Concerning a physical record or tape that's correct. But if you look at the cover versions of songs of the past, it is obvious that there is the desire to reinterpret them, to hear the musical idea of a song in the contemporary cultural context. Thus, "cover protocols" are the reinterpretation and reimplementation of a protocol idea. No one would say, a cover song is an update of the original song. It is a concurrent version, a concurrent implementation of a musical idea and can be understood knowing the original or not. Certainly, music is not software, but if the code is the foundation for software, notes are the foundation for music.