Before the Memorial Day holiday, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by my friend and colleague, the composer Dennis Tobenski. Our 90-minute talk, which was posted last week, covered a variety of topics applicable to composers, songwriters and other creators, including copyright principles, fair use, the role of PROs and estate considerations for artists.

Here’s how Dennis summarized our discussion:

In our conversation, we talked about:

• basic tenets of copyright
• the limits of what is copyrightable
• the Poor Man’s Copyright
• the benefits of and incentives to registering your copyrights
• fighting infringements
• folio registrations
• working with living poets vs. dead poets’ estates
• Performing Rights Organizations
  • selecting
  • collecting performance royalties
  • what PROs don’t do
• estate planning for artists
• international copyright issues
• why you should get permission <strong>before</strong> setting a text
• First Sale Doctrine
• licensing vs. selling
• copying licenses
• Fair Use
  • Fair Use is not a right; it is a defense against an infringement accusation*
  • the four factors of fair use
  • transformative use vs. derivative works
  • the false “rules of thumb” of fair use

And here’s the link to our talk: