Should copyrights extend to pre-1972 recordings? The California Supreme Court won’t decide on this critical oldies copyright issue until next year. It’s a matter that affects virtually every oldies artist. Not to mention their estates. B…
Category archives: Copyright
The California Supreme Court Will Soon Decide the Fate of Oldies Copyrights
After resounding defeats in both Florida and New York, the battle to save oldies copyrights shifts to the Supreme Court of California. It’s a simple question: do recordings released before 1972 deserve any copyright protection in the US? Last wee…
Breaking: Florida Supreme Court Rules That Oldies Recordings are Public Domain
So this complicates things a bit. A bombshell decision from the Florida Supreme Court effectively says that recording copyrights didn’t exist before 1972. Should oldie recordings enjoy copyright protection? Absolutely not, according to a unanimo…
‘Sound Alike’ Industry Freaking Out After $400,000 Eminem Court Decision
There’s an entire ‘sound alike’ sub-industry that revolves around making music that sounds just like something famous. Eminem may have just ended that. It’s a niche industry based around a clever idea. Instead of paying millio…
‘Sound Alike’ Industry Freaking Out After $400,000 Eminem Court Decision
There’s an entire ‘sound alike’ sub-industry that revolves around making music that sounds just like something famous. Eminem may have just ended that. It’s a niche industry based around a clever idea. Instead of paying millio…
7 Reasons Why ‘YouTube to MP3’ Stream-Rippers Are 100% Legal
The music industry buried the biggest YouTube to MP3 ‘stream-ripper’ in September. But in a recently-published report, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) outlined 7 reasons why YouTube converters are 100% illegal. 1. Simply convertin…
Surprise! If You Don’t Register With the US Government’s Song Database, You Lose Your Copyright
Fun fact: if you don’t properly register for Congress’ proposed universal song database, you’ll lose the rights to your entire life’s work. Looks like Congress’ proposed ‘Transparency in Music Licensing and Ownership Act’ forgot to include the ‘Transparency’ part. In fact, there’s an insane poison pill that essentially strips copyright owners of their licenses if they […]
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How To Get Your Copyrights Back From Your Label or Publisher
There’s a little known section in the US Copyright Act of 1976 enabling any copyright owner to get their rights back after 35 years. Meaning, if you wrote or released a song with a label or a publishing company after January 1st 1978, you can terminate your agreement and get all your rights back. It […]
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A List of 500+ Musicians Demanding Better Royalties from Spotify
Earlier this week, more than 500 musicians and songwriters demanded more royalties from Spotify. Now we have the list. It’s all part of a huge pushback from one of the largest music publishers in the world. That publisher is Wixen Music Publishing, and they have a lot of very substantial artists, songwriters, and sub-publishers. None […]
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Spotify Faces Stepped-Up Legal Pressure from Stevie Nicks, Neil Young, Steve Perry, The Doors, Stevie Ray Vaughan…
Spotify is now facing legal pressure from some of the largest musicians and songwriters in the world. Earlier this week, Spotify was served with multiple lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions in unpaid royalties. But the list of prominent musicians and songwriters is far deeper than we imagined. According to documents shared with Digital Music News, […]
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