Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Music Fingerprinter Gets Patent Nastygram
Nushio writes "The code wasn't even released, and yet Roy van Rijn, a Music & Free Software enthusiast received a C&D from Landmark Digital Services, owners of Shazam, a music service that allows you to find a song, by listening to a part of it. And if that wasn't enough, they want him to take down his blog post (Google Cache) explaining how he did it because it 'may be viewed internationally. As a result, [it] may contribute to someone infringing our patents in any part of the world.'"
Update: 07/09 00:31 GMT by T :Story updated to reflect that Shazam is multiplatform, not Android-only, as implied by the original phrasing.
IA (definitely) NAL, but I thought the whole purpose of patents (other than protection) was to disclose the invention in full (not behind trade secrets) in exchange for knowledge of how the invention is done/made. Have the patent owners given any implementation details about their application?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
Why Mr. van Rijn use their proprietary name in his blog post? (Creating Shazam In Java) Of course they are going to respond exactly as they did. And much sooner had he not used it. Seems like this is a no brainer cause for a C&D letter to help protect their investment.
Use pHash instead, my open source perceptual hashing library that can detect similar audio, video, images and text files. It does not use Shazam's patented algorithm, which isn't all that great anyhow.
I'd suggest that you email timothy directly. He is the only actual editor at Slashdot, and I know from personal experience that he does correct stories. Also: thanks for the submission, it's well above the usual iPhoneM$TerrorWatchList crap.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The code is speech, compiling and running it is the infringement. Is patent protection now more valued than free speech?
Even then, code is speech until you run it. Are we now to limit free speech by government order to protect their patents?
If the hardware store sells me a CNC mill and I make patented widgets with it will they sue the hardware store?
BoingBoing has a good write up (http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/08/patent-holders-legal.html). Most interesting was the fact that Landmark Digital Services took exception to the technical details of a patent being discussed. I think most people (myself included!) believe that reading a patent should tell you precisely how to replicate something, but there's a subtext to this story implying that is not the case here. I think a situation where a patent holder treats someone discussing a means to replicate patented technology as though they where handing out trade secrets is pretty interesting, certainly ./ worthy.
Last I looked Patents do not remove the right to "free speech" in any country.
Then you didn't look very hard. In the US, for example, the right to free speech is not absolute by any means. The government may prohibit defamatory speech such as libel and slander. It may regulate speech in a content-neutral manner (so-called time, place, and manner restrictions), such as ordinances regarding billboards. It may regulate obscene speech. The same Constitution that describes the right to free speech also gives Congress the power to grant patents and copyrights. There is some inherent tension between the First Amendment and the Patent & Copyright Clause, but there is no contradiction.
In this case, the argument (and it's a perfectly typical one) is that the code on the web page represents an active inducement to infringe the patent, for which the blogger would be liable for patent infringement. The ready-to-use code is a step too far towards actually using the claimed invention (which the patentee has the exclusive right to do). It would be one thing to discuss the song-recognition method in general, mathematical, or even pseudocode terms, but when you give people ready-to-use code that's too close to infringement. A court may or may not agree, but it's a close enough call that a cease & desist letter is legally appropriate, albeit kind of a jerk move on the part of the patentee.
He's not employed by them is he? Because if he's not, I don't think their trade secrets mean squat to him. If I mess around and discover coke's trade secret recipe, they're not going to come knocking on my door. And they wouldn't have any legal precedent to do so in the first place. If you discover someone else's trade secret, it's fair game. You can even sell a product using that trade secret as long as you didn't work for them and take it, or buy it from someone who did.
> Why Mr. van Rijn use their proprietary name in his blog post?
Because it damn well pleases him to do so, and in the USA, at least, he is free to do so with impunity as long as he does not use it in a way that might mislead the public into believing that they are getting said product when they are not. A trademark is not a copyright.
[Emphasis mine.]
Look, I'm on van Rijn's side. However, I can appreciate that a blog post entitled Creating Shazam in Java could "mislead the public" even though it might not mislead the technically savvy. If I wrote a blog post entitled Creating Microsoft Office in Java you'd better believe I'd get a message from the folks in Redmond.
