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Importantly, it also plays Weather Channel-esque background music.


Thanks for mentioning that, had me digging around for where I can find the music. The youtube link lead me to the project's hackaday log, which is extremely detailed but lacks any mention of music [0]

The submission link's github page [1] links to a website listing all the tracks that ever played [2], explaining they dropped the music from the project so as not to deal with copyright claims. too bad fair use isn't clear enough to apply here, I think its a relatively transformative use and doesn't compete with the original.

[0] https://hackaday.io/project/178144-reverse-engineering-the-w...

[1] https://github.com/netbymatt/ws4kp

[2] https://twcclassics.com/audio/artists.html


why would fair use be at play here? TWC would have paid a license fee through ASCAP or whomever for the rights to broadcast that music. They didn't just download a bunch of mp3 files from Napster and try to disrupt broadcasting.


You're right, of course. I guess I just put a lot of weight on the charm of keeping old things running, and think there's value to the public in allowing free use of music, particularly for non-commercial/educational purposes.


Not sure if you are aware but the weather Channel sold music CDs I have one.




They would have had it custom commissioned so they didn't have to pay royalties.


> Importantly, it also plays Weather Channel-esque background music.

Which has its own sort of funny subculture. One is Phish fans unexpectedly hearing what was decidedly not publicly common music being aired on the Weather Channel: https://jambands.com/features/2002/07/24/guyute-and-your-loc...

Fast forward 20ish years and a similar thing happened with Fox Sports interludes: https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/12/17/fox-producer-who-got-the-n...




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