Post AMV2e7unLcFiI9afmC by nickwedig@dice.camp
 (DIR) More posts by nickwedig@dice.camp
 (DIR) Post #AMM5gXpcVqPSgoNKbI by nickwedig@dice.camp
       2022-08-09T14:51:45Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       It's definitely a little weird how player pianos (the kind you'd find in the corner of a saloon in a cowboy movie) are the cause of so much of modern copyright law being the way it is.
       
 (DIR) Post #AMM5gcjQIJQJt2Vx8S by ifixcoinops@mastodon.social
       2022-08-09T15:14:47Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @nickwedig Clicked on the Expand Thread button here settling in for a nice long interesting explainer only to find you just casually tossed that out into the middle of the room and took your leave of it like some kinda riddling trickster sprite
       
 (DIR) Post #AMV2e5jNT5vnWAEWhc by nickwedig@dice.camp
       2022-08-09T15:31:38Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @ifixcoinops I assumed everyone was already aware of this fact, and I was just making a casual observation about something obvious.
       
 (DIR) Post #AMV2e6DrdkJl2iUsDo by ifixcoinops@mastodon.social
       2022-08-09T15:35:13Z
       
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       @nickwedig I was blissfully unaware and am now THOROUGHLY intrigued
       
 (DIR) Post #AMV2e6eS2taKNAw6fA by nickwedig@dice.camp
       2022-08-09T15:57:03Z
       
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       @ifixcoinops The key fact here is that the player piano was basically the first really important and prominent way you could record music. Before that you could distribute sheet music, but that still required a skilled musician to play. With player pianos, you could encode a song on a scroll of paper and then reproduce that anywhere that had a compatible piano, no musician needed.
       
 (DIR) Post #AMV2e75kPPQ3jphuD2 by nickwedig@dice.camp
       2022-08-09T16:02:12Z
       
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       @ifixcoinops That causes problems for the musicians of the time. Is a player piano roll treated as a copyrightable piece of information like sheet music, or is it treated like the spindle of a music box (not copyrighted, just a piece of the machinery)?In 1908, the Supreme Court decides a case that says piano rolls are not copies of the music but part of the piano's machinery.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-Smith_Music_Publishing_Co._v._Apollo_Co.
       
 (DIR) Post #AMV2e7UutpYIztU0RM by nickwedig@dice.camp
       2022-08-09T16:05:13Z
       
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       @ifixcoinops This ruling is so unpopular that Congress completely overhauls American copyright law in response, releasing the 1909 Copyright Act.This has a lot of effects on how stuff works, and still underlies current laws.One effect is that it puts in a mandatory licensing clause: anyone can release a recording of your music without your permission, just by following a simple procedure. This is why cover songs exist. That's one big effect of all this.
       
 (DIR) Post #AMV2e7unLcFiI9afmC by nickwedig@dice.camp
       2022-08-09T16:08:19Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @ifixcoinops The other big effect is computer software being copyrightable. In the 1970s, no one knew if computer code could be copyrighted, but in the 1980s that became an issue. The courts looked back at the player piano situation: a player piano roll isn't that different than punch cards for a computer, a set of instructions for a machine to follow. And if a player piano roll falls under the 1909 copyright law, so does computer code.So all software licensing also comes out of player pianos.