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White Noise Video on YouTube Hit By Five Copyright Claims (bbc.com) 219

Chris Baraniuk, reporting for BBC: A musician who made a 10-hour long video of continuous white noise -- indistinct electronic hissing -- has said five copyright infringement claims have been made against him. Sebastian Tomczak, who is based in Australia, said he made the video in 2015 and uploaded it to YouTube. The claimants accusing him of infringement include publishers of white noise intended for sleep therapy. "I will be disputing these claims," he told the BBC. In this case, those accusing Mr Tomczak are not demanding the video's removal, but instead the reward of any revenue made from advertising associated with it. Without the claims, Mr Tomczak would receive such revenue himself. "I am intrigued and perplexed that YouTube's automated content ID system will pattern-match white noise with multiple claims," he said.
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White Noise Video on YouTube Hit By Five Copyright Claims

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  • by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @11:50AM (#55869447)
    The copyright claims are valid if his video copied the white noise audio track from other videos, which can easily be determined by comparing the wave forms.
    • by Unknown User ( 4795349 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @11:56AM (#55869515)
      Doubtful. There is no expression of a creative idea and the work is also not original. Both are requirements for copyright. Otherwise I could just copyright the word "and" and get my free income for the rest of my life.
      • by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @12:01PM (#55869559)
        Except there are an infinite number of permutations of Gaussian white noise, while there is only one for the word "and".
        • by Shoten ( 260439 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @12:05PM (#55869597)

          Except there are an infinite number of permutations of Gaussian white noise, while there is only one for the word "and".

          Yes, but creativity plays no part in creating any of those permutations. Saying there are infinite numbers of permutations as a defense of a particular variant is like taking a recording of an existing song, changing the pitch of a single note, and then claiming that it's a new song. The courts have already ruled on that concept.

          • Saying there are infinite numbers of permutations as a defense of a particular variant is like taking a recording of an existing song, changing the pitch of a single note, and then claiming that it's a new song.

            Well, no, it really isn't. Saying there are infinite numbers of permutations doesn't say anything at all about the number of differences between a particular variant and another already in existence.

            creativity plays no part in creating any of those permutations.

            Creativity isn't the bottom line of whether something is copyrightable -- originality [cornell.edu] is. Selecting a specific arrangement of white noise isn't conceptually different in that regard than selecting a specific arrangement of words, musical notes, etc.

            • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @01:30PM (#55870251) Homepage Journal

              Actually, works created by random selection without any contribution by a human author are not eligible for copyright protection [copyrightcompendium.com]. It is highly unlikely that white noise could be copyrighted even if you took someone else's white noise.

              • I don't think anyone in this thread said anything about unrepeatable "random selection without any contribution by a human author" -- I certainly didn't. Pseudo-random white noise generators certainly have a human contribution and are repeatable.

                To be clear, I'm not taking a strong stance that something like that would be copyrightable -- just pointing out that it's not nearly as clear-cut as folks might think.

                • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @02:28PM (#55870673) Homepage Journal

                  Pseudo-random white noise generators certainly have a human contribution and are repeatable.

                  The problem is that if the human component is just choosing an existing PRNG algorithm, then the whole thing is still a collection of mathematical facts like a phone book, and thus clearly ineligible. There generally has to be at least a minimal creative component for copyright eligibility. That is, after all, the purpose of copyright—to protect creative works of authorship.

                  Even if someone took the time to hand-seed the PRNG with various values and compare the calming qualities, it would still be an almost laughable stretch to argue that picking that number is sufficiently creative to warrant copyright protection on that particular output of a commonly available algorithm, because other people's computers will randomly choose that particular number once in a while and create that output without the supposed creativity.

                  Now if somebody creates their own PRNG, that's a different story. Anything below that threshold seems dubious at best. That's not saying that some judge might not misinterpret the copyright act, or that somebody might not decide to sue in hopes of a pre-trial settlement, but the law is IMO pretty clear on the matter. Random noise cannot plausibly be copyrighted, and that is by design. Any abuse of the law that leads to any other interpretation is an indication of a flaw in the law rather than an intended outcome.

              • Except that is a restriction on two-dimensional useful articles, three-dimensional works of artistic craftsmanship, and models. There are no such uncopyrightable limitations on WORKS OF THE PERFORMING ARTS AND SOUND RECORDINGS in 406 Limitations on copyrightability.

                White noise probably can be copyrighted under the bullshit system in which John Cage copyrighted not creating any sound:
                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            • Creativity isn't the bottom line of whether something is copyrightable -- originality [cornell.edu] is.