IMHO, if Landmark has any beef here at all, it's that their trademark is threatened, and feebly at that.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
By that logic you could freely distribute an infringing program as long as you don't run it.
No, you could freely distribute the source code of an infringing product so long as you don't compile it. The act of converting from "Speech" to a "device or process" happens in the compilation process, not in the execution of the process. (Software patents whilst legal, are still dumb to my thinking)
A sig is placed here
To display how futile
English Haiku is
The name of this proyect that seems to be prior art is Tararira (music retrival by sung query). It's from Uruguay, and does recognition of music just humming at a microphone. Proyect was created in 2004 and have code published.
http://iie.fing.edu.uy/investigacion/grupos/gmm/proyectos/tararira/ingles.php3
http://iie.fing.edu.uy/investigacion/grupos/gmm/proyectos/tararira/descargas/tarariraEN-src-0.1.tar.gz
http://iie.fing.edu.uy/investigacion/grupos/gmm/proyectos/tararira/descargas/tarariraEN.tar.gz
http://iie.fing.edu.uy/investigacion/grupos/gmm/proyectos/tararira/descargas/tararira.pdf
Tararira is a query by singing system. The problem of music retrieval by sung query (QBH, query by humming) consist of building a machine capable of simulating the cognitive process of identifying a musical piece from a few sung notes of its melody.
A melody is described by a sequence of notes, so it is natural to compare melodies by means of the similarity of their constituent notes. For this reason, the problem can be divided in two stages: the transcription of the voice signal into a sequence of notes and the search of this pattern in a MIDI melody database.
Tararira originates in July 2004 as the graduation project of Ernesto López, Martín Rocamora and Gonzalo Sosa at the IIE of the Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de la República.
>>>As a non-native english writer, who has difficulties dealing with grammar nazism, I find commas useful to explain stuff.
Let me help - "The code wasn't even released, and yet Roy van Rijn, a Music & Free Software enthusiast[,] received a C&D from Landmark Digital Services, owners of Shazam, a music service that allows you to find a song [] by listening to a part of it. And if that wasn't enough, they want him to take down his blog post explaining how he did it[,] because it 'may be viewed internationally. As a result, it may contribute to someone infringing our patents in any part of the world.'"
Fixed that for you. [] are deletions/additions. Basically I only found three errors. Grammarwise I'd recommend fewer interruptions. Simplify; simplify. As for the cease-and-desist I'd respond like so:
Dear Landmark:
Go watch Penn & Teller's "Bullshit". The title of that show is what I think of your shitty letter you litigious motherfuckers. I live in ____ where you do not hold a patent, so you can go shove a dildo up you anus. My post is protected my this country's right of free speech and free press.
Respectfully,
Not Your Slave Nor Your Serf
(middle finger)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Just about all computer-based signal processing related to anything at all is performed in the frequency domain so passing the raw data through an FFT (or at least an FT) first is a no-brainer.
Calculating a hash is the blindingly obvious and standard approach to getting a semi-unique signature for mostly any data.
Both the FFT and the hashing would likely be the first thought of any competent software engineer tasked with solving this, in as much as using a screwdriver to undo a screw is obvious to a mechanic.
Don't even software patents have to require at least some concept of originality and non-obviousness?
No patent numbers? "Algorithm" in unreleased code? At least put up a token resistance and ask for details.
We need more responses like Blue Jean Cable's response to Monster when Monster Cable tried something similar.
-- Alastair
Um...his code is an implementation of the patent. His code describes how to do their fingerprinting patent. That is the point of the code, to generate the same fingerprint as Shazam.
Now, I don't like software patents either, and this one is rather obvious, but it's not like he sat down to come up with some audio fingerprinting method and accidentally infringed a patent. He sat down with a patent and wrote code to implement it.
OTOH, half of Shazam's complaint is idiotic...everyone is supposed to have enough information to infringe a patent. That's how the system works, that you get a patent in return for telling everyone how to do it. The idea that, without this code, no one can implement the patent should trigger a patent review by the patent office, because Shazam just admitted their patent application was incomplete and didn't give as much information as it needed to give.
