Copyright Battle Over Nothing 479
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.
LOL (Score:2, Funny)
Re:LOL (Score:2, Funny)
the love you take
is equal to the love you-oo make.
Well, the Beattles should jump in here. For awhile they had the longest silence on any major recording album...but I really am not sure if you can compare the quality of the silences. I mean, a digitally mastered silence has the potential of being leap years ahead of the lower quality vinyl silences of yesterday.
Re:LOL (Score:2)
I've seen CDs with the standard 15 songs on them, then a hidden track as track 99. Tracks 16-98 were a couple seconds each of silence. Does this mean that the CD violated the copyright 83 times?
The wisdom of Paul Simon (Score:2)
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls."
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.
The Spirit of Radio (Score:3, Funny)
are written on the studio walls,
and concert halls,
echo with the sounds of salesmen."
- from "The Spirit of Radio" by Rush, 1980
If a tree.... (Score:5, Funny)
I've heard that track... (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't that always the way with cover songs?
My copyright... (Score:5, Funny)
Phillp Glass (Score:4, Funny)
Oh wait this is Slashdot, no one will get that.
Re:My copyright... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My copyright... (Score:2)
Would this be... (Score:2, Insightful)
Silence (Score:3, Interesting)
Let us all.. (Score:5, Funny)
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.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How.. (Score:2, Funny)
Shhhhhhhh...............
Don't give them any ideas....
THEY ARE WATCHING...
Phantom Tollbooth (Score:2)
Don't be quiet! (Score:2)
Don't shut your mouths up! You'll be in violation of yet another stupid copyright!
lawsuit ?? (Score:4, Insightful)
its 4 paragraphs and only says "I've received a letter on behalf of John Cage's music publishers. I was in hysterics when I read their letter."
and the guy credited them anyways.....
fun fun
I'll right your copy! (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:I'll right your copy! (Score:2)
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.
So who is gunna print up the T-shirts?
Any prizes for first tattoo?
Re:I'll right (sic) your copy! (Score:3, Informative)
Have you perchance noticed the line:
memset(silence, 0, sizeof(silence));
Hmm... I wonder what it does. Set's the the memory array, pointed to by silence to zero? Up until the size of silence?
Why do people post replies before they read the original posts?
okay... my turn!!! (Score:5, Funny)
"You don't have the right to remain silent. Anything you don't say will be used against you in a court of law..."
The avant garde (Score:2, Funny)
My only comment is this: (Score:5, Funny)
© gvonk, 2002, all rights reserved, etc.
Supreme Court opinion on this (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Supreme Court opinion on this (Score:3, Informative)
There have been a few other cases like this. Another is Bridgeman vs. Corel, in which a court ruled that taking a 2D picture of an artwork for which copyright has expired does not create a copyrightable image. No originality. So Corel's clip-art disk, made from museum slides of old paintings, was OK.
Jeez... (Score:2)
Re:Jeez... (Score:2)
Maybe this lawsuit is actually about a 500:1 compressions scheme....
prior art? (Score:2, Interesting)
"I've been silent long before that"
Or is that something that only works with patents?
MP3's? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:MP3's? (Score:5, Funny)
Regards, Ralph.
Okay.. (Score:2, Insightful)
What i wonder is why they're going after this guy, but not, say, Boards of Canada. Their "Geogaddi" album from the end of last year ended with a track called "Magic Window" that is 1:47 of silence. Or Korn, for that matter. "Follow the Leader" began with 13 tracks containing 4 seconds of silence.
Perhaps it's because of just intent-- look at it this way. Magic Window (BoC) was there to make the album more inscrutable, and to bump the running time of the album up to 66:06 (Boards of Canada has been on a kick lately of littering references to Satan and David Koresh in their albums). The Korn album, meanwhile, had the silence there because they wanted to be "edgy", because they want to be like Nine Inch Nails and Tool (the "broken" EP contained a bunch of 1-second silent tracks between tracks 6 and 97, so that the two hidden tracks would be 98 and 99 respectively; Korn's "undertow" album pulled a similar trick, but it resulted in the hidden track being at 69), and because they hate their listeners (this should be apparent if you listen to the rest of the album).
