The Art of the Bankruptcy Bluff
Bankruptcy. A word that provokes more fear, loathing and foreboding failure than “world premiere” does to certain silver-haired symphony subscribers hoping to snooze again to Brahms. And no wonder when even venerable performing arts companies from the Philadelphia Orchestra to New York City Opera have gone through the reorganization wringer – and not always successfully. […]
The Terminator: Where Copyright Meets Marriage Equality
The “Copyright and Marriage Equality Act,” as set forth in S.23 and H.R. 238, was sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Leahy (D-VT) and in the House by Rep. Kilmer (D-WA) right after New Year’s. You might ask what does marriage equality have to do with copyrights? After all, if I’m a songwriter, novelist, photographer […]
Blurred Lines in the Difference between Copyright in a Song and in a Recording
There’s been a blizzard of articles regarding the jury decision finding that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ 2013 megahit, “Blurred Lines,” infringed upon Marvin Gaye’s song, “Got to Give It Up.” I’ll leave it to you, gentle reader, to judge how similar the recordings of two songs are to each other. While most of my […]
So, What’s The Songwriter Equity Act About?
Update: I originally published the post below on May 14, 2014, shortly after the Songwriter Equity Act was introduced last year. The bill has was re-introduced in both houses of Congress on March 3, 2015 by the same sponsors as before, led by Sen. Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Collins (R-GA), who posted the bill on […]
All You Need To Know About The Copyright Office’s 202-Page Music Licensing Report
On Friday, February 6, the Copyright Office issued a 202 page comprehensive report (plus appendices) on the music licensing business, “Copyright and the Music Marketplace.” The Report is the culmination of a nearly year-long process of soliciting and evaluating input from interested parties on how to fix what everybody agrees is a broken system. Anyone […]