WHAT IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IN MUSICWHAT IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IN MUSIC

 

Copyright – we all know it’s important, especially in the creative industries, but many musicians are not 100% clear on exactly what copyright is, who owns copyright in recorded music and how that impacts you as an artist In this article, we’ll delve into what is copyright law in music, what is copyright infringement in music and some examples of copyright issues in the music industry.

Copyright Infringement is the term used to describe the act of breaching the terms of a copyright – in music this could be setting up a website that allows users to download music for free without any permission or knowledge of the copyright owners. It could even be re-purposing copyrighted material to incorporate into a new product – for example, using an unauthorised/un-credited sample in your song and releasing it as your own without any license to do so.

One of the most common music copyright infringements these days that you might even be familiar with is if you have ever tried to upload a video to instagram, YouTube etc. and the video you are uploading has a recorded soundtrack on it – perhaps your favourite song by your favourite artist. If you have tried this (or maybe you have tried to upload a video with your own released music synchronised to the video), you will probably have experienced having your video muted, or in some cases even removed. This is to protect those websites against music copyright infringement – i.e. using a recording owned by someone else as the soundtrack to your video without paying an agreed license fee and having the right to do so. 

Copyright rules for using music in videos are pretty complex but as a general rule, you must either be the copyright owner or have permission from the copyright owner to use music in a video. If permission is given, you are granted a license to use the music and can therefore go ahead – however, the ability to control who is allowed to use a recording is one of the key benefits of owning a recording as you can then charge a license fee for allowing someone to use your video so it is generally something that is subject to some kind of fee. 

This is why a lot of social media platforms have now made blanket licensing arrangement where they compensate copyright owners in exchange for the ability to have music that is pre-licensed that users can embed in their videos – so if you go to Tik Tok or Instagram and click the ‘add music’ button – you will notice there is a lot of music that is available for you without any worry of infringing any copyright ownership.