I’ve always enjoyed taking advantage of the sensible opportunities to integrate music with other disciplines. Having studied mathematics in university I was especially excited to celebrate Pi Day with some of my music students this year. We had been working on an extensive composition project involving twelve tone music and thanks to the engaging video posted by Michael Blake, What Pi Sounds Like, I was able to share with my students not only a connection between math and music, but also another example of a “row” – in this case not a twelve tone row, but a “Pi Row.” We compared and contrasted the two types of compositions and agreed one similarity between the two methods of composition was that they each used a row (an order of notes) to generate a melody. It is common that musical pitches be assigned a number compared to the position that they hold in a scale. (C -1, D-2, E-3, F-4, G-5, etc) and it is exactly on this age-long tradition that the Blake’s pi composition was built. I even went as far as to challenge them to make their own pi composition.
So where’s the trouble you ask? Two days after watching the video with my class, many of the students tried to finish their assignment and needed to watch the video again. To my embarrassment this was the reason why they could not:
I could not believe that after spending a unit showing my students how to use CC licensed images in their video projects, I had pulled up a video that was taken down off of you tube. And to top matters not only had I shared it with them, I challenged them to do a similarly motivated project. In my defense, it also happens that I wasn’t the only one who ended up with “pi on my face” over this situation. In honor of Pi Day, Michael Blake’s work had been featured all over news networks including CNN , music sites like National Public Radio and tech blogs like Geek Dad. His video is all over the internet, posted as Facebook links and featured in many video collections including Yahoo Video all over the world.
I never would have guessed there could be such a scrooge for… Pi Day? It turns out that Lars Erickson the composer of Pi Symphony believes that Michael Blake broke copyright by composing a work that also used a melody based on the pi number series. He filed a copyright infringement claim and consequently You Tube has pulled down his video. Michael has claimed a counter-suit.
The copyright suit has turned into a huge “pi fight” all over the internet. Most seem to agree that is part of a public domain and no one has the right to claim copyright over it when related to music. Some do argue that the idea to compose a pi composition based on the pi series of numbers, should be something that Lars can claim copyright over, but as National Public Radio posted on its site other musicians have already made their own pi compositions:Clarification March 22, 2011
Several musicians through the years have put pi to music. An earlier version of this story included the YouTube video of Michael John Blake’s piece, but the video was removed by YouTube because of a copyright claim by Lars Erickson.
And those other pi compositions are all over the internet. Pi songs, pi interpretations and pi rants. This one interprets pi but only up to 2 decimal points.
And then I consider Ralph Graves posting on the Chamber Musician Today site, and my students and I agree. Using a series of notes is not something new or something that should be subject to copyright. As we determined in our compare and contrast work in class, there are all sorts of musical forms, rhythms, timbre and other musical elements that can be used to manipulate a series of notes and this is what composers have done for centuries. A scale is a series of notes, just as pi can be used to determine a series of notes. A composer needs to make musical decisions as to what to do with those notes and very clearly Lars Erickson and Michael Blake have chosen very different options in composing their pi: in Lars’ case his composition is a multi-movement symphony and in Michael’s case a two and half minute canon involving the series of pi.
But don’t feel too badly for Michael Blake. Although this case brings on extra work and financial cost for his defense, since the pi fight began, he has been selling up plenty of pi on iTunes (the link to his piece.) Ninety-nine cents a piece of pi…how could one go wrong! If you prefer symphonies you can purchase the Pi Symphony from Lars Erickson’s site for $15. Until recently it was not available online, but just recently (with a lot of searching) a few movements are available for free download on MP3Rocket. I wonder who made more money selling pi so far?
Recently Lars Erickson has received many comments on his Explanation of Pi Symphony You Tube posting. He doesn’t reply to many of the comments, but the one below makes me wonder if he is backing off in his copyright endeavor over pi.
Don’t worry, it is an interesting question for this digital age. I am not out to stifle others’ creativity at all. I am really hoping to work with Michael Blake in the future.
I would be surprised to see Michael Blake taking on any collaborative projects with Lars Erickson any time soon but agree that the question is an interesting one for this digital age. And in my mind a question that really has a simple answer… copyrighting the melodic sequence of pi completely stifles others’ creativity. The case has been an interesting one for me and my students and one that only helps in deepening our understanding regarding the limitations copyright imposes on a society that presumes itself to be innovative. I hope we can do better next time!
4 comments
Jeff Utecht
April 4, 2011 at 12:42 pm (UTC 0)
WOW…I didn’t have any idea all this was going on aroudn Pi Day. Crazy…and just goes to show where we’re at with Creative Commons, Copyright, and the web. Crazy days ahead for sure.
Billy Wenge-Murphy
April 9, 2011 at 11:39 pm (UTC 0)
You should feel bad for Michael because Lars is now trying to steal all of those profits from him. Although removing his video was unjust and it censored his free speech at a critical time, at least it didn’t directly take money out of his pocket, and, as you said, it may have HELPED drive sales. But, since Michael had his video restored thanks to a DMCA counter-claim, Lars Erickson has moved onto the next step: filing a lawsuit.
Look up “Erickson v Blake”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/52454324/Erickson-v-Blake
“This is a case of copyright infringement against Defendant Michael John
Blake. The suit seeks actual damages, plus disgorgement of Defendant’s profits, and
statutory damages as well as the recovery of Plaintiff s expenses and reasonable attorneys’ fees.
Plaintiff also requests additional relief in the form of an injunction preventing
Defendant from engaging in further infringing acts.”
Nyoli Connor
April 22, 2011 at 11:56 pm (UTC 0)
I also did not know all this was going on. My math team students instead spent pi day working on the pi day challenge (http://www.pidaychallenge.com/). The captain of the math team mentioned that a Science test did not go as well as it should have because of the time spent solving the pi day challenge math questions. Isn’t it fabulous what you can do with math and music? Last summer I attended the Anja S. Greer Conference on Mathematics, Science, and Technology at Exeter. During one of my sessions with Larry Ottman, we studied a subway stop in Toronto that had been decorated by turning pi into colors. Arlene Stamp was the artist and you can see her subway work (http://mathtourist.blogspot.com/2010/06/sliding-pi-in-toronto.html) here. We even created our own small version of the artist’s work. The design she employed was actually very involved but effective. In the same course was a musician who wrote a song based on the numbers of pi to go with our pi designed art. I guess he would also be in trouble. What a shame when the fabulous topics of Math, Music and Art and the creative processes get sidetracked by these other issues.
Magnus Holmgren
September 6, 2011 at 6:08 pm (UTC 0)
Lars and his lawyers aren’t completely incompetent. They’re not saying that Michael infringes merely by writing a song based on the digits of pi (mapping 1 = C, 2 = D etc.). That would have allowed the case to be dismissed for failure to state a claim, if I understand that part of the US legal system correctly. They’re alleging that the Michael’s tune is so similar to the Pi Symphony that he probably has listened to it and copied it. How they think anyone could come to that ridiculous conclusion is yet to be seen as the case has only just recently been transferred from Nebraska to Portland.