Some of the most successful recent Broadway shows have been “jukebox” musicals. You know, shows that consist of taking a well-known recording artist’s hits and then staging them with a strung-together story. Think Jersey Boys, Motown: The Musical and Beatiful:The Carole King Musical. Shows like these are popular with producers because of the perceived minimized […]
The United States Department of Justice recently announced it would be conducting a review to examine the effectiveness of the ASCAP and BMI Consent Decrees. In announcing this review, DOJ stated: The Department understands that ASCAP, BMI and some other firms in the music industry believe that the Consent Decrees need to be modified to […]
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This case is a copyright infringement action regarding the iconic MGM film, Raging Bull, which garnered Robert De Niro a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of boxer Jake LaMotta (but failed to win one for its director, Martin Scorsese). The key issue […]
A little over a week ago, I attended through meetup.com, a panel discussion on synchronization licensing. As a refresher, synchronization licensing, or “synch” licensing, is the permission required to incorporate copyrighted music into audio-visual works, such as films TV shows, ads, videogames and, yes, YouTube videos. The panel was put together by Legal Hackers and […]
I hear it all the time. Composers think that if they just sign up with a performing rights organization (PRO) like ASCAP or BMI that’s all they need to do to protect themselves. Don’t get me wrong – every composer should belong to a PRO. But there are at least seven ways a composer can […]
This article was originally posted on the ScoreStreet blog on November 27, 2013. In case you’ve not tuned into the TV news, the blogosphere or social media in the past couple of days, you may have missed the uproar over a small company’s use of the Beastie Boys’ song Girls in a YouTube video ad […]
Imagine my surprise when I tuned in to yesterday’s episode of The Good Wife, expecting the usual sexual and political intrigue and found myself in the middle of a copyright infringement case that seemed to have elements of the Supreme Court’s decision in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (the case where the high court held that 2 […]
Please click here to read a brief post I wrote on the ScoreStreet blog about orchestral performers’ continuing to blame the programming of music by contemporary composers for their financial woes. Spoiler alert: it’s nonsense.
Although the shutdown of the federal government has justifiably grabbed most of the headlines, and despite this week [October 3] being labeled “Hell Week” for classical music, something potentially good for composers, self-produced recording artists, visual artists and other artistic creators was announced: On September 30, just before the government shut-down, the Copyright Office released […]
Composers know that they should sign up with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) such as ASCAP, BMI and SESAC to make sure they receive royalties for when their works are publicly performed in live performance venues, when broadcast on radio or TV or streamed over the Internet. Most people don’t realize, however, that when a […]