It's actually very relevant, the TL;DR (from memory) is that lawyers (and judges) aren't programmers, and the source of data (referred to as the "colour of the bits") is as important as the actual bits of the data. Thus "I have this bit pattern as part of a bit enumeration" is different, to the legal system, than "I have this bit pattern because I specifically created it".
> Thus "I have this bit pattern as part of a bit enumeration" is different, to the legal system, than "I have this bit pattern because I specifically created it".
Back in the Napster days, there was a company (maybe mp3.com or something? Google tells me yes!) that would let you get high-quality encoded mp3s of your CDs by downloading their program, putting your CD into the hard drive, and it would read enough of the CD to verify that that was the CD you had, then give you access to their own encoded version of it. The idea being, you own the CD; you have a right in the US to rip it & encode it; so therefore you have a right to this mp3.
They were sued by the record labels (naturally), and lost in court; because the court made a distinction between the copy that mp3.com had of the CD and the copy that an individual could have made. mp3.com were violating copyright because they were distributing their own copy, even though the bits were identical to the copy their customers already owned.
So along the same lines: "I have this bit pattern because I copied it from mp3.com's copy of a CD" is different, legally, than "I have this bit pattern because I copied it from my own CD".
It's a bit more complicated than that. Provenance is critical... but then can you claim copyright infringement based on 8-note, 12-beat sequences? Surely e.g. Katy Perry claimed that her song is original, but courts decided (based on expert opinion) that it's too similar for this to be true. "My 8-note sequence was first, so you probably copied it!" is, unfortunately, a thing - I would have no problem if Marcus Gray proved provenance - but he didn't. The entire proof of provenance is based on "I was first, and yours is similar".
I would think that after this project is complete, at the very least arguments like those that lost the "Dark Horse" case should become not-acceptable in courts. Let Marcus Gray actually prove provenance, not infer/ speculate it - and all would be fine.
What's the legal principle that distinguishes methods of generation? Even if enumeration is definitely on one side, there is an infinite gradation from there to human generation.
The line between enumeration and a very prolific artist is blurry. What if someone instead of just enumerating them created actual songs featuring them as themata? And what if those songs were tool-assisted? But still catchy?
I see it as likely that someone will eventually try it not just as a legal strategy but because of a genuine curiosity in music and AI.
According to wikipedia
> There is a long tradition in classical music of writing music in sets of pieces that cover all the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. These sets typically consist of 24 pieces, one for each of the major and minor keys (sets that comprise all the enharmonic variants include 30 pieces).
I don't think anyone would say there is any ill intent even though it is based on an enumeration.
> a very real dilemma and either decision will have drawbacks
That's bread and butter for the courts. You don't need judges and juries and lawyers to see through a simple hack; trying to use a trivial enumeration to defeat a copyright claim is just "ha ha, nice try, but nope" issue no reasonable layman would have a problem with. Shades of colour are of critical importance in precisely those cases that are fuzzy, where there is no obvious ruling to be made. That's what the courts are made for.
Again, there is a gradation and you've not answered the question.
What is the intent if a human provided 1 bit of input by flipping a coin and chose all the odd numbered melodies? What if a human provided 1 bit of input by flipping an unobservable mental coin? What about 2 bits? N bits?
What if a machine generated all the "interesting" melodies via a neural network?
IP is not moot because you have a random number generator. IP may become less relevant if computers ever learn to select useful bit patterns out of sea of randomness, but even then, the legal system will handle it just fine (somebody will own the selection algorithms after all).
> What is the basis by which jury likely decides intent here? Is it any different than "arbitrarily"?
Causality. You can't determine intent from bits, which leads people to (mistakenly) believe colour doesn't exist. To determine the colour of the bits, the courts will look at the actual chain of events surrounding their creation. Because that is what matters. Not what the bits are, but how you came into possession of them, and why.
A counterpoint to that is that genetically modified organisms can be patented and those are effectively random perturbations of current 'state of the art' which are then selected for fitness.
That's not a counterpoint. That's a case in point. The selection by the human (or by any other method) is the 'creativity'. The fact that the change itself occurred randomly is not important. The fact that the permutation was chosen is actually what gives it a certain color in the sense of the article.
There's also a difference between copyright and patent law.
