In a ruling delivered on Pi Day, a judge dismissed a copyright case alleging that one song infringed on another because they were both composed using the digits of pi, writing that "pi is a non-copyrightable fact."

Lars Erickson, composer of the 1992 "Pi Symphony," sued musician Michael John Blake over his piece, "What Pi Sounds Like," which was released on YouTube in honor of Pi Day 2011.

Although both pieces were created by assigning digits to musical notes, U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon ruled that the two were not sufficiently similar to find infringement — "for instance, its harmonies, structure and cadence are all different."

In his decision, the judge also wrote that "Mr. Erickson cannot use his copyright to stop others from employing this particular pattern of musical notes."

[slashdot]