Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?
I then asked Fable to compare it to the open source version I'd downloaded from Mutopia, which it promptly ripped apart. No sustain, zero rubato, upside down balance.
Ok, what about the version I'd just bought?
The PianoDisc versions are mp3s encoded with the right channel carrying MIDI to be played on the piano, and the left channel containing any accompanying music to be played through attached speakers (who doesn't want the harmonica on Piano Man?)
I gave the mp3 to Fable, which promptly decoded the format, identifying the right channel carrying MIDI using a 2004.5 Hz square wave.
It then went on to analyze the nuance of pedal lift and melody relative to the chords.
Fable then asked if I wanted it to build an encoder to write my own MIDI files into the right channel of mp3s.
Sounds great, and I instructed it to write the encoder.
What it came back with was a python encoder PLUS a decoder.
In the verbose explanation, it mentioned decoy notes.
Curious, I asked it to explain the decoy notes.
Apparently PianoDisc adds obfuscation into their format which is handled properly by their decoder, but would leave naively extracted MIDI unplayable on other systems.
Fable created an encoder which adds those decoy notes, and a decoder which removes them.
Am I allowed to publish the decoder? The encoder?
173 comments
[ 0.28 ms ] story [ 27.1 ms ] threadAlso, when you bought from PianoDisc, did you agree to abide by a certain jurisdiction's laws in your use of PianoDisc? And did you explicitly agree to not share any sort of decoder/encoder in any ToS?
https://store.pianodisc.com/pages/terms-of-service-and-condi...
I don't see details about them mentioning and decoder or encoder.
IANAL. But I think reverse engineering their data structure, identifying a security measure - even one as weak as obfuscation, and publishing code to circumvent it is clearly against your license.
If the security measures exist in plain sight, as they apparently do, are they allowed to be discussed?
I reckon that if OP posts the encoder/decoder software that'd be against some sort of license clause. However in the age of AI who cares about the software at this point? Anyone can prompt their own private version into existence.
Just thinking out loud here. I have not considered AIs use as personal "cheat engines".
Or sue your ass…or file a DCMA takedown with Github.
The best likely outcome is probably “no.”
Or all of the above.
Because they have lawyers and that’s what lawyers do.
If you really really want to share the information, you might write a blog post with technical details without linking to any code. Sharing the blog to the “Facebook group” will let you assess community and corporate interest and make an informed decision.
Keep in mind that they could say yes and still do all that bad stuff anyway.
If you do this, I can nearly guarantee they will either never respond as a best case scenerio, or they will object.
There is effectively zero chance a company would give you any indication that you have their blessing. Even if they don't actually care one way or another they will make the assumption that giving you any kind of positive response is nothing but a negative for themselves in terms of future liability, etc
It is better to ask forgiveness than permission.
That should be the case in all jurisdictions. The justice system exists so that, if I feel treated unfairly, I can go to the state to settle the question whether/how much that is true. If there are issues where I cannot go to court, what am I supposed to do? Go fight you over the issue?
What differs (a lot) is how effectively the system rejects frivolous/unjust cases, how much time/money it costs you to defend yourself against remaining claims, and what systems there are to prevent people from going to court (having affordable care will prevent people from taking some medical claims to court; obligatory car insurance means most fender bender cases get handled by insurance companies, etc(
If you live in Europe, this restriction may be considered "gatekeeping" and exempted by the Digital Markets Act.
Don't bring attention to yourself by asking for permission. Publish your codec, and if the company cares about this they will send a cease and desist.
If you want the world to benefit from your code but you don't want to be responsible for it, try to adapt the codec to ffmpeg. The ffmpeg project is used to dealing with these matters, and will keep your codec working for eternity.
That's not how the DMA works at all, there is no concept of gatekeeping practices. Instead, the EU Commission designates companies that act as gatekeeper for some services (current list here: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers-portal_...) which then puts constraints on what they do.
Anti-SLAPP laws exist for a reason, and if corps can bully anyone, how is it that corps routinely lose lawsuits on either side of the docket, hmmmm?
Keep licking that corporate boot, folks. Corps send C&Ds because they cost them all of maybe $100-200 and they're so effective.
There is a long road between "got a C&D" and "am getting sued." Among other things, a judge is going to want to see that both sides attempted to negotiate. If the company sending the C&D just demands that and then tries to file suit, the judge is going to tell them to go back to step 2 and stop bothering him/her.