              Creativity may be the second line from the bottom, but it's still a requirement. It's the reason that the listings in a phone book aren't protected by copyright. Something that is the result of simple mechanical operations and involves no significant decisions, such as sorting names in alphabetical order, is not a creative work.

              If the white noise is only random frequencies created by a computer, then there was no creative effort, and the audio is no protected by copyright. If the algorithm that creates t

            • I'm pretty sure that merely uploading the white noise to youtube would create enough artifacts that it would be a different permutation of white noise.

              More importantly, the similarity of all accurately labeled white noise is probably within the scope of Youtube's aggressive content ID system. So, the assumption of direct copying is unfounded.

              Also, regarding originality in regards to copyright, it was in contrast to "effort," not "creativity." Feist v. Rural ruled that the white pages phone books were

          • More accurately, it would be like taking a public domain song, changing the pitch of a single note, and then claiming copyright over it and trying to sue anyone who also made a derivative work from the public domain song.
        • You shoot yourself in the foot with that argument. If there are an infinite number of permutations, then all versions are either independent works OR all versions are derivative works. As white noise existed as public domain for a long time before anyone got a copyright on any particular version, the burden of proof falls on the supposed copyright holder to show that the work in question violates his work and does not derive from teh public domain work. Good luck with that.
      • George Lucas gets paid every time a company uses the word "droid," TV ads or whatever.
        • George Lucas gets paid every time a company uses the word "droid," TV ads or whatever.

          I believe that's a trademark, not copyright.

      • I thought some artist copyrighted blank canvas. But found this, saying, blank space is not copyrightable. https://www.copyright.gov/circ... [copyright.gov]
      • by Strider- ( 39683 )

        It depends on intent, I think. You could argue the same thing for John Cage's 4'33" (Four Minutes, 33 seconds) which is a orchestral piece comprising completely of rests. The basic idea is that it turns the orchestra into a performance piece, with the orchestra paging through their scores, and the only sounds present are the ambient sounds within the performance venue.

        The copyright over that score has been successfully defended, and rightfully so imho. The only problem is that it should have expired at some

        • I don't know how you can claim copyright over sitting still and not playing an instrument... I mean, the idea of calling that a "performance" is novel, but the act of not playing happens inadvertently and intentionally all the time and that does not make it infringing. As far as I am aware, the only "successful" litigation over 4'33" have been over a video recording of the "performance" and a settled without resolving the issue payment over a CD that included 1 minute of silence and had the name "Cage" on t

      • Otherwise I could just copyright the word "and" and get my free income for the rest of my life.

        In keeping with the white noise copyright claim in TFA, you should be copyrighting whitespace characters [wikipedia.org] like space and tab.

    • by cirby ( 2599 )

      He's a MIDI and electronic music guy who hand-builds his own tone sources.

      He probably has several noise generators of his own already.

    • If its actually proper white noise then no, no you can not. The defining feature of white noise is that its truly random and contains all frequencies simultaneously (limited of course by hardware).

      • Yes, white noise is Gaussian. But if you copy a white noise track created by someone else then that copy is no longer Gaussian relative to the original track - it's instead identical.
        • Yes, white noise is Gaussian. But if you copy a white noise track created by someone else then that copy is no longer Gaussian relative to the original track - it's instead identical.

          Yes! We first have to determine if these are two independently generated sets of random data. If so, then the algorithm is setting a false positive. However, a randomly generated set of data will be extremely unique. If it's copied, you should be able to tell.

          • Yes! We first have to determine if these are two independently generated sets of random data.

            You can't really call that the first step, since all requirements must be met in order for someone to be liable for copyright infringement. If the first thing you do is show (i.e. convince the judge) that the original isn't eligible for copyright protection, then it doesn't matter if you copied it.

        • White noise != Gaussian White noise has a flat spectrum not shaped like a Gaussian.
          • White noise != Gaussian White noise has a flat spectrum not shaped like a Gaussian.

            Gaussian doesn't mean the spectrum is a Gaussian, it means the numbers are drawn from a Gaussian.

            If you draw numbers at random from a Gaussian distribution, a uniform distribution or even the discrete distribution +/- 1, the result is white noise.

        • But if you copy a white noise track created by someone else then that copy is no longer Gaussian relative to the original track - it's instead identical.

          Five separate claims against him suggest either that four of the claimants also stole their white noise from the original author (whichever one of the five it was), or they're all full of crap....

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            And currently they are all stealing his money. Money earned during the claim isn't returned, it stays with the people who made the fraudulent claims.

