Three Major Performing Rights Organizations

Copyright law, which manages much of the music business industry, tries to maintain a balance concerning the rights of the creator, and the common good in an attempt to drive society forward. In essence, the

Many musicians and artist get plagiarized. Sometimes the case goes threw in court and they have to take down music, others they get money for it, and sometimes they just have to credit them. If the case is extremely ridiculous they just kick the case out and it doesn’t go anywhere, but that's not what happened in the Chuck Berry vs The Beach Boys case.

Every day millions of Americans turn on their radios, IPods, or some other device which allows them to listen to their favorite musicians and have no idea that there is a union standing guard to ensure the rights of those very musicians. The average American may think their favorite musicians are rolling “dough” and not realize that for the past hundred and fourteen years the American Federation of Musicians, aka AFM, has worked to improve the professional lives of musicians across North America. (American Federation of Musicians, 2010) AFM attracts its members with a mission to unite professional musicians which states, “We can live and work in dignity; Our work will be fulfilling and compensated fairly; We will have a meaningful voice

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,

ASCAPs negotiations with new media in the 1950s have pushed the DOJ to be more in favor of enforcing the decree. In the 1950s, ASCAP saw an opportunity to use the new profitable medium, television, to help radio broadcasters preform music on their television stations. ASCAP offered license to broadcasters to perform music on the stations, but broadcaster had an unfair advantage it prices for those music selections. Broadcasters were treated unfairly and movie producers were treat unfair in negation between performance rights (NRB, MLC).

The Australian intellectual property law stipulates that one must acquire license as well as permission when playing or performing "in public". This permission must be sort from the owners of the copyright in the sound, lyrics and the music. This is because the owners of the copyright have the right of controlling the public playing of

The purpose of the copyright system has always been to promote creativity in society and protect the creators’ interests. In applying copyright laws to any creation, three basic guidelines apply. First is the fair return for a creators labor, second is “Fair Use” of the creators’ labor and finally the Progress of Science and useful Arts to further the public good. The application of these three guidelines in litigation for A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, found that the rights of reproduction, and distribution had been violated, in effect upholding the copyrights of nineteen different music companies represented under A&M Records name, this ruling had protected the music industries interests. However it would seem that the publishing industry would not be so lucky, litigation in Authors’ Guild vs. Google ruled that Google’s actions constituted fair use. Under these two scenarios’ the copyright laws’ have, effectively, protected the rights of music artists’, protected the public’s right to “fair use” and sparked new opportunities for creative growth. However, lawmakers continue to struggle to define copyright boundaries between the public’s right of use and the creators right to profit from their efforts.

Most artist acknowledge that they sampled the work of another and there is a fee that the must pay to use it. As long as those two things are done then an artist shouldn’t be able to keep them from using it. That is the argument of artist like J. Cole and Kanye West.

Unless otherwise specified in the Schedule of this Agreement or otherwise agreed in writing by the Band Partnership, Band Partners on creation own a separate and equal share of the copyright in musical works and any of the lyrics of any song that is composed together (a “Co-Written Song”)

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

He first talks about ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.). Both of them are Performing Rights Organization (PRO for short). Their members consist of songwriters, composers and publishers. And their main purpose is to collect their members’ royalties from establishments such as TV, film companies, networks, retail stores, etc., and divide the money to the composer and publisher. And you can either be your own publisher to get all the income or you can assign your

Music and concerts are an everyday occurrence for people. Changes through the generations of the music industry has become more complicated and confusing. To defy these issues certain organizations were created to help songwriters, composers, and music publishers. Well known organizations such as Broadcast Music Inc. and The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers help people in these positions with legality and protection of their music publicly.

Performance Rights Organizations (PRO) were established to help protect the creative minds behind musical compositions. The first PRO was established in France in 1851. The United States later adopted this idea and founded their own Performing Rights Society in 1914. This society helped protect the copyright of songs when it comes to live performances. While the music industry began to grow, the responsibilities of PROs did too. The first PRO that was founded in the United States is called the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). However the largest PRO today is Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) which was founded in 1939. The main purpose of any PROs is to make sure songwriters and/or

A considerable asset of a record label is its own publisher. Not every label has one possibly due to lack of expertise or experience , or not enough time to deal with it. The purpose of a music publisher is to exploit and collect royalties for its copyright properties. Publishers obtains rights to songs from songwriters. As well as the record companies, there are companies that own the publishing rights to pieces of music. They often own the rights for a huge amount of songs. They are often part of a bigger record company (e.g Sony/ATV, Universal). Not every songwriter has a record publishing deal. For example : Leiber and Stoller,they wrote songs for Elvis Prestley like "hound dog" , "jailhouse

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.