ATLANTA (AP) — The federal appeals court in Atlanta says a rap musician and producer has no valid claim of copyright violation involving his song The Weedman.
Redwin Wilchombe sued Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, along with TVT Records and BME Records. He said they wrongly used the song on an album Kings of Crunk, which court documents say sold 2 million copies between October 2002 and January 2005. For full story click here
When 15 college students recently visited the Tribune editorial board, we asked them if they had committed a certain crime. They all eagerly pleaded guilty. They illegally download music on the Internet. A lot. This is so common that, one student said, "I kind of forgot that it was illegal."
Illegal—and common. The Recording Industry Association of America says 7.8 million U.S. households a month steal music online. That means singers, songwriters, musicians, producers and others don't get compensated for their work. The Institute for Policy Innovation, a pro-business think tank, says illegal music sharing costs the U.S. economy $12.5 billion a year....more
You may not recognize the name Patrick Halling, but if you’re a Beatles fan you’ve surely heard his work: he played violin on the recording of “All You Need Is Love,” and he is among the musicians asking European Union lawmakers to extend the period during which they can receive royalties for their recorded work....more
Tennessee Voices
Gov. Phil Bredesen recently signed into law a bill requiring Tennessee universities to implement anti-piracy technologies and more stringent network oversight to prevent illegal downloading by students. The law applies to the governing boards of all public and private universities in Tennessee.
Universities will be required to report the "reasonable efforts … taken to attempt to defer infringement of copyrighted works over the school's computer and network resources" by April 1, 2009. After that, if a school receives more than 50 legally valid notices of infringement occurring on the institution's networks within a given year, the school will be required to submit a report detailing the specific efforts taken to curb such infringement, including the implementation of technology....more
It is January 1st, which means that this morning at midnight a batch more “life-plus” copyrights expired in those countries — most of them — where copyright expires at the end of the Nth year following the death of the author. Check out some copyrights who are now in public domain....
The recording industry, music publishers and online music services have revealed the details of a landmark royalty deal for streaming and limited downloads of music.
The agreement proposes a mechanical royalty rate of 10.5% of revenue, less any amounts owed for performance royalties for composition, for digital service providers that offer interactive streaming and limited downloads such as subscription and ad-supported services. When the settlement was first announced, details were kept confidential until they were submitted to the CopyRight Board in draft regulations. For full story click here
Recently I was asked to speak to a group of young performing artists/songwriters about music publishing, copyright and royalties. One of the artists in the group asked ‘what does it mean when someone asks if a song they created was ‘published’? I explained the term ‘published’ or ‘publication’ can be referred back to copyright law and the rights of the copyright owner. First, lets examine what the term ‘publish’ means. Merriam-Webster defines the word ‘publish’ as:
Publishing and copyrights are not the same! The moment a song is created and fixed in a tangible form (copied to CD etc), the song is considered ‘copyrighted’ and is protected by copyright law. The copyright owner is the creator (author) of its works (song). Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of a copyright the exclusive rights to do and to authorize others to reproduce, distribute, record, perform and prepare new works based upon the copyrighted work (derivative work). Publication is defined by copyright law as ‘the distributon of copies of phonorecords of a work (song in this case) to the public by sale, or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease or lending’ (see Merriam-Webster’s definition above). Thus a song is not considered published until there is a distribution of copies to the public by sale, rental, lease, lending, or other transfer of ownship. Creating a song, copying it to a CD and offering and/or distributing to the public for sale for the first time, is considered ‘publish’ when all these things occur. Publication does not occur because CD’s were pressed and created. There must be distrubution or an offering to distributue copies before the song can be considered published.
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