Posted by jmpman 1 day ago
Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?
I then asked Fable to compare it to the open source version I'd downloaded from Mutopia, which it promptly ripped apart. No sustain, zero rubato, upside down balance.
Ok, what about the version I'd just bought?
The PianoDisc versions are mp3s encoded with the right channel carrying MIDI to be played on the piano, and the left channel containing any accompanying music to be played through attached speakers (who doesn't want the harmonica on Piano Man?)
I gave the mp3 to Fable, which promptly decoded the format, identifying the right channel carrying MIDI using a 2004.5 Hz square wave.
It then went on to analyze the nuance of pedal lift and melody relative to the chords.
Fable then asked if I wanted it to build an encoder to write my own MIDI files into the right channel of mp3s.
Sounds great, and I instructed it to write the encoder.
What it came back with was a python encoder PLUS a decoder.
In the verbose explanation, it mentioned decoy notes.
Curious, I asked it to explain the decoy notes.
Apparently PianoDisc adds obfuscation into their format which is handled properly by their decoder, but would leave naively extracted MIDI unplayable on other systems.
Fable created an encoder which adds those decoy notes, and a decoder which removes them.
Am I allowed to publish the decoder? The encoder?
On a serious note: reverse engineering is legal in australia, even for DMCA violations.
I was under the impression thr prescedant was:
Data Access Corporation v Powerflex Services Pty Ltd (1999), alongside specific provisions in the Copyright Act 1968.
The australian DMCA is called the TPM, it's more aimed at Bypassing, decrypt, or circumvent a digital lock or DRM (Digital Rights Management) protecting copyrighted material.
I do not think that phantom notes are encryption or rights management.
If you do your hosting in australia for your code/software, the US companies will probably have a bad time trying to convince the australian courts that access is the same as copyright infringement.
I'm not a lawyer, but i'll be damned if the 'vibe of it' shouldn't be a legal defense.
I won't enumerate those details here.
The AI provider may also have account, payment, IP and conversation records connecting the generated code to you. An unrelated GitHub account and disposable email would therefore provide only superficial pseudonymity, not meaningful anonymity.
If attribution would create a material legal risk, I would assume the project is already attributable. A civil plaintiff could potentially seek records through discovery, and law enforcement could use the appropriate legal process. Getting actual legal advice before publishing seems safer than trying to anonymize it after posting this thread.
fwiw you can reach support/dang on the email on the footer if you need help w your personal account/data/on the site
For example, remove all code from your training data, and then see if the model can code regardless.
> For example, remove all code from your training data, and then see if the model can code regardless.
Would you accept this weaker version: make up a new programming language (that's guaranteed not to be in the training set), and see if the model (which has trained on programming in existing languages) can cope?