Ownership In Music

The case of A&M Records Inc. v. Napster Inc., record companies brought infringement action against Napster for the unfair use of copyrighted work and harmed the potentiality of music within the market (239 F3d 1004, 2001). With the burgeoning of the internet age, musicians and artists were faced with the threat of in home piracy, via file sharing programs like Napster, or Grokster.

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

Emily Toronto is the director of opera, and associate professor of music at South Dakota State University. She has received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Michigan University, and has performed in a multitude of different opera groups. The fact that she is a musician gives her a unique perspective on the topic of copyright. Stephen G. Wood is a law professor at Brigham Young University, and has served as a consultant to the US Department of Labor, and Administrative Conference for the United States. Toronto and Wood begin this publication by explaining why copyright is needed, then continue on to show examples of copyright reforms. They finish by informing music teachers what they can do to encourage copyright reform. This paper argues

The three music labels Kobalt Music, BMG, and Cooking Vinyl all share unique and similar characteristics when pertaining to the interest they have for their artist, publisher, writer and the label as a whole. With Kobalt Music, their main goal is to be able to construct technology solutions in order to provide a more transparent, yet efficient future for their owners. They want to make sure that their artists, writers, publishers etc. all have the right to be paid accurately. This company was able to achieve that by providing the world’s most advanced global licensing, collection and payment platform. They also implement an online copyright administration which coincides with the company being completely transparent. With these features, the artist has the opportunity to reach full potential with their releases and record sales.

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 has had problems with computer piracy for many years now. There have been many programs devoted to giving out free music. Many of these programs are well know, but still very hard to stop. Napster, Kazaa, and the newest program, myTunes Redux are the most popular programs for music sharing. This essay will explain all about these main programs which allow free music to be shared all over the world.

Copyright is a problem. It always has been and it always will be. Musicians deserve credit for their music, I agree, but that does not mean that music should not be available online for free. It would be efficient, helpful, and easy, if music was available online for free.

In his essay, Shields unleashes his frustrations regarding the country’s negative attitude towards appropriation and borrowing. He asserts that “there’s no such thing as originality”, that “all life on earth…is built upon appropriation and reuse of the pre-existing” (Shields 736). Shields utilizes a multitude of examples to illustrate and support his points. Musicians from Mozart to Bob Dylan have utilized content or taken inspiration from other artists. Shields shows that “borrowing has been with us from the beginning”, citing the New Testament and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra as “composites of numerous sources” (740). His essay demonstrates that borrowing is prevalent in music and writing, as artists take inspiration from preceding artists and from their

On a moral standpoint, record labels view people who collect and share copyrighted music without paying royalties or compensation to the

Recently, there has been a series of copyright infringement litigations against Internet businesses that are involved with unauthorized distribution of music files. The US recording industry claims to lose three million dollars per year because of piracy. A report predicted an estimated 16 percent of all US music sales, or 985 million dollars would be lost due to online piracy by 2002 (Foege, 2000; cited from McCourt & Burkart, 2003) Even though this claim has to be taken with caution, as it is based on false assumption that if copyright laws were strictly enforced, audio pirates would become buyers, it is apparent that audio piracy grew to a worrisome level for the record industry. (Gayer

This has also led to consumers legally and illegally downloading music for their iPOD or MP3 players or burning CD¡¦s with their favourite songs.. This has also meant that some authors/artists are not receiving the royalties from their music.

Artists expect to own and profit from their own work. Under common copying laws, an artist is also allowed to control the distribution of

Luckily over time copyright law has changed to benefit creators of original works. While most people argue that these copyright laws protect the goods of many artists’ original works

Now lets take a look at the legal issues involved with file sharing. In the recording industry, there are two copyright laws involved. The first one is the copyright of the musical composition, which deals with the lyrics and musical notes. This is usually owned by the songwriter or music publisher.4 The second law is the copyright in sound recording, which deals with the recording of the performer singing or playing a given song. This is usually owned by the record company.5 The law that is violated with electronic file sharing is the second one. Titles 17 and 18 of the U.S. Code protect copyright owners from the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation or distribution of sound recordings, as well as certain digital performances to the public.6 So, from the legal clauses, it can be interpreted that users of popular online sites such as Napster are engaging in unauthorized distribution of sound recordings. The online infringement of copyrighted music can be punished with several years in prison. 7