Last week, Tennessee passed the ELVIS Act to expand its statutory right of publicity (ROP) law to include voice as a protected aspect of an individual’s “likeness.” In response to artificial intelligence enabling more precise replication of specific, human sounding voices, it is little surprise that the music powerhouse state has taken swift action to explicitly include voice among the ...
If it can be difficult to keep up with artists’ rights in the news, that goes double for music. Fortunately, there are some incredible artists who devote as much energy and passion to rights advocacy as they to do making music—and among those individuals is Blake Morgan. Singer/songwriter, recording artist, indie label owner, and producer, Blake epitomizes the hard-working, middle-class ...
When Internet Archive lost resoundingly in the Hachette (book publishers) case, the court rejected its cockamamie legal theory called controlled digital lending (CDL). Then, when a group of record labels (UMG et al.) filed suit against IA for infringing reproduction, distribution, and performance of sound recordings, I wrote at the time that there’s no way IA has an unfounded theory ...
By now, many people who pay attention to artists’ rights have read the David Segal New York Times story published on January 13 about the amateur folk duo Bad Dog discovering their songs on major streaming platforms, but with different titles and attributed to a different creator. In what should be a surprise to nobody, it is easy to game ...
Cars and music are so symbiotic that many contemporary vehicles could be mistaken for high-tech sound systems that also happen to take us places. I remember when popular music was only available on AM radio stations, and we’d listen to Steve Miller or Wings or the Jackson 5 playing through tiny, sibilant speakers mounted in the center of the dashboard. ...
