The New Music Copyright Case And What It Means For Songwriters

By Author: Titao Plaza
Total Articles: 3
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It is a known fact that most players who dream of making it big in the music industry, is actually waiting for that one break – the first chance to impress people. And when that chance does come after years of struggle, many artists make the mistake of selling the rights of their creations to recording companies. Yes, it is unfortunate and extremely sad that the artists ignorantly miss out on areas as important as copyright music and publishing. How many times have we come across the stories of amazing performers who have given outstanding hits during their best years but now, have nothing to show for that success? It is quite depressing to notice that many talented musicians of yesteryears are struggling today while others are enjoying the royalties. It is this unfortunate truth that has forced the government to re-consider the arrangement that was settled upon years ago and now, it has become easier for musicians to re-claim the rights of the songs that they had once created.



Here are more details about what this music copyright case that was recently decided in federal court in San Diego involves ...
... (and why it’s so important)… An amendment to the copyright law went into effect in the mid-1970. It permitted songwriters to reclaim their song copyright rights after 35 years. This was intended to help composers who made poor decisions early in their songwriting careers and signed away rights to their songs.



No one paid much attention to this new copyright song law because no one had reached this 35-year point until THIS YEAR. Now, suddenly everyone who signed away their song publishing rights way back when – including many HUGE music figures (Dylan, Springsteen, Joel, the Eagles to name a few) – have now begun filing papers to reclaim their song rights.



The problem was that there was a major exception to the music copyright law that said if the songwriter who signed away his/her rights was UNDER HIRE at the time (working for a song writing company), then they couldn’t use this law.


So the music publishing companies began trying to use this exception by saying that ALL these composers who signed away their song rights were really just working for the music label at the time and, thus, fell under the copyright exception and couldn’t use this law.



This case from San Diego on copyright music is the first copyright case testing this law and the Judge threw out the music companies’ arguments, saying that just because a composer signed away his song rights didn’t mean he was working for the music company he signed his copyrights to!! And that “working for a company” meant something different – that the person had to actually be EMPLOYED as a songwriter for music or publishing company at the time for the company to be able to use this exception.



So this should now open the floodgates for every composer / song writer (at least those who signed away their music rights more than 35 years ago) to file a petition to get the right to their composition back!



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About Author

Titao Plaza is a well known music critic. He has written many informative articles on the need and ways to copyright songs. To read some similar articles by the author on copyright music, please visit: http://songregistration.com/