Static Copyrighted

From a recent New Yorker article:

Sebastian Tomczak, an electronic musician from Australia, uploaded a ten-hour white-noise video to YouTube, and was promptly walloped with five infringement claims...

White noise is generally defined by hazy and inharmonious hissing—it’s noise-eating noise, anti-noise, a way of drowning out other sounds. Per a BBC report, the claimants accusing Tomczak of infringement included companies who peddle white-noise recordings as sleep therapy. It turns out that his nondescript hissing mirrored their nondescript hissing.


The white noise in question:

     Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 12, 2018
     Category: Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults





Comments
Keep in mind that I've worked with computers for over thirty years. In this case the true underlying problem is Google's comparison algorithms, which should flag something like this for inspection by a human.

This is what happens when you let the machine do the thinking for you. I swear, the average intelligence of the human race is declining at an accelerating rate every year.
Posted by KDP on 01/12/18 at 03:46 PM
KDP -- The part that gets me is this (from the BBC article):

"A spokeswoman for Google, which owns YouTube, said that the Content ID system works by automatically matching uploaded content against sample files provided by other content creators."

This implies that in order for Google to pattern-match the white noise, a number of "content-creators" must first have supplied Google with sample files of white noise, claiming ownership of the static.
Posted by Alex on 01/12/18 at 06:57 PM
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