Is an algorithm producing music copyrighted? It is my understanding that algorithms (not their concrete implementations) are not copyrighted. Musical scores or productions usually have a copyright. Some music is constructed from a small set of rules, for example Spiegel im Spiegel, by Arvo Pärt Is it a violation of copyright to publish a computer program that exactly produces such a piece, without containing the piece itself in the program? Edit: I found actual examples of what I am described here and here
Is it a violation of copyright to publish a computer program that exactly produces such a piece, without containing the piece itself in the program? Yes. A program that reproduces a particular work is functionally a derivative work and is a copyright infringement. A program that composes music not tied to a particular work would be patentable, but the algorithm would not be protected by copyright, although derive works based on the code implementing the algorithm might be protected by copyright. Of course, this assumes that the person devising this algorithm knows about the original work that it will produce. If the person devising and the person using the algorithm are ignorant of the existence of the prior work that it produces, it is not a copy or a derivative work and is not infringing. The source of the creation of an allegedly infringing work in relevant in copyright law even thought it is not relevant in patent and trademark law. Copyright protects independent inventors of the same work from infringement liability, although this may be hard to prove. In theory the burden of proof to show copying is on the personal bringing the lawsuit alleging infringement. But, a copyright infringement plaintiff can meet their burden of proof in a copyright case by inferring that copy was made from the circumstantial evidence of the allegedly infringing work's similarity to the allegedly infringed work without direct evidence of copying or deriving the work from the original work.
Any use of the song snippets in your App can be copyright infringement (in the US), Fair Use (U.S. Copyright Office) not withstanding. Not distributing the App and/or using the App only in a limited group for the study, or not making money from the App doesn't usually matter when it comes to copyright infringement. Fair Use does have some educational exceptions; read the link above and see if your case may fit. But the final assessment of educational use would be made by a court if you were sued for infringement. If the use in your App doesn't fall under the education exception, you still probably run little risk of the copyright holders finding out if the App use is private and within a small group, but that's your choice to make. You can always Google the name of the music/recording company; most provide ways online to request licensing of samples, but the cost may be prohibitive, or permission may simply not be available for popular songs.
The name can not be copyrighted, but they don't own the rights to the songs and they are telling you they will perform them. They don't want to put it in writing that they are performing songs they legally can't.
Yes Both melody and lyrics source back to the middle ages, as for instance described here. The difficulty could be to make sure you rely your derived work on a variant that is really in the public domain. E.g. if you use notes or lyrics from the Simon &amp; Garfunkel version and derive from there, you might violate their copyright.
germany I am reasonably sure that works like this would be Public Domain, i.e. not copyrighted in the first place. In Germany, copyright (or more precisely, Author's Right) can only be held by a natural person, which is a legal term of art that essentially means &quot;human being&quot;. There are two groups of natural persons involved here: the programmers and the creators of the works which are part of the training set. However, I can't see how either group could have a reasonable claim of copyright. Note: there have been similar discussions about GitHub Copilot, an AI that writes code for you. It is my understanding that the process used by GitHub Copilot is roughly comparable to the process used here. With GitHub Copilot, there have been instances where significant snippets which are part of the training set have appeared in the output with only minor alterations. In this case, it is likely that the original author will have copyright over that portion of the output. However, IFF a human being were actually involved in selecting specific works, then there is probably a copyright based on the creative decision of selecting this particular work and rejecting all the others. This is similar to the classic textbook example of a driftwood sculpture: the creative process here is not creating the sculpture but choosing to pick up this particular piece of driftwood instead of the hundreds of others on the beach. So, if you simply generate these works and publish all of them, there is no copyright. If you generate a large batch and then select a certain number, then the person who made the selection might hold a copyright.
There's existing copyright infringement and future copyright infringement. Let's say you sold a million records with infringing contents. That's copyright infringement. It has happened, you can't undo it. Now you get sued. If you think you will lose, it would be a good idea to change the music to be not infringing, so the next million records are not infringing and add to the damages. It doesn't fix the infringement that has already been done, but makes sure there is no further infringement. And infringement after you were told about it and asked to stop might be punished more harshly.
It is true that any work of the US government is not subject to copyright in the United States; it may be subject to copyright abroad (the relevant law excludes US government works from US copyright protection; other countries have their own copyright laws that generally don't explicitly exclude US government works, and so the works may be copyrighted there). A government work is defined as something produced by a government employee in the course of his official duties. It doesn't include everything released by a government agency; for instance, if a contractor makes something and the contract specifies that the government gets the copyright, the work is copyrighted (since it wasn't made by a government employee). If a foreign cosmonaut or astronaut composes and sings an original song in a livestream, then NASA may not have copyright in the livestream but the foreign astronaut would have copyright in the song. That said, NASA has a page of guidelines for reuse of their media, where they say that their stuff normally isn't copyrighted unless otherwise noted. They don't make any sort of guarantee, but they suggest you'd probably be fine embedding it, at least as far as they're concerned.
My remarks pertain only to US Law. Laws vary in other countries. Subject matter eligible for copyright protection in the US must be expressive and creative. To the extent data are merely measurements of observable fact in the world, they are not copyrightable. It may be that the presentation or interpretation of data is eligible for copyright protection (for example, artwork used in charts, graphs, graphics, etc., that is expressive and creative), subject to various equitable use provisions (in particular Fair Use, which is still a legal grey area). The methods by which data are gathered can be considered IP, but is the domain of patents. Methods are not copyrightable (17 USC 102(b)).