During our ensemble composition session, another group composed a song which sounded very similar to Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation, I decided to take a look at Copyright Law within the music industry.
In the UK, we have a law called The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988). This covers lots of aspects of different industries including publishing, technology and of course music. However, in music there is more than one type of copyright.
The first type of copyright covers the right to a composition. This means that the writer of the composition (melody, rhythm, harmony and lyrics) has the sole right to it unless they share this copyright with another writer. For example if a band writes a song the copyright is shared with each member that had an input. In the industry it is common that the music publishers are the holders of this type of copyright.
The second type of copyright covers the way in which the composition is recorded. This means that the sound recording itself has the copyright due to the way it has been recorded. This is usually held by record companies in the industry.
Case Study:
https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/13/8399099/metallica-sued-napster-15-years-ago-today
On April 13th 2000, Metallica filed a case against Napster (a music sharing company) because they had released their song ‘I Disappear’ from the Mission Impossible:2 soundtrack before its official release. This is what many people would say started the internet’s “upending” of the music industry. What I mean by this is that releasing songs illegally online for free has meant that many composers and songwriters are not getting the royalties they deserve for their music because people aren’t listening to their music through legal platforms and are also spending little to no money when doing so.