Frequently Asked Questions
Here we answer all the frequently asked questions.
Who owns the copyright of the music generated by Opus+ ?
All things being equal, you own the copyright of any music generated by Opus+ on your own machine, but our license agreement requires that you indicate that Opus+ was used to compose all or part of the piece, wherever it is performed or appears in a public context. Obviously if you generate a very popular piece of music, and make a lot of money, we would appreciate a contribution to our on-going research efforts!
Who owns the copyright if Opus+ by chance generates a composition already written by another person?
This is theoretically possible, but incredibly unlikely. We do not profess expertise in copyright law, but we would expect that the prior copyright takes precedence. This means that the person who first composed the piece owns it's copyright. Opus+ automatically creates a digital signature which is unique and time-stamped to the nearest millisecond, with every output file, so even if two Opus+ owners generate an identical piece of music, it's still possible to prove which was generated first (assuming any sync-differences between the clocks of the computers used is accounted for).
Why is the MIDI produced so awful?
The main effort in the first version is to produce musical scores, with a view to the music being performed by human musicians. This is simply because the effort required to generate scores is far less, than that required to create MIDI performances, because a composition contains less information than a performance. At Opus+ we are also biased in our musical tastes towards music, skilfully performed by real musicians, on real instruments, rather than synthesized music!
However, as this project has progressed we have realized there are some really interesting ideas in the area of 'impossible compositions', music which is just too difficult for humans to play themselves. Such compositions would require some form of MIDI representation in order to be heard at all, and in these cases the score is of secondary importance. Now it is also possible to import the raw MIDI produced by Opus+ directly into music studio software such as Apple Logic Studio Pro 8 or Garage Band . Simple rough mixes consisting of little more than, selecting MIDI voices for each instrument, setting the relative volume between each instrument, adding a little reverb to each track and panning the instruments across the stereo image, have a remarkable effect, and really bring the composition to life.
When the composition module of Opus+ is completed, it is our intention to continue research into the relationship between composition, performance and production and further improve the quality of the MIDI produced. In theory it should be possible to take a composition and produce a synthesized performance that can pass as a real, live rendition. But this is still in the future, and in the meantime, other researchers may advance technology in this direction, so we have less work to do.
Why was Java used as the implementation language?
Java was chosen because it is a very easy programming language, but at the same time very powerful with extensive libraries that cover every eventuality. This meant that whatever feature might be necessary for Opus+ in future, we judged that it would be possible from within the Java language, without recourse to other technologies. Also, Java is used a great deal at university under-graduate level and by schools, and we wanted to provide a useful programming library for this innovative user base. We also judged that, unlike C++, learning Java was much more likely to be something students of composition would either know, or be prepared to learn.
Java is owned by the Sun Corporation, so it's not actually a public standard, but they develop the language through a public consultation process which is as near to non-proprietary public standard as possible. At one stage Java was to be standardized but Sun decided against this because of the nefarious activities of Microsoft which aimed to sabotage the Java standard and platform in various ways, using anti-competitive strategies, in order to reassert their control over the programming language market for their own profit. Sun aborted the standardization progress to protect the Java standard from Microsoft. So its as near a public standard as possible, and it is freely available.
Other considerations are platform independence and execution speed. Java can run on nearly any platform, from Intel PCs, Macintosh and Linux through to Solaris, HP - in fact anywhere that Opus+ is likely to be installed. In terms of speed and scalability Java was ideal for a stand-alone single user application like Opus+. We test the performance of Opus+ at every stage of development and it is really fast.
How fast/scalable is Opus+?
It takes about two-and-a-half minutes to generate 250,000 bars of piano music. This gives a rate of around 100,000 bars a minute, or in excess of 1,600 bars a second!
Played at a rate of 80 beats-per-minute, this gives: 80/4 = 20 bars per minute, or 1,200 bars per hour, or 28,800 bars per 24 hour day. The total duration of this musical piece would be 8 days, 16 hours and 19 minutes of continuous playing!