Defend Sound

There are 2 types of copyrights a band/artist receives when they record a song:

Section 102 of the Copyright Act provides that “Literary Works” and “Sound Recordings” are copyrightable.

Therefore when you look at a CD cover you see two symbols, one will be a circled “C” and one will be a circled “P“. The “C” represents ownership of the copyright in the lyrics, notes, and the musical composition. The “P” represents ownership of the copyright in the master recording or phonorecord. Generally, when you sign a record deal the record label will own the master recording, or the “P“, and the artist/ songwriters/ musicians/ publishing company will jointly own the “C” (before the advent of the 360 Deal).

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What do vinyl records, 8-tracks, cassette tapes, the VCR, and the CD have in common? In a few years they will all be antiques, destined for private showings at museums. They will be replaced by the thumb drive, the Ipod, the Android, the Blackberry, and all other types of media holding devices.   Alas, it is now time to move on to an age where an Android phone is a boom box, where Pandora and Grooveshark.com are radio, where I-tunes is Virgin Records, and where laptops are recording studios.

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Today the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Performance Rights Act, and the bill will go to the Senate to be discussed and voted upon at some later time.

The Performance Rights Act is a bill primarily backed by the 4 major record labels (EMI Capitol, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, and Warner Chappell) and major artists. The bill closes an exception in federal Copyright law whereby radio stations only have to pay songwriter/publishing royalties for playing music on the air, but do not have to pay record labels that own the master recording.

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