Entries Tagged 'the band' ↓

This shit just got serious. Now the DOJ wants a piece of breadpig. If you’re not familiar with the breadpig band, educate yourself and return to this post – we won’t hold it against you.

A breadpig ally at Harmonix (they make our instruments) named Matt kindly brought this to our attention in early March. We would have brought this to your attention sooner, breadpig loyalists, but we needed our legal experts to analyze this before we proceeded. This ruling makes “the Court” seem rather out of touch — as if they hadn’t downloaded our debut album When Will Then Be Now? from iTunes. Maybe they’re the one who gave us a 2-star review (our only one in a parade of 5-star glory).

Here’s a blurb. Read the entire damning PDF:

It is clear to any reasonable reader that the patent term “musical sounds” has a narrower meaning than that proposed by Gibson’s expert. Electric guitars and acoustic guitars are capable of producing some variety of sounds that are distinguishable, without additional processing, to the naked human ear. Gibson’s own expert admits that this is an important feature. Gibson’s expert also states that musical sounds have identifiable qualities such as “timbre” and “pitch.” Indeed, Gibson’s expert discusses at length various characteristics that “musical sounds” might have. Freeman Depo. at 31-40.

Gibson concedes that the guitar-shaped controller does not literally produce “musical sounds.” Gibson must concede the point because, for example and without limitation, the clacking of buttons as they are struck are (1) insufficiently varied or distinct; and (2) no reasonable person could say that any musical sounds heard during standard operation of a Guitar Hero controller come from the controller itself. Cf. Cl. Const. at 11 n.11 (discussing a hypothetical stereo button). Gibson’s concession on this point, however, is in tension with Gibson’s position on the drum-shaped controller. Gibson contends that the surfaces of the drum-shaped controller produce “musical sounds” even though they create, at most, thuds little more distinct than those one could produce by tapping a pen on a table. Summ. J. Hearing Tr. at 45:9-46:16, 56:22-57:6; Freeman Depo. at 40:15-41:10. There is no principled distinction between the clacking of a button and the dull thud produced when a plastic or rubberized drum-shaped controller is struck. True, striking a table or drum-shaped controller at different locations will produce somewhat different sound waves because the vibrations will differ based on where on the controller’s surface the force originates. True also, the degree of force should have some effect on the surface’s vibrations. But the same holds for striking a button at one position on a controller’s handle versus a button at another position; and for striking the same button at different velocities.

From the foregoing, the Court concludes that musical sounds must have more articulable characteristics than a button’s clack or the thud produced from striking a table, piece of rubber, or piece of plastic. A musical instrument must be capable of making, without additional processing, some variety of distinct sounds that can be sensibly described as having some or all the characteristics Gibson’s own expert discusses in his deposition. The Court observes, but does not conclude, that musical sounds may not need to be as complex as those the ’405 Patent’s only examples—guitars—and that musical sounds may not need have every characteristic discussed by Gibson’s expert, such as “timbre” and “pitch.” There is no reasonable dispute of material fact that Guitar Hero controllers do not themselves make musical sounds within the meaning of the patent. In fact, Gibson concedes literal noninfringement on the guitar-shaped controller. Even the recordings submitted by Gibson—where a player seems to exert some effort to strike the drum-shaped controller at different velocities such that the volume will correspond to features of the music the game console plays—cannot be musical sounds within the meaning of the patent. Vosburg Exh. 4.

Surprisingly, the breadpig was slow to report on this one. This is not a poor reflection of the breadpig, rather, a demonstration that we, his mortal army, are indeed fallible. As we strive to be more like the breadpig, enjoy this tweet from fellow breadpigger, Chrysaora, who witnessed the students of Harvard University “pulling a breadpig” in Harvard Yard.

Proof that our art can inspire even the brightest and among the highest tuition-paying students in the world. The breadpig band has arrived. And thanks to breadpig ally, Jeff Atwood, combined with an upcoming reunion show in Las Vegas, we’re expecting quite the breadpig band renaissance.

