Copyright Law And The Music Industry : Beyond Blurred Lines

Is important for anyone who has created any intellectual property to protect it. In the music industry, in order for someone to protect their work, they must obtain a copyright. Music has been around before anyone could obtain a copyright and when the invention of the computer came along it made it easier for someone to steal another artist's intellectual property with the help of the internet. This paper will cover what events have taken a big role in copyright protection for artist, the consequences if someone was to break the rules of a copyright which is called copyright infringement, and how will a copyright hold in the future. Were copyrights enacted without the thought of life changing technology, and how can some music companies

In this essay, you will read about an artist in the name of Robert Matthew Van Winkle, known professionally as Vanilla Ice who became famous for a while, not because of his talent, but because of the copyright of someone else baseline. He thought changing the rhythm of David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” baseline and not giving him credit would avoid him from any questions. In this essay I will provide you my opinion of Vanilla Ice’s song “Ice, Ice, Baby”as an example of plagiarism, with evidence provided of what he did wrong, and what he could have caused.

There are claims made suggesting that copyright is a direct violation of our freedom of speech. Within the general foundation of protection and enjoyment of those protections, rest limitations, because of the real connection between authorization and copyright law. The goal of research is to investigate and unearth specific facts about the history of intellectual property in relation to old and contemporary court cases. The M. Whitmark & Sons v. Pastime Amusement Decree states that copyright is an indivisible and cannot be split up and partially assigned, as to time, place, rights and privileges (298 F. 470, 1924). Does this case contradict the Digital Millennium Act? Are the copyright rules in violation of any rights concerning our right to free speech? If so, how are those rights violated? The Statute of Anne in eighteenth century Europe, was set up to prevent the unauthorized composition of works that had

With technology growing more and more each day, it is no surprise that the music industry is transitioning to rely more and more on online sales. However, problems can arise from this when artists are taken advantage of by people who illegally download their music off of the internet for free. When one college radio host publically stated that she illegally downloaded her music, a professor by the name of David Lowery saw a problem with this and decided to speak up about it. He wrote a letter addressed to the college radio host, Emily, called “Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered”. With this, he also addresses the general public and calls them to make a change in their music buying, or lack thereof, habits. He explains that illegally downloading music is not a harmless task and we must understand the effects that it has on the artists as well as the music industry as a whole. While Lowery has strong uses of ethos, logos, and pathos, his conversational and

During the mid-1790’s the Constitution had enact a law for a system of copyright for United States of America but actually for United Kingdom or Britain that intellectual property law became a statute in the early 1700’s also known as, “The Statue of Anne”(Feather, 19). However, for England the book was published by an “approved” printer which did

The case I chose to write about is Pharrell Williams hit 2014 "Happy". The song was released in 2013 and has accumulated over 46 million views on YouTube since then and has won various awards and nominations as well as appearing in the popular animated movie Despicable Me 2. Although the case as of now has not been taken to court, the track’s rhythm sounds oddly familiar to a song written by Marvin Gaye in 1965 titled “Ain’t That Peculiar”. The family of Gaye has had previous issues with Pharrell and other popular artist plagiarizing as well. In 2013 the family sued artist Robin Thicke and Williams for their song “Blurred Lines” on the grounds of copyright infringement for sounding almost exactly like Gaye’s song “Got To Give It Up”. Early

Over the past fifty years, the British Music Publishing industry has undergone dramatic changes. It has evolved as an entity with innovations in technology, changes and creations of laws and new mediums to promote and exploit songs to a wider audience. Therefore, the way in which the music publishing industry operates and exploits its assets has completely transformed, and continues to do so at a rapid pace. This paper will attempt to explore the ways in which publishers exploit song copyrights and the way in which this has changed over the past 60 years. It is important to define what is meant by copyright and its role within the industry. The Performing Right Society website states: “Copyright

Music Copyright is a very important aspect of the music industry. The Copyright law was established to preserve the creativity and rights of authors, composers, performers of expression. Copyright is the law that protects the property rights of the creator of an original work in a fixed tangible medium. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/copyright) A fixed tangible medium is something substantial like copying lyrics on paper or putting a song on tape or CD. Copyright can be seen every where in the music industry. Many music artist of our culture today have been involved in copyright issues. Recently, on MTV news it was stated that, "As the music industry becomes increasingly concerned about protecting the

Starting in the year 1999, a company called Napster opened up a whole new world to the Internet where every song ever made was instantly available to you on your computer for free. It was created by an 18-year-old Northeastern University student named Shawn Fanning. Napster transformed personal computers into servers that shared mp3 files all across the Internet (Mayer, 2008). It became popular very quickly because exchanging mp3 files freely and having any music desired right at your fingertips had never been possible before. However, this program that provided the privilege of having free instant music to download did not last long, it was shut down after just two years by

Music industry lawyers are the legal representation that resolves conflict in many realms of the music industry. As consultants for the music industry, music industry lawyers advocate for the rights of musicians and record labels. This legal representation is generally called to convey legal advice to support musicians and record labels. Merchandising and touring are also areas that music industry lawyers specialize in. These professionals are often contacted to negotiate contracts between record labels and musicians; thus resulting in the need for strong communication skills.

The production has prepaced a report on topic, Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke to pay $7.4m to Marvin Gaye's family over Blurred Lines. This topic related about music copyright infringement, for those who are interested in topic Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke to pay $7.4m to Marvin Gaye's family over Blurred Lines, to communicate on this report

The issues that will be slugged out in federal district court in San Francisco sound a little too pop culture to be all that serious. How many music CDs are people buying these days in record stores throughout the nation because of Napster? Is the technology that Napster uses legal? Napster is, of course, the wildly popular file-sharing service whose 20 million users have downloaded some half a billion songs--most copyrighted for free. The technology that Napster has brought to music listeners across the globe has allowed the freedom of obtaining music for free and should not be shut down by the entertainment industry's argument in federal court.

Spotify is one of the largest and most popular digital music streaming services used today and streams music to millions of consumers. In December 2015, a class action lawsuit was filed against Spotify that threatens damages upwards of 150 million dollars to the company. The man who filed the class action lawsuit, David Lowery, is a songwriter, the frontman and founder of the band Camper Van Beethoven, and a leading member of the band Cracker. He is also very involved when it comes to artists’ rights and interests within the music industry. Lowery is accusing Spotify of failing to properly notify, license music from, and pay royalties to many artists, including himself, whose music is already streaming through their service.

Music licensing is certainly not the ideal solution to maintain the integrity of the art. Music licensing has created situation in which people actually have to pay to use folk songs such as "Happy Birthday" in certain circumstances. The company that owns the license to the song actually receives millions of dollars every year for a song that nobody knows who originally wrote. However, compensating artists for their works is a complicated endeavor and does not receive much public funding in a capitalist system. Therefore, even though the licensing practice may be counter-productive the art form and overly commercialized, it is a necessary evil that must be tolerated in modern society.

The music industry much like every other industry has found ways to connect their product to the people through technology. Now music is readily available to the public through many avenues ITunes, YouTube, and so much more. As music has become more available to the public the industry now faces the threat of illegal downloading and sharing of music files. Many people will purchase an album through a download site and then either post it for free download to others or distribute it to their friends; while those who do this don’t usually face consequence does that make it right?