Music Law: Copyright Law

This book has been written to explain the copyright system to non-legal specialists and to show why copyright issues are so fascinating and so important. Copyright is analyzed as a matter of philosophy and economics as well as law. It is approached from the contrasting perspectives of composers, performers, producers and bootleggers. Copyright law is seen to be central to the relationship between the global entertainment industry and local musical practices. The questions raised here are not just about music. They concern the very meaning of intellectual property rights in the context of rapid global and technological change.

Chris Anderson's initial `Long Tail' analysis was released in 2004 just as the wave of mergers and acquisitions was sweeping the music publishing and radio industries. Music industry executives began looking for Anderson's 'Long Tail' effect and with it the implied redistribution of royalty income from popular songs to long dormant and forgotten works in their catalogs. These music publishers had hoped to further maximize the value of their copyright assets (lyrics and melody) in their existing music catalogs as the sale of compact disks diminished, and consumers switched their purchasing and listening habits to new digital formats in music technology such as the iPod. This book deals with the measurement of skewness, heavy tails and asymmetry in performance royalty income data in the music industry, an area that has received very little academic attention for various reasons.

Copyright specialists have often focused on the exploitation of copyright of music and on infringement, but not on the question of how copyright conceptualises music. This highly topical volume brings together specialists in music, musicology and copyright law, providing a genuinely interdisciplinary research approach. It compares and contrasts the concepts of copyright law with those of music and musical performance. Several tensions emerge between the ideas of music as a living art and of the musical work as a basis for copyright protection. The expert contributors discuss the notions of the musical work, performance, originality, authorship in music and in copyright, and co-ownership from the disciplinary perspectives of music, musicology and copyright law. The book also examines the role of the Musicians' Union in the evolution of performers' rights in UK copyright law, and, in an empirical study, the transaction costs theory for notice-and-takedown regimes in relation to songs uploaded on YouTube. This unique study offers an interdisciplinary perspective for academics, policymakers and legal practitioners seeking a state-of-the-art understanding of music and copyright law.

With the free-form exchange of music files and musical ideas online, understanding copyright laws has become essential to career success in the new music marketplace. This cutting-edge, plain-language guide shows you how copyright law drives the contemporary music industry. By looking at the law and its recent history, you will understand the new issues introduced by the digital age, as well as continuing issues of traditional copyright law. Whether you are an artist, lawyer, entertainment Web site administrator, record label executive, student, or other participant in the music industry, this book will help you understand how copyright law affects you, helping you use the law to your benefit.

Democracy of Sound is the first book to examine music piracy in the United States from the dawn of sound recording to the rise of Napster and online file-sharing. It asks why Americans stopped thinking of copyright as a monopoly - a kind of necessary evil-and came to see intellectual propertyas sacrosanct and necessary for the prosperity of an "information economy." Recordings only became eligible for federal copyright in 1972, following years of struggle between pirates, musicians, songwriters, broadcasters, and record companies over the right to own sound. Beginning in the 1890s, the book follows the competing visions of Americans who proposed ways to keep obscure and noncommercial music in circulation, preserve out-of-print recordings from extinction, or simply make records more freely and cheaply available. Democracy of Sound is a colorful story of people making law, resisting law, and imagining how law might shape the futureof music, from the Victrola and pianola to iTunes and BitTorrent.

Is music property? Under what circumstances can music be stolen? Such questions lie at the heart of Joanna Demers's timely look at how overzealous intellectual property (IP) litigation both stifles and stimulates musical creativity. A musicologist, industry consultant, and musician, Demers dissects works that have brought IP issues into the mainstream culture, such as DJ Danger Mouse's "Grey Album" and Mike Batt's homage-gone-wrong to John Cage's silent composition "4'33." Demers also discusses such artists as Ice Cube, DJ Spooky, and John Oswald, whose creativity is sparked by their defiant circumvention of licensing and copyright issues.

How did the Depression-era folk-song collector Alan Lomax end up with a songwriting credit on Jay-Z's song "Takeover"? Why doesn't Clyde Stubblefield, the primary drummer on James Brown recordings from the late 1960s such as "Funky Drummer" and "Cold Sweat," get paid for other musicians' frequent use of the beats he performed on those songs? The music industry's approach to digital sampling--the act of incorporating snippets of existing recordings into new ones--holds the answers. Exploring the complexities and contradictions in how samples are licensed, Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola interviewed more than 100 musicians, managers, lawyers, industry professionals, journalists, and scholars. Based on those interviews, Creative License puts digital sampling into historical, cultural, and legal context.

Beginning with history of music copyright from its origins to the present, Music & Copyright in America explores the music industry through a legal lens. This in-depth, intriguing, and beautifully written book provides a practical overview of music rights and licensing as well as insights into its evolving future. Timely and absorbing, author Kevin Parks provides invaluable perspective, context, and clarity amidst the chaos and challenges of today's music business while offering considered insights into how the business may evolve in the future. In this book, he explores the history of the music business in the United States, with a focus on earlier watershed moments when technology threatened existing industry practices yet created larger, long-term opportunities. The author explains the fundamentals of music copyright for both songs and recordings and describes how these intellectual property assets are translated into the different licensing schemes that form the engine and lifeblood of the music business. This book untangles and clarifies the various judicial, legislative, and cultural developments that are dramatically changing both the music industry and the legal landscape.

The highly topical area of copyright law, as applied to music, is widely misunderstood by lawyers, business people, and - perhaps most seriously - the federal judiciary. More than ever, there is a need to understand music infringement issues within the context of copyright litigation. In Music and Copyright, Ron Rosen provides readers with a practical and strategic roadmap to the music-infringement litigation process, beginning with the client's claim or defense and continuing through the selection and use of trial experts, discovery, motion practice, and trial.