Intellectual Property Law

John Cage Lives

By Frank Pasquale

If you like aleatory music, you’ll love the new iPhone app RjDj:

The application includes a set of entrancing songs that go on forever, using the iPhone?s internal microphone to ?listen? to the noises and voices heard in your proximity to dynamically create music.

I earlier blogged about this type of unexpected fixation of sound in the context of overheard conversations; I wonder if this raises any new copyright issues. It’s certainly more transformative than “Overheard in New York.”

The RjDj app reminds me a bit of Thich Nhat Hanh’s advice to approach both “garbage and flowers” with equanimity. It promises to turn even the most annoying loudmouth on the sidewalk into an instrument in an electronica symphony. I’m hoping it will be more popular than bubble wrap and less. . . er. . . edifying apps.

Sample song below the fold . . . .

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Full post as published by Madisonian.net on December 30, 2008 (boomark / email).