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A comment on Musicians algorithmically generate melodies, release them to public domain. Parent comment

Re:Musicians algorithmically generate melodies, release them... by Jwarder on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @03:38PM (#22417171)
I read an article (>10 years ago so sadly I don't recall the title) about how computer science people see data differently from law people. Computers know nothing about the intent of data, it is only bits. The law (nominally) tries to figure out intent behind the data. It is possible to encode any data so it looks like a random stream of numbers; the law doesn't care what you did to the data, just if you intend to use that data to do something illegal. The user's intent colors the data.
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Re:Musicians algorithmically generate melodies, release them... by Tyr42 on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @03:42PM (#22417213)
https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 Colour of your bits.
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Re:Musicians algorithmically generate melodies, release them... by wrs on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @04:42PM (#22417797)
Books are just arrangements of ink molecules on paper. You can't have a copyright on ink molecules, right? They're just a natural phenomenon.

Obviously that's silly — the thing with copyright is not the literal arrangement of ink molecules, it's the work represented by the arrangement.

Similarly, bits are math, but a specific arrangement of bits can represent a work with copyright.

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