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Every Melody Has Been Copyrighted (and they're all on this hard drive)

Adam Neely · interview · Watch on YouTube

Music theory, synthesis & productionLaw, policing & justice

What it is

Adam Neely interviews Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin about their project to generate and copyright every possible melody as MIDI. The video explains their reasoning and how it bears on music copyright lawsuits.

Why Hacker News recommends it

It is the go-to explainer whenever HN discusses brute-forcing melodies, copyright, or AI-generated content, since it features the project's creators.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2020, last 2022

What HN commenters said

  1. “Strongly recommend watching that video! Excellent info.”

    Interview explaining why melodies are fixed on physical media

    willvarfar, 2020-02 · Strong recommendation · in “Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits”

  2. “Adam Neely's video (interviewing Rhiel and collaborator Noah Rubin) covers many points of copyright”

    Covers many copyright points in interview with the creators

    dredmorbius, 2020-02 · Recommendation · in “Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits”

  3. “Check this video from Adam Neely”

    Neely on music copyright and automated melody claims

    varispeed, 2021-04 · Recommendation · in “The Endless Acid Banger: algorithmic self-composing acid techno music”

  4. “interviewing two guys having done this (within some constraints).”

    Neely interviews two people who generated all melodies

    nonstickcoating, 2022-05 · Recommendation · in “How many melodies are there? (2014)”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: melody copyright, midi, music law, algorithmic music, adam neely

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