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Judge Rules Pi-Based Music Is Non-Copyrightable
New submitter AnalogDiehard writes "A copyright case alleging infringement of a 1992 Lars Erickson song 'The Pi Symphony' by Michael John Blake's 'What Pi Sounds Like' was dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon. Both pieces were conceived by assigning numbers to musical notes, then deriving a melody based on the pattern defined by a finite set of numbers in Pi. Judge Simon wrote in his legal opinion, intentionally announced on Pi day (3/14), that 'Pi is a non-copyrightable fact.' While the Judge did not invalidate the Erickson copyright, he ruled that 'Mr. Erickson may not use his copyright to stop others from employing this particular pattern of musical notes.' The judge further ruled that the two pieces were not sufficiently similar — for instance, its harmonies, structure and cadence are all different."
The entire dispute was completely irrational!
licet differant, aequabitur
PI not IP
A long long time ago
I can still remember how
That number used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those lawyers dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
But March 14th made me shiver
With every digit I'd deliver
Bad news in the courtroom
I couldn't take one more suit
I can't remember if I cried
When I read the judges opines
But something touched me deep inside
The day the copyright died.
Bye, bye to copyrighted Pi
Drove my Chevy to the courthouse where the lawyers would fight
But them good ole boys were thinking common sense was all right
Singin' this'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die
John
>> this severely listing ship....
Arrrr, and a pirate ship she be, me hearties!
So PI is french for IP or more correctly la propriété intellectuelle
Yeah but the French do everything backwards. Their word for "states" is "etats".
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Pi is for losers. Music based on Euler's number, now those are symphonies. Oh, and if I catch one of you pirating thieves trying to steal my Euler tune, I'm gonna get all kinds of ACTA on your asses.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Dur? Isn't it common for everyone to want their slice of the Pi?
*blames lack of coffee for inability to resist bad pun