Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?
I have a self-playing piano using a system called PianoDisc Protigy. They sell music files encoded in MP3s with MIDI data in the right channel. I bought a piece by Erik Satie and, out of curiosity, used AI tools like Astra and Fable to analyze and recreate the file. Fable decoded the format, identified obfuscation (decoy notes) that PianoDisc adds, and built both an encoder and a decoder. I'm wondering if I'm legally allowed to publish the decoder or encoder.
You are free to interpret this comment as prohibition or as my blessing, but... If it matters, ask your lawyer. If it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. Or to put it another way, trademarks (you've mentioned two) and copyrights (it's a crapshoot) are complex. And in some jurisdictions (notably the US) anybody can sue anyone for anything. Your risk aversion is yours, not someone else's. Your financial and legal wherewithal is likewise yours.
IANAL, but it might be relevant to others trying to answer what jurisdiction you are in. (US, EU, CN, JP, elsewhere?) Also, 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?
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.
They might object to the existence of the software and demand “its destruction.” Or sue your ass…or file a DCMA takedown with Github. Or all of the above. The best likely outcome is probably “no.” 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.
- Giefo6ah
If you live in the USA, the "decoy notes" may be considered an "effective technical measure" from the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act".
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.
- userbinator
You spent --- what I'd assume would be several k$ from prices found online --- to buy a self-playing piano, and are now asking if you can release the tools to have it play the music of your choosing? IMHO the fact that you even had to think about asking if you could do this is everything that's wrong with society today. IANAL but as long as you aren't releasing something that's copyrighted from the original code, or violating some patent, there shouldn't be anything to worry about.
"It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission", as the saying goes. ;-)
- Scaevolus
Aside: if you want a source of high quality Piano MIDI recordings, you should check out the MAESTRO dataset: https://magenta.withgoogle.com/datasets/maestro
> 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).
- Silasdev
This whole writeup is basically the verbatim prompt recipe for anyone to just whip it up themselves.
Blocking the final result is no longer a real block, when all it requires is a vague prompt to replicate it.
We've entered a strange territory.
- jdlshore
Don’t ask Hacker News for legal advice. If you really want to know the answer, ask a lawyer.
- brudgers
You are free to interpret this comment as prohibition or as my blessing, but...
If it matters, ask your lawyer.
If it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
Or to put it another way, trademarks (you've mentioned two) and copyrights (it's a crapshoot) are complex. And in some jurisdictions (notably the US) anybody can sue anyone for anything.
Your risk aversion is yours, not someone else's. Your financial and legal wherewithal is likewise yours.
- ben_w
> I gave the mp3 to Fable, which promptly decoded the format, identifying the right channel carrying MIDI using a 2004.5 Hz square wave.
Wow. Abuse of format like this is always funny to see.
- arjie
The nature of these tools is that your post and the device should suffice to replicate so in some sense you have already published the encoder and the decoder.