It often seems as though each time an artist, let alone a legend, pays homage to the past, some pundit with an axe to grind on copyright seizes the moment to declare the contemporary law restrictive to creative development. Variations on the theme of “artists could never do that today” have been trotted out in essays, some thoughtful, others not ...
I have to direct readers’ attention to this blog post by composer and cellist Zoë Keating. It is the clearest articulation I have yet read about the rock-and-hard-place terms demanded of artists who are considering participation in YouTube’s paid streaming service Music Key. Keating outlines some of the non-negotiable terms she doesn’t like, for instance that her entire catalog becomes fair game ...
Taylor Swift’s new album 1989 is the first and only to go platinum this year. And the year is just about over. At the same time, Swift is making headlines because her label Big Machine (a label she and her family own) has pulled all of her albums from Spotify and other streaming services. As David Lowery’s artists rights blog ...
In his recent testimony before congress, songwriter and president of ASCAP Paul Williams remarked that it was astonishing to realize that he and fellow witness, songwriter Rosanne Cash, were subject to more government regulation than the multi-billion-dollar corporations whose interests were represented in the same hearing. What Williams was referring to with that remark is the fact that licensing fees ...
In at least a few posts advocating for the right of the copyright holder to control the use of works for reasons other than money, I have raised hypothetical scenarios in which particularly odious entities make use of works in ways that are uniquely offensive to the soul of the original. Most recently, I employed such hypotheticals on the subject of ...
