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A Thorny Problem: When an AI Composes Music

John Martellaro ·

The Verge writes about legal issues when an AI composes music.

The word “human” does not appear at all in US copyright law, and there’s not much existing litigation around the word’s absence. This has created a giant gray area and left AI’s place in copyright unclear. It also means the law doesn’t account for AI’s unique abilities, like its potential to work endlessly and mimic the sound of a specific artist.

Not to mention the question of  who owns the copyright of this new music. Fascinating discussion here.

Podcast

TMO Background Mode Interview with Author and Artist Michael Benson

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Michael Benson works at the intersection of art and science as both a writer and artist. His new book, Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece examines the four year long production of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Michael saw the movie 2001 at age six, and it had a profound influence on his career, especially in his art and science/photography books. We chatted about his book: how Arthur Clarke and Stanley Kubrick met, Kubrick’s view of the best scifi movies of the time, the development of the 2001 script, the depiction of artificial gravity in the legendary centrifuge apparatus, the depiction of aliens, the visual contributions of Douglas Trumbull, and the enduring influence this movie has had on our technology and psyche.

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Microsoft Employee Says Whites, Asians Discriminated Against

Andrew Orr ·

Messages posted by an unknown female Microsoft programmer in internal Yammer boards say that white and Asian men are being discriminated against.

To be clear, I am referring to the fact that senior leadership is awarded more money if they discriminate against Asians and white men. I have an ever-increasing file of white male Microsoft employees who have faced outright and overt discrimination because they had the misfortune of being born both white and male.

Microsoft’s 2018 demographic report shows that 55.1% of employees are Caucasian, 31.9% are Asian, and 73.4% are male. Personally, I think it’s a bit telling if you feel oppressed by more equality and diversity.

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JCPenney Explains Apple Pay Removal

Andrew Orr ·

This morning we heard that JCPenney quietly removed support for Apple Pay from its stores. Now we have a better idea why.

The retailer now claims the move was necessitated by the April 13, 2019 deadline in the U.S. for supporting EMV contactless chip functionality. As of this date, all terminals at U.S. merchants locations that accept contactless payments must actively support EMV contactless chip functionality, and the legacy MSD (magnetic stripe data) contactless technology must be retired. JCPenney was not ready to comply, it seems, so it switched off all contactless payment options as a result. However, it hasn’t ruled out re-enabling them later on, it seems.

TMO Deals

KOBRA Wireless Car Scanner: $14.99

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on the KOBRA Wireless Car Scanner. This device plugs into your car’s on-board diagnostics port to read data on your car’s performance. It then connects with a iOS, Android, or Windows device via Wi-Fi so you can make use of that data. It works on any car made after 1996, and it’s $14.99 through our deal.

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Some Instragram Meme Accounts Want to Unionize

Charlotte Henry ·

Left-wing memes are often very popular on Instagram. They have even made some of the people who share them quite well-off. Now some of those creators want to form a union, according to Vox.

The union, the first major organizing effort for professional meme creators on Instagram, is made up of that latter group, and now has thousands of followers on its official account and an open application process for new members. As Taylor Lorenz notes in the Atlantic, it will probably never be recognized by the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that governs unions, but the organizing drive is still very real: Not only does it use traditional union organizing tactics, but the memers have concrete demands they want Instagram to agree to. And with growing membership, they’ll likely have a bit of leverage.

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The 11 People Trying to Fight Fake News in the Indian Election

Charlotte Henry ·

The Indian election is the world’s largest democratic exercise. There is, unsurprisingly, some concern that it could be undermined by fake news. Bloomberg News met Boom Live, an 11-strong team of fact-checkers that make up 1 of the 7 firms working with Facebook’s efforts.

Based on the early tallies, more than 60 percent of India’s 900 million eligible voters are expected to cast ballots between now and May 19, as the center-left Congress Party tries to seize power from the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party. As in other elections around the world, paid hacks and party zealots are churning out propaganda on Facebook and the company’s WhatsApp messenger, along with Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and other ubiquitous communication channels. Together with Facebook’s automated filters, Boom’s 11 fact-checkers and its similar-size fellow contractors are the front line of the social network’s shield against this sludge.