    • by mopower70 ( 250015 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @12:08PM (#55869625) Homepage
      Except there are five claims against him from four different sources. If the claims are based on copying, then at least three others copied from the exact same source and have filed violation claims based on pilfered content.
      • by dunkindave ( 1801608 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @12:15PM (#55869689)

        Except there are five claims against him from four different sources. If the claims are based on copying, then at least three others copied from the exact same source and have filed violation claims based on pilfered content.

        Your logic is broken. His work is 10 hours long and each of the five claims could be for different, non-overlapping sections within it, so none of the five need contain any content from another. For example, if I took five songs from five different performers and concatenated them together, all five would have the right to make a copyright claim even though none contain another's work. The claims in this case though are still garbage.

        • His work is 10 hours long and each of the five claims could be for different, non-overlapping sections within it, so none of the five need contain any content from another. For example, if I took five songs from five different performers and concatenated them together, all five would have the right to make a copyright claim even though none contain another's work.

          This is true, but wouldn't it be weird if that were the case? Is one minute of white noise repeated 600 times somehow worse or measurably differ

        • each of the five claims could be for different, non-overlapping sections within it

          So we're talking about a random number generator that is generating repeating set of patterns of random numbers? Or you think someone's white noise is acoustically different to someone elses?

      • Except there are five claims against him from four different sources. If the claims are based on copying, then at least three others copied from the exact same source and have filed violation claims based on pilfered content.

        I doubt anyone copied anyone. If the audio track recognition algorithm looked for exact copies, it would miss a huge percentage of actual infringement, and be trivial to work around. So it does something cleverer and looks for audio tracks that sound sufficiently alike. White noise tracks all sound alike, even if they don't have a single bit in common.

        • I wasn't trying to say the musician copied, just that the parent's assertion doesn't logically hold that this shows at least three of the four claimants must have copied their material since they all claim copyright infringement against the same piece. I understand the fuzzy matching problem that probably caused the claims.
    • by Rob Riggs ( 6418 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @12:58PM (#55870023) Homepage Journal

      The copyright claims are valid if his video copied the white noise audio track from other videos, which can easily be determined by comparing the wave forms. [Ed: Emphasis mine.]

      That is true of uncompressed audio. Once you compress the audio, the noise is going to look pretty much the same. Much of the phase information which is necessary to distinguish one sample from another is gone, and all that is left is the frequency domain which is pretty much the same from one white noise source to another.

    • I (and hopefully others) understand you're being funny, but (sadly) it seems to be over some people's heads. ;-)
    • The copyright claims are valid if his video copied the white noise audio track from other videos, which can easily be determined by comparing the wave forms.

      That is probably fair, but if he generated the white noise and this white noise isa far longer, non repeating sequence, then surely the others are "infringing"?

      A quick look shows anyone can generate their own sequence of white noise, in less than 10 lines of code:

      https://noisehack.com/generate... [noisehack.com]

    • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      Good luck with wave form identification on white noise.

    • They both didn't bother creating a random seed.

    • What if both sources use white noise generated using the same LFSR taps from publically available sources (i.e. match and engineering texts), or both used the same software program to generate the psuedo-random samples? Most white noise is far from truly as random as you think if you dig into the details.

      Should white noise from non-novel generators even be copyrightable at all?

  • Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is an excellent source of information and white noise. All you scientists need to cease and desist, or pay me money. My goodness the world is getting stupid...
  • Shannon would be (I suspect) greatly amused by this infringement claim.
    OTOH, perhaps I can write a short Adagio&Fugue, and claim infringement by anyone else who writes a piece in adagio-fugue form!

    • Sorry, I've already copyrighted sine waves, middle C, and 3/4 time. Your fugue would infringe on my intellectual property.
    • I don't know about Adagio&Fugue, but I'd bet anything containing the first note, or certainly the first three bars, of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor garners many infringement notices.

  • Google is not being helpful for me today. I have a recollection of some artist publishing an entire album consisting of silence, in an act of malicious compliance in order to fulfill a multiple album contract. Does anyone know what this might have been? I did find "Sleepify", but I don't think this was what I'm remembering.
  • by kiviQr ( 3443687 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @12:15PM (#55869687)
    please tell me there are no patents on 10h of silence!
  • by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @12:29PM (#55869795)

    The supreme court of the United States has definitively ruled that patentable items can no longer be protected by copyright once the patent has been expired.

    Here is an expired patent describing such a device. [google.com] And there were a number of devices before that. And schematic diagrams and circuits in magazines for white noise/sleep generators long ago.