The Mike Batt track, meanwhile, is there solely for ironic value-- the same reason for the existence of 4:33. In that way, the Mike Batt track is a rip-off of the idea of 4:33 in a way that the others are not. I guess the idea is that silence can say a lot, and all those other cases were saying something different than 4:33 was. The Batt track, meanwhile, was saying the same thing.
Anyway, i'm certain i've heard of many more instances of silent songs being tossed onto albums. The CD version of Absolute Elsewhere [everything2.com], for existence. So even were the copyright valid, wouldn't they have no legal leg to stand on, since they've in the past failed to defend this copyright? (Is that just an urban legend? Maybe we should come up with a new word for urban legends that are born and propigated via slashdot. "Slashdot Myth"? Nah, that sounds silly.)
Maybe this case is just because he credited Cage in the liner notes? If so, he should still be safe, since that would be satire.
I don't know. I can't honestly help but wonder if the estate of John Cage isn't pulling this as some kind of massive, destructive practical joke / performance art piece. It wouldn't be that far out of character; Cage was, after all, the man who did a live performance of Vexations [everything2.com].
(Well, OK, or this is a silly record company thing by nonsentient biological humans who are aware of no concepts other than profit motive. But that's such a dull explanation!)
--super ugly ultraman
Re:Okay.. (Score:2)
Nope. You're thinking of Trademarks.
A copyright can't become not valid until it expires. Same with patents. But trademarks, which can last indefinitly, can be lost for nonenforcement.
IANAL, but this is pretty basic stuff...
Good quote (Score:2)
- My silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence.
There you go. We're talking (hopefully not too loudly, mind you) about two completely different silences here. There was no stealing of silence involved.Ooooo... (Score:2)
Let's say they apply one of thier DRM methods on that track. If my thinking is correct, overlaying any DRM data on silence means the DRM scheme is laid bare. Instant hack, and Linux is now hapilly playing music encrypted with the DRM scheme. Sound plausible?
Awww, c'mon. Somebody speak up. The silence is deafening... *rimshot*
Soko
I love that song... (Score:5, Funny)
Infringement. (Score:2)
It must not be any good (Score:2)
I could not find the Silence Pattern in my GOF book.
Bad title! (Score:4, Funny)
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...
Re:Bad title! (Score:2, Interesting)
Technically not silence in the strictest sense, but not audible in any case. I bet some car audio bass freaks would argue with me, laws of physics never seem to stop them from arguing something.
Other than the obvious.... (Score:4, Informative)
Also keep in mind this piece was premiered in an open air theatre in the forest. There would likely have been much more than silence heard.
And this isn't even getting into the idea that it is impossible to actually hear silence.
a simple defense (Score:2)
Any Cage recording would have been from the analog days... all that has to be done is to demand that the representatives produce the original master recording... crank way up until the noise content which is there regardless of what Cage's intent was is plainly audible, and run a copy of the noise-free recording that's allegedly in breach of copyright.
Silence A != Silence B. Of course, there are even more sophisticated ways to differentiate the two, depending on the conditions that were used to generate the respective "silences".
End of case, and hopefully start of new case where Cage's people get countersued for damages.
One can copyright the concrete expression of an idea. Nobody can copyright an idea, and it looks to me like Cage's people are trying to claim copyright of the idea of silence in the context of a musical composition.
Any Blank Medium (Score:2)
If he can get the first suit to stick, then watch out for the second suit he brings -- now with precedence ;-)
It's bupkis, not bupkiss! (Score:2)
Monastic precedent.... (Score:2)
John Cage's 4'33" (Score:5, Insightful)
With this in mind, I wonder what direction the legal case should take...
Re:John Cage's 4'33" (Score:2)
Re:John Cage's 4'33" (Score:3, Informative)
no
it was very much a deliberate work [azstarnet.com]
Re:John Cage's 4'33" (Score:4, Funny)
Blank media tax (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Blank media tax (Score:5, Funny)
It is the dance mix.
John Cage and 4'33" (Score:5, Insightful)
John Cage's piece, 4'33", was actually very clever and quite a novel idea for its time.