Folks, stop telling people that if they get a C&D they have to just fold. Good chance you never hear from them again because the cost of suing you is nowhere near the damages they will be able to prove in court.
Sometimes!
The problem is, the one advising them whether to sue or not might not care about that at all, and might personally profit from a lawsuit. So they've got all incentive in the world to persuade their employer that they must pursue this or they will have given up priceless rights forever.
I really hope not. My understanding is that to be "effective" it needs to at least be a form of encryption with a secret key. At least, I'm not aware of any case law that allowed anything less than that.
IMO, "dummy notes" are nothing more than a form of obfuscation. If it's obvious how to filter them out, then I don't think it comes close to meeting the bare minimum of what might count as an "effective technical measure".
Of course, who knows what way the courts will rule if it ever reached that far.
However,Section 1201(f) is designed to allow developers leeway in reverse engineering to make "independently created computer programs" talk to other "computer programs". But this usually distinguishes between talking to a binary (good) and reading a media file (bad).
My guess is the encoder is probably legal under 1201(f) because it’s reverse engineering a DMCA covered application to create new media files for it to use. But the decoder would be illegal because it reverse engineers a DMCA covered application to extract copyrighted media.
And while courts might have ruled that a CAPTCHA might count as a "technological measure" they haven't gotten as far as ruling them as "effective" yet.
But in general yes. The protection scheme doesn't need to be well designed or free of design flaws to count as "effective". But from what I can tell, it does need to be a valid attempt at some cryptographic scheme requiring a secret known only to the copyright holder.
[0] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/387...
Also it was an appeal to a preliminary judgement. The lower court said: okay, you're most likely going to lose so you have to stop selling these until we find out whether you lose. The appeal court said: actually this case is almost completely bogus and you're probably going to win, so you can keep selling them.
[Pirate flag emoji here]
Does it matter? What's important is if it can happen or not, and how if so. We already know that MPAA is willing to basically do whatever, even contribute themselves to piracy, if it means they can put people in jail for copying stuff eventually. They themselves also gotten in trouble for copyright violations themselves in the past, so doesn't seem like they're hiding away from breaking a little bit of laws to hunt pirates.
You could also create a text document instead of a software that details the mechanism used to fool other MIDI decoders and publish only that (for now).
Finally, familiarize yourself with the Art. 6 Software Directive (2009/24/EC) / §69e UrhG — decompilation for interoperability. It may be your ticket for a legal status in Germany/EU.
Eeh, worst case scenario you'll get sued as Microsoft will have no problem with handing over everything they have from your Windows installation information, GitHub accounts, NPM authentication and everything else they own today if the courts tell them to.
You can't just commit crimes on the open internet without really hiding IPs and what not, and expect that to not come back to haunt you eventually. Kind of poor form to suggest otherwise too.
Who said it is a crime, are you a lawyer?
But we like to pretend that the justice system delivers justice evenhandedly I suppose.
Not sure what you're talking about, the current AI boom is entirely based on committing crimes on the open internet without really hiding IPs and what not.
So is much of big tech in general.
> Publish your codec, and if the company cares about this they will send a cease and desist.
If there are doubts about C&D letters, don't publish code to a USA provider. Bring it to Gitee, under an anonymous author name.
https://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/09/08/decss.shirt.id...
Put the code on the blockchain somewhere and it will be un-deleteable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Satie
For example, remove all code from your training data, and then see if the model can code regardless.
> For example, remove all code from your training data, and then see if the model can code regardless.
Would you accept this weaker version: make up a new programming language (that's guaranteed not to be in the training set), and see if the model (which has trained on programming in existing languages) can cope?
(TBH, when people claim this, I do wish there would at least be occasionally an actual pointer to something that was copied. I understand it's probably not going to be doable in all cases, but without examples it sure feels like a weak statement. In my experience the recent models are good at doing things I'm pretty sure there is not a close reference for in the training data, though for most part I wouldn't classify them as particularly difficult tasks either)
On a serious note: reverse engineering is legal in australia, even for DMCA violations.
I was under the impression thr prescedant was:
Data Access Corporation v Powerflex Services Pty Ltd (1999), alongside specific provisions in the Copyright Act 1968.
