Is more than 68 billion melody created by algorithm established as 'public domain'?

Copyright lawyer, programmer and musician Damian Lille composes a large amount of melodies using algorithms with more than 68 billion songs, totaling over 600 GB, and all of them are `` public without any rights '' Make it a domain 'under the Creative Commons 0 (CC0) license. However, Motherboard of IT media has questioned the rights relationship.

All the Music, LLC – Helping Songwriters Make All of Their Music
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Musicians Algorithmically Generate Every Possible Melody, Release Them to Public Domain-VICE
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/wxepzw/musicians-algorithmically-generate-every-possible-melody-release-them-to-public-domain

In a copyright infringement lawsuit that states that 'the song resembles a particular melody', if the defendant artist has ever heard the song being copied, it will say, 'Unconsciously infringing the original content. Has been done. ' Lille, along with fellow musician and programmer Noah Rubin, thought that 'let's stop copyright lawsuits that would violate the creative freedom of the artist,' and created algorithms to create melodies in the public domain. We devised to make it public.

To determine the finiteness of the melody, Lille and Rubin have developed an algorithm that records all possible 8-note, 12-beat melody combos within one octave. The algorithm works essentially the same as a brute force attack used by hackers to guess passwords, producing 300,000 melody patterns per second. Lille and Rubin have published the algorithm on GitHub . In addition, a data set of melody exceeding 68.7 billion songs and a total capacity of over 600 GB has been released on the Internet Archive .

A detailed explanation of the algorithm and melody by Lille can be understood by reading the following article.

Why would an attempt to 'copy all melody copyrights' protect future music? -GIGAZINE

The melody created by the algorithm is output in MIDI format, where notes are simply numbers. According to the project's official website, Lille and Rubin release the generated melodies under a CC0 license. According to Motherboard of IT media, 'Even if a melody is released with a CC0 license, it is another matter whether it is recognized as a public domain.'

The public domain is a government work or has expired copyright, and although most copyrights have expired legally, the moral rights of the authors are protected. On the other hand, CC0, which declares all waivers including moral rights, is infinitely close to the public domain as a license, and because the moral rights have been waived, others are free to use copyrighted material rather than the public domain. Can be handled.

However, although CC0 is a license that declares that it 'waives all rights, including moral rights,' it will ultimately be determined whether a waiver will be granted by national law. Also, licenses are subject to change and are not absolute. In fact, the official photo that SpaceX had released under the CC0 license was changed to CC2.0 and became a hot topic.

SpaceX quietly changes the CC license of official photos, criticism that it `` confuses ''-gigazine

In other words, a huge number of melodies created for use in court are declared public domain under CC0 license, but are not legally recognized as public domain, so they are legally quite subtle. That there is. Lille himself said, `` Under copyright law, numbers (the contents of MIDI format data) are legal facts, and under copyright law, legal facts have barely or almost no copyright. Or no copyright at all, 'said,' If these numbers existed for a long time and are just extracting them, the melody (which claims the original) May not be protected by copyright. '

It would be encouraging for an artist accused of `` similar melody '' to be able to survive the lawsuit by showing the melody of the CC0 license created by the algorithm, but is not legally recognized as public domain Given the potential, it is doubtful that Lille's melody will function as a weapon in court. Still, Lille is optimistic: 'Speaking of melody alone, copyright litigation against artists may be reduced and the case may be dismissed.'