One of the themes of his work is to let sounds be themselves. To that end, he composed a piece which involved a pianist holding his hands over a piano keyboard for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The music was not silence, but rather the sound of the audience slowly realising to what was going on.
As such, this piece can never really be recorded (unless you actually record an audience listening to it, and even then, it's not the same thing; once the sound is recorded, it is no longer the same kind of performance), and claiming that a recording of silence is even close to being the same thing as 4'33" is ludicrous.
Mike Batt's problem is crediting Cage on the album. Yes, he did it for a laugh, but by doing so, did he inadvertantly claim legal liability?
Personally, I think John Cage would have gotten a real kick out of the whole proceedings. It would have appealed to his sense of whimsy.
Re:John Cage and 4'33" (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it interesting that this is coming up, if only because I happened to be at a performance of 4'33" on Friday, and that performance most certainly was recorded! (4'33" was actually just a warm up for the main work, a masterful performance of "Sontas and Interludes for Prepared Piano", and it worked very well as a warm up.)
If anything, I'd say that an absolute blank on the disk is closer to Cage's original intent than a recording of a live performance. It forces the listener to strain his ears trying to figure out what's going on, resulting in him listening to ambient sounds. Since that was Cage's exact intent, it seems to me that it really is a copy of his work. It certainly isn't a ridiculous thing to argue about.
Re:John Cage and 4'33" (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting thought. I think it depends on how you listen to the CD. If you're concentrating on something else (say, you put the headphones on while you're coding), you don't strain your ears. At a live concert, you have a more captive and focussed audience.
Of course it would be a strange person indeed who used Cage as background music. But then, I occasionally put on THRaKaTTaK [discipline...mobile.com] while coding, so who am I to judge?
Re:John Cage and 4'33" and The Bloodhound Gang (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh yeah, didn't the Bloudhound Gang do a track called "The Ten Best Things About New Jersey" which was 10 seconds of silence?
Baz
A similar theme (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems that this joke dates at least back to the 1980's
Prior art?
DG
Probably a mistake... (Score:3, Informative)
So it looks like this was just a standard form letter that was sent out because Batt jokingly credited cage as a composer.
In other news.... (Score:2)
Re:In other news.... (Score:2)
Anyone who violates the copyright will be "used for $1000"? *shudder*
However you might have better success by lowering your price a little. charge 1/100 of a cent or some value such that for most works the final amount comes out to a buck or two. Then you might actually get something out of people by threatening them with legal action which would be much more costly for them than just giving you the buck :)
Prior art (Score:2)
My source on this is a bit of trivia mentioned by Mr. Top 40 himself, Casey Casem on one of his shows.
What lawsuit? (Score:2, Informative)
Why is this assumption made? That is damned ironic, that we immediately project this concept called "lawsuit" onto any dispute, argument, disputation or disagreement.
From my reading of the (very brief) blurb, this has not and may well not end up in court. So please reserve judgment on the "legal system" until it's been called in.
There's no silence in Cage's 4'33" (Score:4, Informative)
I met John Cage and performed one of his pieces for him. He would have laughed at this nonsense along with the rest of us (and he would have told his publisher to stop sending foolish letters).
Clean Room? (Score:2)
Devil's Advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds very silly, but maybe there is a valid point to be made. Mike Batt has a silent track on his album, apparently in something of an homage to avant-garde, experimentalist composer John Cage. To reinforce the connection he even co-credits Cage on the track (but presumably isn't giving out any royalties).
If he simply left a minute of silence on his album (without the credit) then I'd definitely think that there's nothing there. However, by crediting Cage (even as a joke or a tribute) he has opened himself up to charges of copyright infringement and/or misrepresentation.
Without even "listening", one would get the impression (from his liner notes) that his work either draws from Cage, or is co-authored by him. This goes beyond copyright - for instance, even if Mickey Mouse became public domain, no one using should ever be allowed to pretend to be either Disney or to be authorized by Disney (without their permission).