The australian DMCA is called the TPM, it's more aimed at Bypassing, decrypt, or circumvent a digital lock or DRM (Digital Rights Management) protecting copyrighted material.
I do not think that phantom notes are encryption or rights management.
If you do your hosting in australia for your code/software, the US companies will probably have a bad time trying to convince the australian courts that access is the same as copyright infringement.
I'm not a lawyer, but i'll be damned if the 'vibe of it' shouldn't be a legal defense.
This decoy notes scheme seems pretty unethical.
If you sell your decoder or encoder the company will, eventually, kick your butt. Getting money involved raises the stakes.
If you distribute a file that is sold by the company, even if it was transformed by a decoder, the company will, eventually, kick your butt. (A recording or sample of how it sounds post-transformation for demonstration purposes would be reasonable.)
If your software requires files that must be paid for in order to function, then it’s critical that you do not bundle those files with your decoder or encoder. That would be piracy.
How your software was made matters. Did you have access to non-public information about anything involved? It seems like the answer is no, so you might be fine. It sounds like you legally obtained a copy of the file, hardware that runs it, and figured out how they work.
What terms of service did you agree to? While not everything listed may hold up in court (which gets determined BY a court IN a court so don’t think that’s an easy win), the company is surely within their rights to ban you from their online service.
If you want some relevant legal advice, check out the GameCube Dolphin emulator and how the team stays legal. I love learning about how stuff works, so I’ve followed lots of console jailbreaking and reverse engineering news for years. There is a way to do this stuff legally. HN is focused more on finance than hacking. So talk to some hackers (who aren’t trying to break the law).
I saw you ask about contacting the company. If this was a blog, I’d love a followup about what they say and do, but alas I’ll probably never see it. (I guess the worst outcome is that they spend more money on making their proprietary stuff more locked down?) Regardless of what they say, their word is not the law. Know the law, know your rights, and know when it’s safe to stick your neck out and when it’s not. I am obviously not a lawyer.
Oh, and which US state you are in and what they are based in will be relevant.
When Fable came back with the decoder, I knew something was off. The decoy notes... even more evidence of wonkiness. Mostly posted it to HN out of disbelief that Fable just hacked my piano and had I blindly pushed it to a public repo, I would likely have broken some law.
Btw, the version I like is performed by Pascal Roge back in the 1970s. The AIs don't quite match his performance, and I keep trying to figure out how to guide them. I don't think his version has a delay between the melody and the chords, while the AIs were both convinced that was desirable. They seem to be lacking some taste in that area, but overall I prefer their version to the one I bought.
Just release the code somewhere, anonymously, it isn't yours anyway.
The thing is, at least in Germany, lawyers are required to carry a liability insurance and in the case th advice ends up being really bad you can hold their insurance accountable.
Because truly the answer boils down to "it depends" and many people will take it many different ways and not be "wrong". Publishing anonymously is a good choice, publishing publically and complying with a removal order is a good choice, not publishing is a good choice.
"Good" here being somewhat sound in that it likely wont cause the person publishing a huge life changing issue.
"Get some small amount of bitcoin and pay a VPS hosting provider in Moldova for a year's service on a $15-per-month equivalent KVM VM and put what you know on there anonymously as static content, then publish the link here."
Not that a sufficiently dedicated nation state federal crime agency or intelligence apparatus probably couldn't trace back to you, but it raises the bar for something like random civil lawsuits from piano companies.
> jumps through a lot of inconvenient hoops to "anonymously" publish code
Something doesn't add up there.
> The dataset contains about 200 hours of paired audio and MIDI recordings from ten years of International Piano-e-Competition. The MIDI data includes key strike velocities and sustain/sostenuto/una corda pedal positions. Audio and MIDI files are aligned with ∼3 ms accuracy and sliced to individual musical pieces, which are annotated with composer, title, and year of performance. Uncompressed audio is of CD quality or higher (44.1–48 kHz 16-bit PCM stereo).
Now its likely soiled and I have to throw it away. Doh! I asked it about legality and it went "its almost green" but when googling, reverse-enginnering like that seems very illegal.
The weird thing is in this case, it could have pretty easily gotten the needed info from using the code as a black box, and that is apparently legal!
Could you explain why you think so?
My task to fable was to take the MIDI and encode it into some proprietary mp3 format. It's still "binary" MIDI encoded in the mp3, it's not simulating the piano and generating waveforms... yet.