetic music. Alternatively, a sample containing the genetic material can be provided for sequencing and generating the music.
Useful products include individual identity analysis, for example, for security checking, paternity testing, and the like. The music generated by an individual sample can be compared with a control sample. An identity analyzer can be configured to provide an audible signal for a specific comparative result, for example, if the sample and the control differ, e.g., signaling an alarm in a security setting, or when they are the same, e.g., adding excitement to live television coverage of paternity determinations.
Clinical analyzers that compare sequences of patient samples with controls may be programmed to provide soothing melodies when the sequence is "normal" and to provide an audible, for example, discordant music when an "abnormal" sequence is detected. Such signals can provide a signal for the clinical technician to alert a physician to the difference in the sequence.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Well, I had thought of digging up Elvis, cloning him and embedding him into a bunch of ipods. But, I guess I can kiss that scheme goodbye now.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Look, I know it's standard groupthink around here to hate patents and anything patent related, but we don't need blatently false stories to rile everyone up.
The patent is not for "music obtained from DNA" it's for a METHOD to obtain music from DNA. The idea is actually pretty damn unique if you ask me. This is not a frivolous patent.
God damn Slashdot seems to get more and more inaccurate every year.
Im pretty sure my DNA sounds like "Oops I did it again"
So much for finding a nice girl & making beautiful music together.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
This will complement nicely those audiophiles who emit DNA every time they listen to their $30,000 hi-fi systems.
How would this be any different from generating music from the atomic structure of crystals, or from the x-rays being given off by a pulsar? How the fuck can you patent this? What is there to fucking patent? Christ, I wish they'd simply fine guys like this several million times their net worth or make them sign a document promising never to even go within five miles of the patent office or even think about sending in letters.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's a faster and straightforward way for geneticists to identify junk DNA in our chromosomes, because it sounds much more like top-40 music.
Similarly, DNA for coding the human brain will sound like NPR; for muscles, Jock Jams; for reproductive organs... well, you get the idea.
Interestingly, the first DNA sample they plugged into this technology was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's. They found out that his chromosomes, in fact, sound remarkably like the Spice Girls being played at 78 rpm. Strange but true.
i graduated with a bachelors in molecular biology & biochemistry in 1981. i had already read papers by that time which described audio/musical transcriptions of DNA, RNA and protein sequences specifically designed to take advantage of the greater perceptual bandwidth of the auditory system vs. the visual system.
the one thing that might be novel here (i don't have time to read a patent abstract at present) is if they have found some way to generate musically meaningful compositions that go beyond a simple (chemical unit) => (musical note) mapping. that could enhance the ability of the auditory system to recognize patterns in sequences, and might be worthy of a patent.
See, every time we see a stupid new patent, I have to think of one stupider and yet somehow pertinent. So here's my patent idea:
Wind Chimes!!
See, they are similar because it's about making "music" from the things we find in nature.
I can with absolute clarity remember seeing albums/tapes of "DNA music" being sold in the gift shops of various museums -- notably the Boston Museum of Science -- in the mid/late 1990s. I remember because I saw it there one day when they were playing it, but didn't buy it, and then I was never able to find it again (I had really wanted to get it as a gift for a biologist friend).
But even beyond that, just typing "DNA music" into Google turns up lots of results, some of which have a lot of history behind them.
The people at AlgoArt (not sure if they're the people behind the patent or not) have been making (transcribing?) music from DNA sequences since 1992. They have three CDs available. I rather suspect that it might have been one of these that I heard in Boston those years ago.
And this summary page contains a reference to a paper published in 1984 which contained specific references to the idea of making music from DNA sequences. ("Hayashi and Munakata , using a system that assigned pitches to the four DNA bases according to their thermal stability within the interval of a fifth, found that converting the DNA sequences to music helped to expose the meaning of specific sequences and made remembering and recognizing specific DNA patterns easier.")
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
A good century ago or so, at the dawn of radioastronomy, there was a whole big point of "celestial music". People thought that the radio signals emitted by stars have a certain harmony, and when used right, can produce "heavenly" melody.
Needless to say that didn't go very far.
Same story here. Just because you find something which, when transformed, can generate certain audio patterns, doesn't mean it will be any good as *music*. In fact, looking for some "objective", "universal" melody source is pretty much dumb as music preference varies greatly even within our own species (*waits for rock vs rap flaming to start*), and many other species have different combinations of sound they perceive as music (and which we perceive only as noise).
Music is *produced* with a specific purpose in mind, and the production rules vary depending on that purpose. You won't find it bestowed upon you, whether from the stars or magically encoded in some DNA sequence.
It just makes no sense.
Translating DNA into music is a really neat concept. Translating anything that has a decipherable system to its design into another design system is rad. But why, why, why, patent it? Is it so someone else does not come along and claim credit for your innovation? I doubt it. Prior art would invalidate any later patent claims.
