Retailer to judge: I own "psycho-acoustic simulations" of Beatles tracks

So, say you take a copyrighted recording—"Abbey Road" by the Beatles, for instance—run it through your own filtering software that tweaks the audio in some new-fangled, impossible-to-understand way, and create what you call a "new and original" recording. Does that mean that the resulting "new" songs (which sound pretty much like the old songs, apparently) now belong to you?

That's what the founder of BlueBeat.com, the site that was (until recently) selling downloads of Beatles songs for just a quarter a pop, argued in his defense against EMI, which sued the retailer for selling the Fab Four's tunes without authorization.

Ars Technica has the details on the legal defense of BlueBeat.com's Hank Risen, whose argument comes straight from the Twilight Zone. (Hey, at least the guy wins points for creativity.)

Basically, Risen claims that the Beatles tracks he was hawking on BlueBeat.com and Basebeat.com (both now shuttered, by the way) were not the same tracks available in record stores and online; instead, they were "new and original" recordings derived by a process that Risan called "psycho-acoustic simulation," according to Ars Technica.

What is "psycho-acoustic simulation," you ask? Good luck figuring that out. As described by Ars, it's basically some type of filtering process wherein Risen made a copy of the Beatles recording, analyzed the "original sound," and then "synthesized an independent parametric model of the sounds," thus creating "new sounds" in a "new virtual three-dimensional computer-staged environment."

OK then ... so, what's the benefit of "psycho-acoustic simulation," then? That's not entirely clear, although Risen apparently thought that the cryptic process protected him under the same federal law that gives cover versions, live recordings, and new studio recordings of an original song their own distinct copyright status, Ars Technica reports.

Nice try, but the judge—who, as Ars notes, listened to Risen's "new" Beatles tracks and was "unable to detect or discern any meaningful difference" between the original and "simulated" songs—disagreed, and promptly ordered BlueBeat.com and Basebeat.com to go dark, which they did.

Still, I like the whole concept of "psycho-acoustic" simulation. Just think: you could adapt the process for books (you'd buy your copy of "Twilight: Dark Moon," read it, and then independently come up with the same text, but through a separate, entirely new mental process), then moving on to movies (copy a movie, synthesize the scenes and actors in a virtual 3-D studio and re-film it with virtual 3-D cameras, after having mentally simulated the original screenplay), art (might be tricky, given that "original" re-creations of great works of art are typically called "forgeries") ... the possibilities are endless.

Related:
BlueBeat Beatles tracks gone for good after judge's beatdown [Ars Technica]