Copyright Law Case Study

Michael R. Cohen, 25B WEST 'S LEGAL FORMS, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY § 23:22 (2014) (“Since it would be virtually impossible for publishers or songwriters to monitor and control the large numbers of users of their songs, the enforcement and control of such performance rights usually falls to one of three performing rights organizations ....”).

The (Plaintiff) Johnny Singstealer is seeking the sum of $1 million from the (Defendant) Bobby Bandleader, for alleged copyright abuse of the song “Happy Birthday to You”. The (Plaintiff) Johnny Singstealer is the copyright holder to the said song. The (Defendant) Bobby Bandleader is a Bistro owner who performs the song in an altered version (his own words are used) to his customers on their birthdays and have been doing so for the past twenty years without obtaining any licensing or permission from the copyright holder (Plaintiff) Johnny Singstealer.

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.

The Rolling Stones was one of the first bands of the 60’s to have their song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” banned from the radio due to the fact that some could consider it indecent (Rutledge-Borger, 2012). The Stones’ music was enjoyed by many, but the lyrics had the potential to spark controversy, especially during live performances. Producers and planners of live performances were more conservative and cautious of keeping television clean and suitable for all ages, and would go to great lengths to make sure that all was kept modest. That is exactly what happened on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 11, 1967. The Rolling Stones were allowed to perform on the show as long as they agreed that they would change the “let’s spend the night together” lyrics to a more appropriate “let’s spend some time together” (Richin, 2015).

To what degree are two photos similar enough to have both parties get involved in court? This question is asked frequently in the copyright law world, and is the subject of a case involving Esquire magazine’s cover of famous contemporary boxer Sonny Liston in 1963 and if the 1998 cover of Sports Illustrated with the then-popular boxer Evander Holyfield infringed on Time Inc.’s copyright. At face value the image can be copyrighted, but when dissecting the individual elements of the image apart, what remains is a weak argument to justify copyright protection.

COURSEWORK FOR CONTRACT LAW (MUSIC*) *On what basis does the inclusion of samples of a recording made by *Pink Floyd constitute an infringement of copyright? In civil law regarding copyright, there are two types of infringement; primary and secondary. Primary is concerned with the unauthorised use of copyrighted works and secondary would involve the dealing or making commercial use of such infringing copies. In the music industry, an infringement of copyright often consists of an existing piece of music being used by an artist without permission from the person or company who own the rights to the original music or recorded sound. This is exactly what has happened with Alexei Duff. He has used two samples from two Pink Floyd tracks

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

For all of music’s history, the industry has favored the interests of songwriters over those of the performers. It appears that the industry believes that songwriters, both composers and lyricists, have full exclusive rights to whatever they compose, while performers have none to the music they perform. In Rock: Music, Culture, and Business, Schloss, Starr, and Waterman hold this value to be true in all of music’s history as well as currently, today. In terms of music business, this still remains an uneasy question to answer; to say whether, performers and composers both have rights, I have to agree. Schloss, Starr, and Waterman would be correct in that fact because performers like composers place their own styles and twists on the music. Therefore,

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

Copyrighted works fall into two categories in the music world. The first is recorded performance, one first has to get permission from the recorded label to use a song. Next, the composition underlying a specific performance has to come straight from the artist. For “pass the mic,” the B. Boys got permission from the record label but not the artist, Newton therefore sued but lost. “The reason serves as a useful introduction to how to think about intellectual property”

The Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) seeks to protect individuals who have created original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. Sections 14(1) and 36 provide that copyright is infringed when a person reproduces a substantial part of another’s work without the license of the owner of the copyright. In 2010 the Federal Court of Australia considered whether the flute riff in ‘Down Under’ a song by popular Australian group Men at Work was a substantial reproduction of the iconic children’s song ‘Kookaburra’ composed by Marion Sinclair. This case attracted significant media coverage and public interest.

The theory of authorship often challenge the ideals of authenticity, especially within the context of cover songs. This is due to the fact that the composer of the song is a separate entity from the performer. Society has often valued composer-performers as it has been encoded in culture within the past century. "the attempt to understand the past in terms of the past is - paradoxically - an absolutely contemporary phenomenon." Authenticity is a historically specific abstraction and therefore, will continuously be subjected to reconsiderations as our societal construction of authenticity changes through time. A cover version is seemingly an art form that contains a thin line that dictates the authentic an artist presents their image within

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

The District Court ruled for 2 Live Crew because the commercial purpose of 2 Live Crew’s song did not infringe on fair use because it was a parody. Judge ruled that parody that showed how “banal” Orbison’s and Dees’s song was and that 2 Live Crew

When applied four factors with this case, the purpose and character of the use of 2 Live Crew seems to be a commercial purpose and nature of parody is usually copy works which popular in the past. The third factors, the portion of copyrighted work that use by 2 Live Crew was reasonable in purpose of making a parody of “Oh, Pretty Woman” even if heart of original work was copied because of the parody aim to take most similar to original work in a humorous way. Considering the last factor, the Court stated that two works provide different market purpose consequence, the parody would not have a negative effect and seldom substitute for the original song. The court also added that there was no obvious evident that show a possible harm to the rap market by parody version which created by 2 Live Crew. The Supreme Court reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and remanded the