Reverse Engineering Music…
It was never my intent to use this blog for posts of a personal nature... I had other sites which served that purpose... those sites still exist but the blogs are gone... so occasionally when my personally rants relate to IT in some way, you'll find them here...
This one is something that's very important to me... It involves one of my favourite websites - Guitar Tab Universe. This is a site where people listen to a song and then write out their interpretation of the music... The songs are never perfect... sometimes they sound better, sometimes they sound just as good and occasionally they sound worse than the original... but you can learn the song and if you play along with the song you learn the subtle nuances that tab and chords can't relate.
GTU is being legally attacked by the NMPA (National Music Publishers Association) and the MPA (Music Publishers Association) for copyright infringement. Having been on the edge of this realm in the past I know the basics of how copyright works... and I have the Internet at my fingertips.
I did some digging around and found this (Canadian Law):
18. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the maker of a sound recording has a copyright in the sound recording, consisting of the sole right to do the following in relation to the sound recording or any substantial part thereof:
(a) to publish it for the first time,
(b) to reproduce it in any material form, and
(c) to rent it out,
and to authorize any such acts.
As far as I'm concerned, that says I make money off it or create copies of it (There are exceptions to this -- Personal Use Clause). It doesn't say I can't produce my interpretation of it (which is all online guitar tabs are... a persons interpretation).
So this got me thinking... What about computer software... it's related. I listen to a song, I figure out how to play it (how the technical side of it works) and I reproduce it. With computer software, I run a program... sniff the generated traffic perhaps... maybe do some disassembly and generally interact with the program, the I write my own version of it. Office products come to mind here.. Corel WordPerfect, Microsoft Word and OpenOffice Writer... All three are different people's interpretations of the same idea... Does that mean one of the people who the original right to it and can call copyright infringement on everyone else? Then I thought of something...
A copyright doesn't protect an idea. The note by note music of a song can be protected, the word for word lyrics can be protected... the source code of a program can be protected... but the idea of the music... That note 1 should be a semi-tone lower than note 2, for example, or the idea that a typing program should exist where I can change the font, etc... cannot be protected... They are ideas that could be patented but they can't be copyrighted.
I fully support the distribution of guitar tabs and chords... I believe it falls under fair use, as it is teaching in a way (someone has learned the song and has written it out in order to teach it to me):
the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
I would also argue the fact that it's not an exact copy of the music but a derivative until I found this under Exclusive rights in Copyrighted Works:
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
In the end, I really don't know who the law would side with but that exclusive right, paired with a legal win for the NMPA/MPA over Guitar Tab Universe scares me... could it possibly mean changes in the computer world as well? I don't know, but I'd sure like to.
I'm looking for anyone, legal background or not (because I definately don't have one), to give me their thoughts on this... I'll definately pass anything useful on to Guitar Tab Universe.
Ultimately this post is nothing more than random thoughts that came to me while writing and a vote of support for Guitar Tab Universe. As the last note of the post I'd like to point you towards MuSATO (Music Student and Teacher Organization). It is an organization that has been formed to fight for the rights of online students to learn music through shared guitar tabs.
Remember: They are just musicians that are reverse engineering the song. They're no different than the members of the security community that reverse engineer software.
Peace,
HT
[quote]Remember: They are just musicians that are reverse engineering the song. They’re no different than the members of the security community that reverse engineer software.[/quote]
That’s the problem. In most EULA’s I’ve seen, reverse engineering is spsecifically forbidden. If I own a copy of Server 2003, I can throw all the data I want at it, hoping to find my data in an instruction pointer when it crashes. That cannot be prohibited by law (at least in Canada), however, I cannot attempt to recreate the original source code. I cannot even traslate it into ASM according to most of the licenses I see.
This is done specifically to prevent people from reproducing thier work and subsequently allowing them to publish it as originals, using the ideas and methods of the copyright holder. If I can’t reverse engineer your code, I can’t make a derivative work and claim it as my own.
Higher profile contracts will, in some cases, specifically grant the right to reverse engineer software to as part of an audit, but this option is not available to the rest of us. So if security engineers can’t reverse engineer, why can musicians?
(although I do think it has a valid argument as far as it being used as a teaching tool under the “fair use” clause.)