IANAL, but to me there are two valid reasons for IP laws. The first is to encourage dissemination of ideas by rewarding creativity. This is the one that is generally criticized, since the method of reward (monopoly etc.) is somewhat arbitrary and frequently abused. The other reason for IP protection is to prevent misrepresentation. This concept should always be upheld, even regardless of whether a copyright, patent, or trademark has expired.
I appreciate the subtle satire achieved by crediting Cage, but in this case it leaves the potential for confusion and the impression that Cage has contributed to and is getting reimbursed for the work. The lawyers might not agree, but Cage should either pay up, remove the credit only, or (my preferred choice) clearly identify the work (including the credit, which has artistic merit) as a non-derivative tribute/satire.
PS. Sorry about the pun's (unintentional, honest).
Re:Don't be an idiot... (Score:5, Interesting)
"which I credit Batt/Cage just for a laugh"
The estate of John Cage is upset that the composition in question is credited to John Cage.
There is an assertion in the notes that:
1. John Cage is the author.
2. John Cage or his estate approved of this "performance"
3. John Cage or his estate approved of shortening 4'33" down to just a bit more than a fifth its original length ( or playing it five times as fast I guess )
Imagine for a moment how much lawyer exhaust you would land in if you claimed to have a previously unrecorded collaboration between yourself and John Lennon.
From the sounds of this article I take it that this is all taking place in the UK. Mike Batt is lucky he isn't getting sued for libel and maybe fraud.
I don't think the silence itself has anything to do with this case.
About the Cage composition (Score:2, Informative)
Cage actually spent a lot of time researching Zen teachings. His research into silence eventually led him to Harvard University and a visit to its Anechoic Chamber - a closed environment supposedly complete free of noise.
"While he literally expected to hear nothing, after leaving the chamber, Cage explained to a nearby engineer that he had heard two sounds in the chamber, one high, and one low. The engineer told Cage that the high sound was his nervous system in operation, and that the low sound was his blood circulating"
The point of 4'33" was to state that there is no such thing as silence. For more info, check out this paper [kalvos.org] by Andrew Schulze on the subject.
Korn didn't get sued... (Score:2)
...their 1998 album "Follow The Leader" featured 12 tracks of silence before the music began.
Observe. [cddb.com]
Obviously this is going to be thrown right out. Interesting though is the "composer" of this particular "silence" credited Cage's 4'33" (see this post [slashdot.org]). Coudl that alone do it? IANAL...
The most ludicrous Copyright ever! "Have Fun!" (Score:2, Funny)
They have the phrase "Have Fun!" copyrighted. So I guess you cant say it or have fun without dire results.
If you check their web-page out, look at the very bottome and you can read it in the blurb there.
http://www.patobriens.com/havefun.html
Just thought of something, if we slashdot their box, it is almost the equivalent of what their booz has been doing to people for years.
Puto
Re:The most ludicrous Copyright ever! "Have Fun!" (Score:4, Informative)
It even says on the page you linked: "'Have Fun!' is a registered trademark of Pat O'Brien's".
Which is still somewhat absurd, but they probably do have some legal ground - if some competing establishment tried to use "Have Fun!" as a slogan, it would justifiably be considered trademark infringement.
If the words "Have Fun!" really were considered a copyrightable work of literature, it would indeed be the most ludicrous copyright ever, so it's rather nice that that's entirely untrue.
I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've actually learned about 4'33"... (Score:2, Informative)
Price of sketch pads went up.. (Score:2)
Read the article (Score:2, Informative)
FreeBSD in court trouble? (Score:3, Funny)
It seems like the new FreeBSD Logo [slashdot.org] is violating a copyright also.
I feel their pain (Score:2)
but I've already patented it (Score:2)
Re:but I've already patented it (Score:2)
Obviously, it was generated in an entirely different way. If, for instance, your patent is for the tree-in-an-empty-forest method and they utilized the more esoteric clapping-with-one-hand method, they haven't violated your patent.
Re:but I've already patented it (Score:3, Funny)
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?
Strangely Enough (Score:2)
John Cage himself has been silent on the issue.
The Wombles - Copyright infringers (Score:2)
Have you ever heard a more blatent admission of IP theft? Lock him up now, I say!