    It's a shame that people are so full of themselves that they think they are truly that special that they somehow made a unique creation here. But actually it's likely worse in that people think they found an easy target and want to take what they can with a bad faith claim.

    This is a time where counter claims under the DMCA need to be filed against these bad faith claims and collect damages to help prevent further abuse.

    Maybe even make google a co-defendant.

    • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

      The supreme court of the United States has definitively ruled that patentable items can no longer be protected by copyright once the patent has been expired.

      I'd like to see that alleged ruling, particularly since "patentable" and "patented" mean two quite different things, you've linked to prior art that would show that any subsequent devices producing those sounds may not be "patentable," and you haven't shown that the sounds were produced by a device that was "patented."

      That's even before reaching the pro

    • The supreme court of the United States has definitively ruled that patentable items can no longer be protected by copyright once the patent has been expired.

      I understand these words, but they make no legal sense when strung together this way. Patent and copyright are two entirely different things. Patents cover ideas, copyrights cover expressions fixed in a tangible medium. I see no way that any patentable item could ever be covered by copyright, or how expiration of any patent could in any way be relevant to any copyright.

      The case in question is a copyright issue. Assuming he made the white noise himself (whatever sort of machine he used to make it), and a

  • by slazzy ( 864185 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @12:31PM (#55869805) Homepage Journal
    I was hit with a copyright claim using Youtube own provided music! What really sucks: - I got no notification email to let me know they started stealing all my revenue - The link to contest the action was 404 not found
    • Did YouTube give you a license to copy and distribute the music they provided for you to use in your video?
    • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      I just tells you to not add any music to your videos. Many videos that have music added is actually pretty annoying.

  • Nobody gets it and all adverts are removed. Jim Sterling useless this trick to prevent Konami and Nintendo from claiming his vids (which don't have ads) and putting ads on them.
  • Growing up, I had always heard that the "white noise" that analog TVs would display when not tuned to an active channel was actually leftover thermal noise caused by the Big Bang.

    If that is true in the TV frequency bands, then I would assume that the same is true of the audio band as well.

    So, essentially, these yay-hoos are attempting to "Copyright" a naturally-occurring (or Divinely-Created) phenomona; which I am pretty damned sure is not allowed, even under the brain-dead DMCA.

    • Growing up, I had always heard that the "white noise" that analog TVs would display when not tuned to an active channel was actually leftover thermal noise caused by the Big Bang.

      Only a small percentage of it.

    • Background noise of the universe is 3 Kelvin (K). Your TV antenna sees the ground as much as the air, so sees about 150 K (half from the 300 K ground and half from the 3 K sky). The first amplifier is probably 5-6 dB NF, so it has a noise temperature of about 800 K. So out of the total noise temperature of 950 K, about 0.15% is the background noise of the universe.

  • I surmise they used a digital signature to determine whether it was a clip from something they published. For example, they could have embedded something inaudible to mark the track. Barring that, it would be interesting to see where they got their sample(s) from, too. White noise is such a generic term -- how can they define and differentiate how their "white noise" is different from any other? For that matter, is there even a legal definition of "white noise"? LOL

    It sounds frivolous to me, akin to co

  • You can't possibly 'copyright' a block of pseudorandom numbers. That's what white noise is, in the digital sense. ANYONE can generate white noise digitally, it's easy. I suppose you could claim someone copied your file full of random numbers, but spectrally it's going to be exactly the same regardless of whether you copied it or generated it yourself.
  • The creation of white noise precedes everyone in this room, even their ancestors, hell even the ancestors of the dinosaurs heard it. White noise was created at time 0.1 of the universe as we know it when one atom of matter met one atom of antimatter. There's no claim on naturally created noise, there can't be.

  • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Friday January 05, 2018 @07:07PM (#55872473)
    I can generate white noise easily, and it has been doable for a long, long time. Back in the 1970's I used white noise generators. Now I just use a computer software program to get close, and if I need something better, a card would do.

    I think these folks trying to demand that they have the sole ability to utilize white noise might think twice about trying to assert that theory, because they will be set upon like wildebeests crossing a crocodile filled river.

    It's pretty much a signal with zero mean and statistically uncorrelated finite variance. If these people can prove that he somehow infringed upon any rights they have they will have to prove that their signal isn't white noise, and prove that he used their non-white noise signal.

    This is right up there with the time that Harley Davidson tried to copyright the sound their motorcycles make. They lost that case http://articles.latimes.com/20... [latimes.com]

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