Posts Tagged: "music"

In traditional music recording, artists have had to choose to license their music through major music industry organizations like ASCAP and BMI. In the age of streaming music through Spotify, Pandora and other services what is the purpose of these organizations? The licensing groups have served as clearinghouses for smaller players in the music industry who cannot feasibly deal with multitudes of licensees on their own. But with Taylor Swift and other “major” artists choosing to deal—or not deal—with the streaming services that opens the question about blanket music performance licenses.

I took Gene’s request to heart and really tried to capture my top 25 songs. To be honest, however, I had a very difficult time narrowing the list to “all time” top songs. There are no true 25 best songs as proven by the various music Halls of Fame. I even had a hard time listing my top bands/artists. I enjoy many different genres and the list changes as I discover, or re-discover, music. In a pinch, however, I tend to gravitate to classic rock stations playing songs from the 70’s and 80’s. These are the songs that I grew up with. With that as a preface, here is my list for this July 4th!

A few weeks ago, a New York federal judge ruled that Hip-Hop Artist Drake was protected by copyright’s fair use doctrine when he sampled a spoken-word jazz track on his 2013 song “Pound Cake,” saying the artist had transformed the purpose of the clip. Drake used 35 seconds of Jimmy Smith’s 1982 “Jimmy Smith Rap” without clearing the clip, but Judge William H. Pauley said Drake’s purpose in doing so was sharply different from the original artist’s goals in creating it.

The $43.5 million from the recent Spotify settlement will reportedly go towards a separate fund to compensate publishers and songwriters. Such payments made by Spotify and other streaming services to copyright owners are known as mechanical royalties. Mechanical royalties are usually paid when a copy of a song is made, such as when a music publisher creates a CD containing copyright-protected songs. Although Spotify doesn’t sell or distribute physical media, it does owe mechanical royalties when it streams a copy of a song to a user.

It’s not just businesses and corporate environments that need intellectual property protection – artists of all kinds must protect their work too. Specifically, musicians have a lot to copyright and trademark – band names, original music, and album art, to name a few… When it comes to YouTube, today, musicians should pay close attention to monetization of their IP rights, according to Umanoff. This means making sure that YouTube has reference files, which are samples of the copyrighted materials, so that YouTube can attempt to recognize an artist’s work when incorporated in user-generated content.She said, “The artist must also ensure that their reference files contain accurate metadata so that YouTube knows who to pay when copyrighted works are streamed. Independent companies specializing in confirming that YouTube content is monetized by uploading reference files and manually checking metadata are emerging and growing a new frontier of music technologists.”

The original lawsuit filed in December 2015 targeted The Big Bang Theory’s use of the song Soft Kitty, a song which the character Sheldon Cooper asks people to sing whenever he’s sick or needs mothering. The lyrics to that song were written in the 1930s by Edith Newlin, a published children’s author and mother of the two plaintiffs listed in the case. The lyrics were published by Willis Music Company in 1937 in a compilation where the song was titled Warm Kitty. Willis renewed the copyright registration covering the collection of nursery school songs in 1964. The plaintiffs alleged that this renewal served to register and renew Newlin’s rights to the Soft Kitty lyrics. This, the plaintiffs reasoned, required Willis to request permission from Newlin or her successors to license the song to Warner Bros. Entertainment, producers of The Big Bang Theory.

In the official complaint filed by McCartney, the British rock legend is seeking to reclaim ownership of the Beatles copyrights under provisions of the Copyright Act, as amended in 1976. Section 304(c) of that legislation gives authors the right to terminate transfers to reclaim copyright interests for copyrights that were assigned to transferred to third parties before January 1st, 1978. Living authors, or surviving family members of authors who have died, have a five-year period starting 56 years from the date the copyright was secured during which they can send advance notice to copyright holders notifying them of an intent to terminate the copyright transfer.

Entities owning the copyrights to music created by the late pop star Prince had filed suit against Roc Nation, the entertainment company owned by rapper Jay Z, which is affiliated with the streaming music service Tidal. Plaintiffs NPG Records and NPG Music Publishing allege that Tidal and Roc Nation have engaged in copyright infringement by adding a series of 15 unauthorized Prince albums to the Tidal catalog this June. The case is filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

On Monday, November 21st, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.) issued a decision allowing a copyright case involving the well-known spiritual song and 20th century civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” to go forward. At the center of this case is the question of whether or not “We Shall Overcome” is part of the public domain in the United States, and the recent decision by S.D.N.Y. Judge Denise Cote indicates that the song could in fact be public domain material. “Resolution of the issues of originality and ownership will require discovery and a more developed record,” Cote’s decision reads.

A recent report from French consulting firm PMP Conseil made waves in the media for indicating that public performance exemptions in U.S. copyright law, such as Section 110 exemptions, cost copyright owners $150 million each year in lost royalties, $44 million of which is attributable to U.S. copyright owners in Europe. On November 11th, this study was presented by the International Council of Creators of Music (CIAM) at it’s annual conference in London. CIAM maintains that the U.S. is one of two “more economically developed countries” that have an exemption in place for playing music in bars, restaurants and retail establishments by radio or television.

The premise is simple. Turn on the radio this weekend and many, if not most, radio stations will be counting down the top songs of all time in their particular genre…. When Gene interviewed me in November 2015 we did talk about music and he tells me I’ve given him a hard time about his own top 25 songs since, which he published during the 4th of July weekend 2015. I don’t remember giving him a hard time, and if I did, well, I apologize. Although looking at his list I probably should have! In any event, I’m pleased to participate in what I understand will become a yearly endeavor with different IP professionals asked to provide their own top 25 each 4th of July weekend.

The recent Twitter investment has much to do with the SoundCloud Go premium subscription service launched in late March of this year. The premium service, which costs $9.99 per month, gives users ad-free access to 125 million songs available from 12 million creators. The service also enables offline listening of tracks and access to the SoundCloud music database on mobile or personal computer platforms. There have been questions by analysts regarding how Twitter plans to incorporate SoundCloud profitably into its own social media platform. One major issue for the social media company is its current inability to increase the pace of users on its platform.

QUINN: ”I always refer to myself as a geek or a nerd. Do you wear that too as a badge of honor?” KISLIUK: ”Oh, absolutely. When my neighbors needed something fixed — it’s a little geeky but — I would grab my bucket of tools and walk up the street. I was proud they would ask me — even more so if I could actually fix it! So I think only a geek would be proud to spend their Saturday helping their neighbor fix something.”

A report issued in March of this year found that a full 45 percent of the 119 million people listening to online radio services were tuning into Pandora’s service. Pandora also had the greatest brand awareness, registering with 75 percent of survey respondents. The study also found that 73 percent of people accessing online streaming music services did so through their smartphones. However, in terms of paid subscribers, Pandora has to cede that crown to Spotify, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In late October, the Spotify app became the top grossing app downloaded from the iPhone App Store. Of Spotify’s 60 million streaming music users, 25 percent of those users pay for the premium music subscription, gaining its 15 millionth paid subscriber just as the 2015 calendar year started. As of March 2014, Pandora only had 3.3 million paid subscribers in its total registered user base of 250 million people.