Copyright in The Electronic Music Industry

As promised! Back again with the third blog of the week for copyright laws and remixing! If you're a DJ/Producer like myself or even just a producer, this one's for you! Let's get into it!

What is copyright?

Now this is a question that can be answered in many different ways depending on the industry you're working in or looking at. In my case, copyright in the music industry is mainly labelled on the songs or collections of songs (EP's & Albums, etc.) that artists create or write. When an artists publishes music in the industry, it is essential that they copyright their work to some extent as this grants them rights and royalties over their music. This is also essential to their income as without musical copyright, this is almost non-existent unless they're gaining it from an exterior source.

But Why is it so important?

I said earlier that copyright was an essential part to the income of an artists career. However, is more than just a source of money for the artists in the industry, its a way of protection over the rights an artist is entitled to when they create music. When a song or project is published, the artist who created it is labelled as its author which then entitles them to both the lyrical and musical works of the song (Art Law Centre Of Australia, 2018). The copyright 'stamp' that then goes over the top protects every aspect of the song from plagiarism and also distributes the royalties equally among the people who contributed to it.

How does it affect DJ/producers?

Copyright is huge in the electronic music industry as there are so many ways that DJ's and producers can manipulate records and samples. From my own personal experiences, copyright is rather a frustrating concept because as a DJ, if I make a mix of tracks/songs and even one of them is marked as copyrighted, I can no longer publish. The mix may be 70 tracks long but if even one of those 70 is marked as copyright, I can no longer publish that mix online or to the general public in any form. For example I created a trap/future bass style mix a while back beginning with Cascada's 'Every Time We Touch', because this song was marked as copyright, my mix was taken down by SoundCloud and I was unable to post it. In terms of music producers however, its a different story all together.

Copyrights in Remixing & editing

Generally, because a producer spends most of their time creating original music, copyright is not as much of a big deal. However, in terms of remixing songs and making song edits, it can become a little bit of a hassle. If a producer is to publish a remix of a song, it either has to not be a copyrighted track to begin with, or, the producer needs permission by the original artists to remix their song. For example, the recent remix I did with Richard Woodhouse on GRMM's track 'Electrify' featuring Father Dude. That track was a copyrighted song however, it would seem that the artists held a remixing competition of some sort for this track after it's release so releasing the remix was simple and easy. Those who won the contest were able to successfully sell and make money off their remixes whereas the runners up got to upload theirs for free download. We would also have been in a bit of trouble if we attempted to sell our remix as it would be taken down instantly. Although I'm not completely certain on this as the original track was released around 4 years ago. However, say we decided to remix 'Shape of You' by Ed Sheeran, that would be much harder as it is in fact a copyrighted track and it is also very well known and popular.

To finish...

Overall, copyright laws in the music industry in general are something not to take lightly as they do have a major impact on the way that an artist can generate income and protect their creations. Always be mindful because even with all of it's benefits, it can also throw you under the bus if you aren't careful.

Thanks for tuning in again guys! My next blog to come will be the introduction to my first side project so stay tuned for that one! Catch ya later!

Levels :)

references:

- Arts Law Centre of Australia, 2018, 'Music Copyright and Publishing for Bands and Recording Artists', Last Date Viewed: 6/4/18, retrieved from: https://www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheets/info-sheet/music-bands-and-recording-artists/