346K views · Jan 30, 2020 · 17:58 · 1 HN recommender · 8 mentions · discussed 2020–2026
Lawyer and musician Damien Riehl argues that music is math with a finite number of melodies, and describes how he and programmer Noah Rubin generated every possible melody and released them under CC0 to avoid accidental infringement claims.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN cites it as the stunt behind 'copyright every melody' in threads about music copyright, takedowns and AI authorship.
“They did a great Tedx talk here”HN comment, 2023
“They did a great Tedx talk here”
Explains the accidental-infringement problems musicians face with melody copyright.
They did a great Tedx talk here, and the person effectively describes the problems that Sheeran has run into: this video
“found the ted talk”
Talk on copyrighting every melody
You wouldn't even need ML. Iirc there was this guy who coded a script that played every permutation of 12 notes in a 5 minute period and then made all the Melodys public domain. Ianal so I don't know if this would hold up in court, but technically that should invalidate every copyright on Melodys after that point in time. E: this video found the ted talk
Similar case of preventing accidental infringement in music
Is this beginning of a Copyright trolling campaign or preventing accidental infringement as similar case in music this video ?
“That is the reason these guys decided to Copyrighting all the melodies to avoid accidental infringement”
Talk about copyrighting all melodies to avoid infringement
That is the reason these guys decided to Copyrighting all the melodies to avoid accidental infringement this video TED talk
“generate every possible melody and release it under the Creative Commons”
Talk on brute-force generating every melody and releasing it to the public.
There is also the brute force approach (from 2020) to generate every possible melody and release it under the Creative Commons: this video
“someone already tried copyrighting every song melody [3]”
Example of someone attempting to copyright every song melody.
1. lots of established law and case law (at least in the US), this is already a well-settled problem and folks have the tools and proper venue to bring infringement claims. Yes, federal copyright infringement litigation is prohibitively expensive for many issues. There is a now a "small claims court" for smaller issues. [1] 2. Those works cannot be copyrighted (at least in the US). [2]. And hey, someone already tried copyrighting every song melody [3] [1]: link [2]: link [3]: this video
Talk about copyrighting all melodies to avoid accidental infringement.
I hope this has been tested by now, but not sure: Copyrighting all the melodies to avoid accidental infringement | Damien Riehl | TEDxMinneapolis this video
“He and programmer Noah Rubin algorithmically generated every possible melody”
Lawyer explains his stunt of algorithmically generating all melodies under CC-0.
I’m reminded of lawyer Damien Riehl’s (performative) reaction to the Sam Smith infringement decision, back in 2019/2020. He and programmer Noah Rubin algorithmically generated every possible melody (within a certain combinatorial space, in MIDI format as I recall), and purported to release them under CC-0 license [0]. He went on to attract some attention and explain his argument at a regional TEDx event [1]. I seem to recall legal commentators reacting with an eyeroll—apparently judges split much finer hairs than these for a living—but it was a cute stunt. [0] link [1] this video and link