It just makes no sense. Please bear in mind that I write proprietary software for a living. I would never imagine attempting to prevent a competitor from providing their customers with the best product that they can produce, whether or not it resembled my product. I compete based on the quality of my product and service.
And this translation of DNA into music is not even a salable product... I agree with parent poster. This is yet another bewildering use of the patent system.
Regards.
"Method for remembering a musical sequence through notation involving a series of lines and spaces."
I remember that the novel "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" featured a spreadsheet that turned financial numbers into music, and that later in the book the plot turned on discovering that DNA and other natural phenomena translated into the music of Bach. That's how I remember it, anyway.
So, do novels count as prior art?
-Gareth
See Music and Fractal Landscapes (pdf).
It describes generating music from every aspect of nature.
Cow Cube
I'd say he's in the clear. The patent office, on the other hand, needs a good kick.
Everything will be taken away from you.
The track 'S2 Translation' on the Shamen album Axis Mutatis was *exactly* this, being music generated from the DNA sequence of the S2 protein. Very odd track, strangely hypnotic and ethereal but a little annoying after a while. Pretty visible prior art if you ask me (though IANAL). More about the track here. Not surprisingly, the S2 protein is the receptor for serotonin...
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I wrote a program quite a while back which converted text files (say, The Gettysburg Address) into standard MIDI files, and for the result to be anything even remotely playable I needed to do quite a bit of normalization as part of the translation.
So if anyone uses this for greeting cards, it's going to be 1% DNA source material and 99% pre-conceived structure. I'm sure they'll market it as "this is the music that is coursing through your veins!" when in reality it's just a really expensive random-number generator. And I'd be very interested to see what happens if you send the same DNA sample in twice, say a few months apart, and compare the results (which should be identical, right?)...
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.
Seems to me that avante garde artists like John Cage already have stuff like this covered- not by patent, but by prior art. I doubt any of them dealt with DNA specifically, but they were notorious for creating music (in the loosest sense of the word) using any of various sources of random influence.
...that they cornered the market on transcribing DNA sequences into music notation in general, or by their parameters? If they are talking in general, they have no leg to stand on- there's too much prior art, fictional and practical. If they have a specific algorithm that makes a particular 'sound', it's still pretty craptacular.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
Here's a link to the actual patent of interest.
I think the intended patent is 7247782, "Genetic music".
The link in the story takes me to patent 7250557, which appears to be unrelated ("Plastidic phosphoglucomutase genes").
Mod parent up
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In about 1995, The Shamen released the track S2 Translation which was generated by decoding the DNA sequence of the S2 protein. http://www.nemeton.com/axis-mutatis/s2.html
)9TSS
American patents are ridiculous. You can go as far as patenting a live being. I'll eventually find myself patented in America and sued over the usage of me. onlyinamerica.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
1) DNA isn't even fairly random.
2) Patenting a method of converting DNA into music does not mean they have patented 'every note combination possible', just this one method of turning one type of data input into music. People who make music the normal way will still be able to and won't have to pay royalties.
Other than that, your post was 100% correct, in the sense that I assume your username is right.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Big companies want patents to scare smaller companies. They don't care if the patents are valid, because it is too expensive to go before a court. Some lawyers in the U.S. charge $600 per hour. The U.S. government is being sold to anyone who has money.
People in other countries know the U.S. government is corrupt, but Americans either don't know or don't really care.
See this billboard in New Zealand advertising pizza: Hell. Too good for some evil bastards.
Make that Barry White, thankyouverymuch.
cmd-q.co.uk - some sort of stupid fucking internet bullshit
I propose to start suing all retroviruses under the DMCA since they hijack our DNA in their reproductive cycle, circumventing our copy protection scheme in the process. No matter what damages are awarded, this will put an end to the spread of HIV/AIDS, for the viruses will quickly (as in: immediately) run out of finances to support the ensuing legal battles. their only options being to either face jail time or simply go extinct.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
And I'd be very interested to see what happens if you send the same DNA sample in twice, say a few months apart, and compare the results (which should be identical, right?)...
Unless you're mutating into something else.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The parent should be modded "Insightful", not "Funny". John Cage was a notorious jokester but also a committed artist. He did say once that "[his] purpose [was] to eliminate purpose" but later he retreated from this and admitted that the artist has an important role to play in the creation of a work.
I think it's important to draw a distinction between "randomness" and "chance". Cage's approach was to choose certain (not all) aspects of a composition to be left to chance, or if you will, to something out of his direct control. He employed various things, including I Ching, the positions of stars on maps, even the manufacturing defects on manuscript paper, for the sources of pattern in his work. That may seem whimsical, but I still think he was serious about his objectives.
I think that John Cage's music was not so much about creating musical works as it was about defining musical processes and then following them to see where they would go, no matter where that was. I'll admit that I don't have John Cage loaded up on my MP3 player, but the works I have heard by him are still intriguing in their own way.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Bag Pipes are the only instrument that comes to mind that could play the melodies of DNA.