Copyright: your number's up
By FERGUS SHIEL / The Age (Melbourne)
Thursday 4 October 2001
Listen up, they've got your number. Australian composers Nigel
Helyer, aka Dr Sonique, and Jon Drummond have copyrighted
100,000,000,000 telephone tone sequences.
You might not know it but every time you dial a number, you play a
short melody.
With the aid of a computer, Helyer and Drummond have notated the
tones of every imaginable phone number combination and, in turn,
claimed the melodies as their own. Next time you make a phone call,
therefore, chances are you'll be in breach of international copyright
law.
If business can claim ownership over the elemental building blocks
of human life, the composers say it's only fitting that artists lay
claim to the "DNA" of business and are paid for it.
"We're saying to (big business), 'Okay guys, the boot is on the other
foot. If you really believe in copyright, you've got to pay'," Helyer
says.
"I think Mr Howard will be high on the list. Universities. Lots of
corporations. We'll go for it."
The composers say their "Magnus-Opus" is a playful way of lampooning
copyright laws that protect big business rather than artists.
You can check your home, work, mobile, fax or modem number against
their compositional database by logging on to www.magnus-opus.com.
If your number is matched, the melody will be played, the notes scored
and a direction given to complete the licence agreement supplied
online as soon as possible.
Helyer and Drummond, who've only just launched the website, say
they've had one offer of payment already. "An American guy tired of
direct sales people calling him has told us he'd like to purchase
the copyright for his number so that he can stop them," Helyer says.
The website explains in greater detail how the composers went about their
creation by throwing 16 tone pairs into an algorithmic generation to
produce countless melodies.
"The whole telecommunications system is entirely musicalised," Helyer says.
("Magnus-Opus" will be installed at the Adelaide Festival of the Arts next
year.)
Janos Gereben/SF
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