Breadpig is always looking to report on the next great innovation in the world of Rock Band (or am I thinking of Guitar Hero?). When we got word of the ultimate vocalist battlestation, we knew it wouldn’t be long before it was getting blogged.

Oh, and it gets better. The creator of the ultimate vocalist battlestation, Jeff Atwood, also does custom guitar faceplates. Not real guitars, mind you — really awesome ones (the plastic-button-kind). The breadpig is going to commission a custom breadpig faceplate for the band to sign and then auction it on eBay. We’ll donate all the profits to Child’s Play.

The band went through a tumultuous year of ups and downs. Critics will debate this for years to come, but we believe our zenith was somewhere around our appearance on SpikeTV. We followed that studio performance with some shows in the city — back with the people, our fans.

Just a month earlier, the band had broken up. But there we were, back in top form, rocking out. And here are the pictures to prove it, taken by our band manager/PR guru and photographer, Mike Scrivener.

Lisa Kawata knows it. And now our band’s hometown, Howard County (well, the county our hometown is in), now knows it, too. The breadpig rocks. Our “PR Guru” (not sarcasm-quotes, I’m quoting the following article) Mike Scrivener, scored us an article in the recent issue of Howard Magazine. Way to make HoCo. proud, guys.

Not only was the band doing studio work in NY, we also had a live gig. This time, a full camera crew from GameplayHD came out to document the rock.

Once you’ve arrived at Nikki the Knife’s page click on part II if you want to jump to the breadpig magic. He’s Gameplay HD’s “sharpest tool.”

There’s still 40minutes of our own footage that Jacob (of breadpig) videotaped, but it’s in need of some editing. Have no fear, the breadpig will have this matter resolved soon.

A LOLmagnetz shoutout on LiveJournal degenerated into a discussion worthy of the ages. It was pitched as a gift for Death, apparently.

LOLMagnetz. You know. If you have a fridge. I imagine you don’t eat much.

I wonder if Death has a sense of humor.

Bret, social games guru and friend/drinking-buddy of breadpig, gave the band some love on his recent entry: The Rock Band Effect and the Historical Value of Musical Performance

And while you’re rethinking the entire music industry, check out Popcuts — yes, breadpig is one of their featured bands.

And it was on the stackoverflow podcast of all places!

Give the episode a listen and if you’re feeling lazy, skip ahead to around 13minutes in. Then be sure to check out Stackoverflow if you consider yourself any kind of developer. Even I can appreciate its coolness.

Steve and I would love to be on the podcast, Joel (and Jeff). The breadpig is not afraid of interviews, I’ll do my best to represent the breaded swine with honor and dignity.

After the Internet Superstar appearance, the breadpig band had a nice renaissance. To that point, breadpig salutes all of the new converts and thanks you for all the shirt orders.

Spintown showed some love, but I should correct a comment he made:

This video was made by one of the creators of Reddit.com. I think it’s the only band I’m talented enough to play with.

You think it just anybody has the talent to play in breadpig? You’ve got another thing coming. Between the three of us in the band, we’ve got a combined 39 years of musical education at top tier conservatories acoss the globe.

Not to be outdone, LOLmagnetz got some love. Minor face-lift coming this week!

In classic Twitter-fashion, lucindamichele instructs:

OMG must have LOLMAGNETS

It’s best not to fight it, lucindamichele. Embrace its magnetic goodness like a sack of iron filings.

And Gigababy returned the Internet high-five from breadpig.

Mike will have a big upload to his Flickr account when he gets back from some well-earned R&R in Egypt, but for now, you’ll have to settle for this single still — perhaps the best group live shot of the band yet. Adam did a really great (albeit thankless) job as security for this tour. We know New York can get out of control. (click on image for tasty hi-res goodness)

N’Gai Croal, proud ally of breadpig, snapped some pictures of us at SpikeTV. We spent almost as much time tuning and setting up as we did rocking out.

But when it came time to shock and awe, as Brian demonstrates, we were ready.