P.S. Please ignore this post if you didn't grow up in England in the 70s/80s...
MOD UP (Score:2)
A newer higher concept copyright. (Score:2)
Mic feces and recorded it in a studio. (Make sure the acoustics of the room are just right and EQ out any reflected sound).
Every time somebody claims that music playing on the radio sounds like shit, sue the band's asses off!
"That sounds very similar to my piece 'Fecal Matter in D Minor'! I am insensed! I'll settle for $3,000,000 out of court. Ta"
:)
Digital v Analog (Score:2)
Prior? (Score:2, Funny)
Shoot! Now I can't work anymore! (Score:2, Funny)
Better Than Ezra (Score:2)
The silence always fools me into thinking that the music is over - which is probably what it's meant to do, being at the end of the CD. It's especially confusing when I'm listening to a bunch of randomized mp3s; I hit that silence and "What, my playlist is over already?" If I'm coding or something, I just tolerate the silence, thinking I'll start some new tracks at the next compile. Then the "hidden" song starts, and I realize I've been fooled again.
The Cage estate should sue BTE and make them recall all those nasty hurtful fooling CDs. More lawyers! Litigation solves everything!
BTW, Tom Petty put a little CD-only track into the middle of his "Full Moon Fever" CD many years ago. It was a spoken bit, with the studio musicians in the background making barnyard noises, and Tom says "Hello CD listeners! We've come to the point in this album where those listening on record or cassette will have to stand up, or sit down and turn over the record or tape. In fairness to those listeners, we'll now take a few seconds before we begin side2... Thank you. Here's side2..."
Am I offtopic yet?
--Jim
Nixon (Score:5, Funny)
Miranda? (Score:3, Funny)
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.
:)
Be careful (Score:3, Funny)
La la la la la la shok shok la la
reminds me... (Score:3, Interesting)
Back when I read about it, I thought that it was way too ridiculoud to be topped. Well, this story got me.
Sounds iffy to me .. (Score:4, Interesting)
Secondly, (quoted from azstarnet [azstarnet.com])
One would imagine that Blatt's silence would be a digital silence - no noise, a silent file he generated and slapped on a CD. Cage's silence (not that it is silence as outlined above), since it is much older, would probably have at least white noise in it on a recording. Clearly since Cage did not believe that silence could exist neither he nor his estate could claim ownership of silence.
Nothing is something (Score:3, Interesting)
Must comment (Score:4, Funny)
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.
AT&T owns copyright on blank lines (Score:4, Interesting)
This was in the
The script actually contained no code, since its behavior is the default action of a shell script if there is no code. However, it did contain two significant pieces of text.
It contained a blank line, and an AT&T copyright notice.
I had a bit of fun at the time posting the program in its entirety to several newsgroups, pointing out that I was openly and knowingly publishing the full source code for an AT&T copyrighted program, and I challenged their lawyers to sue me for infringment.
I never heard from them. This is a bit strange, since, although they might not have been following any of the tech newsgroups, they almost certainly would have received copies of my message from a lot of readers.
We had several good discussions of whether we should go through all our files and delete all the blank lines to comply with the AT&T copyright.
It wasn't clear whether AT&T was claiming ownership of only the blank lines in shell scripts, all programs, all files, or all documents (on disk or paper). If I'd ever heard from any AT&T lawyers, I would have asked them.
Maybe we can actually get such things resolved now. I'll predict that the Cage folks will be happy to discuss the issue with us
Re:Freedom of Speech replaced... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Freedom of Speech replaced... (Score:2, Interesting)
So if we come to the conclusion that Speech is defined as some manner of expression that connotes a meaning, we can assume that pure silence is also Speech. Therefore we are only required to deduce Cage's meaning of 4'33 and compare it to Batt's intended meaning of One Minute's Silence. Since we have no other method of determining copyright infringement, as silence is indivisible (you can't musically interpret silence, only lengthen and shorten it), the meaning behind the pieces is the main question.
Re:Copyright the sine wav of silence :-) (Score:3, Funny)
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.
And in related news (Score:2, Funny)