Music Law 101: What Does Copyright Law Protect?

Dec 2022

Music Law 101 is all about protecting different musical works along with sound recordings to its original creator. As copyright can be a confusing part, it is better to know what all it protects so that it becomes easy. It is known that each piece of recording has two types of copyrights.

First, it protects the musical composer. It indicates the arrangement and the combination of musical notes, harmonies, rhythm, chords, and the lyrics. The other name of this copyright is musical work. It deals with the musical composition of the song.
Second, it includes the recording of the song and known as sound recording. Here, the master or the recording of the song is protected by means of the copyright process.

However, musical copyright comes soon after completion of a sound recording, or any musical work is created. It is considered to be a satisfied one when the following elements are fulfilled.

The work should be an original work of the music artist
The work should be present in tangible form like sheet music, digital version as recording, or in the form of MIDI file.

Therefore, it is not mandatory to publish the recording work soon after it is created. With the advancement in technology, various ways have come into being. This makes storing of the songs and the files an easy one. As there are copyright protection issues pertaining to a new song recorded, it is necessary to ensure that it should be an original version of the song. This indicates that the work has been created independently with some extent of creativity in it.

According to rules, court laws stated that harmony and rhythm are something that belonged to the public domain. Whereas melody is the only ingredient that can be considered as original, and therefore, it needs to be given copyright protection. Also, the contribution of engineers handling the technical part of the sound recording along with producers should be protected, and therefore, it should come under protection rights. This apart, the musical style, idea of the music, theme need not be protected. Therefore, for the music companies and the music creators, it is important to know the details of the copyright protection so that it can help them to retain the originality of their work in this increasing popularity of the digital age of music.

How can protection rights help to handle infringement problems?

Often, the person charged for infringement action may argue that there is no copyright for the plaintiff’s work, and therefore, the song is not an original one. Here, phrases and words are considered to check the originality of the work and argument that the defendant claims. So, it should be known that phrases and words cannot be protected. The same words and phrases can be used by more than one singer to create and write music lyrics. Therefore, the law protects the musical work along with the sound recordings of the original work.

Trending Blogs

Lack of Music Publishing Knowledge Robbing Indian Artists of their Rights

In India there has been a lack of knowledge regarding publishing music. It can be said that a large part of publishing an art for is still unexplored. It is not about the common people but the artists and the music companies are oblivious towards it. At the initial stage due to lack of knowledge […]

Drug Patents and Generic Pharmaceutical Drugs

When a drug is manufactured and released to the market in the initial period, it is sold under a certain brand names and can only be availed from a pharmacy after being prescribed by the doctor. The patent of the drug is owned by a few brands who are the only eligible brands to manufacture […]

Patents – An Important Tool for Pharmaceutical Industry

For suitable protection of medical inventions, patents are the perfect option. This would also safeguard medical discoveries that are research-based and it is done by most of the pharmaceutical companies. In return for the protection offered by the patent, it can disclose the research used in coming up with the medical innovation in the pharmaceutical […]

Alibaba IPR Report Shows Ideal Brand Protection Program

As per sources, e-commerce giant, Alibaba group has successfully gained success using intellectual property rights-protection. The giant has been able to offer quality service due to well integration of the latest technological improvements coupled with partnerships with top-rated brands. Also, external stakeholders assisted the giant in offering quality service to proactively monitor, go through rights-holders […]

Color Trademarks in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The trademarks are vital part of company goods or service and with help of trademark; the consumers are able to identify the business better. Before deciding the correct trademark option for pharmaceutical industry, it is necessary to check for its existence. If any similar one is already present in the trademark database, it is better […]

Why Is Protection of Geographical Indication or Designation of Origin Essential?

Having knowing regarding geographical indication along with designation of origin is something that is of great need these days. Geographical indication or GI indicates a symbol, name or sign relating to a product that corresponds to a definite geographical origin, product’s features, qualities that are due from the origin. To make a sign work as […]

Evaluation Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property has always existed since the dawn of time but there were no laws in place for their protection. Intellectual property is intangible asset, be it music, creative writing, arts, discoveries, inventions and development of unique words, symbols and artwork. Intellectual property rights is a generic term that covers copyright, industrial design, trade secrets, […]

Protection of Acronyms under Trademark Law

It is known that acronyms are the first letters of a long phrase of words combined together. On the other hand, trademark is about a mark that shall help distinguish the product or service of goods or service from the rest of the items. Therefore, it can be said that an acronym can be registered […]

The Common Law Protection Of Trade Secrets And The Need For A Statue

Introduction: A trade secret is anything you use in your business that gives you an advantage over your competitors. A trade secret can be a recipe, process, formula, strategy, technique or device that your competitors do not know, do not have, and cannot use. With development in technology, as well as the ease of sharing, […]

Copyrights of Music in India

Music is an art more specifically an intangible form of art. Copyrighting a song or a melody protects the basic right of the creator. The copyright also assist the creator financially. In order to ask for copyright the creator needs to file a registration. Once the creator gains the copyright, any infringement to the copyrighted […]