And the other half is on horrible legal footing, because the courts have consistently ruled that source code is the equivalent of a diagram of a patented device, and is perfectly legal to distribute. (As opposed to the device itself, aka, compiled code.) So Shazam really doesn't have any rights there beyond demanding that he put a warning on the code that the method is patented and cannot actually be used without licensing the patent.
In a sane court system, the courts would bitchslap patent holders who showed up to sue someone who looked at their patent and designed a functioning blueprint from it so that others could use it. That's the point of patents, that other people get the knowledge. Patent holders should restrict their suits to people who build such a device and don't license the patent.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
> I think a situation where a patent holder treats someone discussing a means to replicate patented ./ worthy.
> technology as though they where handing out trade secrets is pretty interesting, certainly
In a sane world making such an admission in a legal filing would be grounds for voiding the patent since patent law requires dislosure of everything a person skilled in that field would need to know to implement the patented tech. The idea of patents is to trade full disclosure for a limited monopoly on commercial exploitation of the idea. However as soon as a patent is filed others may begin using your patented tech as a base to build their own innovations on. Of course they will need to license your original tech to sell theirs and you will have to license theirs if you want to incorporate it, etc. Of this are vast portfolios built of cross licensed codependent patents.
But we live in bizarro world. Sucks don't it.
Democrat delenda est
Generally, the courts have held that source code is akin to a 'diagram', not the device itself.
It's perfectly legal to distribute diagrams of devices that implement patented methods. The patent holder can demand you make a note that it uses such a method, and is illegal to operate without a license, but can't actually stop you from distributing the diagrams.
Yes, it's weird a normal person can spend five minutes turning a diagram into a device.
OTOH, plenty of patents use already existing devices in novel ways, like 'entertain a cat with a laser pointer', which, now that I've described it, a good fraction of the people out there can implement with even less work then compiling. That's a silly, but real example, but there are real, serious patents on the use of medicines, for example, in novel ways, or adding tiny impurities to a well known process to make it better. Those are just as easy to implement.
Describing ways for people to make devices that implement patented methods, no matter how simple it is to turn it from 'diagram' to 'device', is legal. And source code has consistently been held to be 'diagram'.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
It's a wholly owned subsidary of BMI... As in BMI/ASCAP?
It's the record companies again.
oops...
Seems like I accidentally hit the "uninstall" button of Shazam on my iPhone, accidentally rated it 1 star, and accidentally put down "malicious: patent infringement" as the reason for uninstalling.
99% of patents infringe on prior art. This statistic was made up on the spot.
Sure, the source code itself isn't infringing. But where is that source code? It's in RAM and/or on your disk or flash drive. And there's probably a claim akin to "A storage device containing software to implement the method of claim X". So now your own drive or RAM has become an infringing device.
(I only wish I was joking).
Funny you should mention railroads...
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
FOSS will still be around when these companies are long since swallowed up by the governments they pray to. People will still create, for good or for ill. It's part of our wiring. Some few people will desire to create for profit, and some of those will work for these immoral companies. However, that still leaves the majority of creators outside of any commercial entity. They may not cure cancer in a weekend, but they can certainly reproduce a silly algorithm.
I for one plan to archive the article. Perhaps I'll even try to recreate it. If it weren't for ridiclulous patents I would have just assumed that it would be there when I needed it. Instead, I feel the need to propigate the knowledge for future generations.
There are 10 commandments: 01)Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God 10)Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.Matt22:34-40
What I don't get is that Music Brains Picard has had music fingerprinting for years and it's always been opensource. I got Shazam the day it was released because I thought it'd be cool to have that feature mobile, and it has been. So how can they claim a patent on old tech that they weren't even close to being the inventor of?
Sorry for AC.
When was the patent filed? When I was applying to universities, I visited a few on open days, and they took us around their research labs. This would be back around 1998, and Southampton had a project that did exactly this. If the patent was filed any time after this, there is prior art.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News