Popular Music and Copyright Law in the Sixties

Abstract

Copyright and its relationship with popular music is one of the most disputed issues amongst music and copyright scholars. While some have accused copyright of being blind (or deaf) to the particularities of popular music, others have defended its significance within the industry. This article contributes to this debate by tracing the networks of connections between lawyers, musicians, and clerks that emerged in a formative period in British pop music (the Sixties). It considers how their collaborative efforts and strategies to present evidence in copyright infringement trials were articulated in an attempt to influence music copyright infringement tests in Britain. By highlighting the concrete geographical and temporal contexts from which these networks emerged and their particular contingencies, the article also casts a new light on the impact of the legal profession on copyright, showing a practice‐oriented and historically situated way of observing differences between French and British copyright systems.

Liminale Kreativität

“…Zwar bewerten in Eminem Esque alle Beteiligten mit einem Schwerpunkt auf musikalische Ästhetik, doch selbst hier sind die Klägerinnen an der Kombination von Elementen interessiert und die Beklagten verweisen auf kleinste Transformationen sowie den gemeinfreien Charakter einzelner musikalischer Elemente. Die Analyse der Gerichtsurteile unterstreicht, dass sich gerichtliche Bewertungen von Notation hin zu Hörerlebnis und Kombination musikalischer Elemente verschieben (Bellido, 2013;Fishman, 2018). Damit verändern sich die gerichtlichen Judgment Devices (Karpik, 2011a), wie potentielle Plagiate miteinander zu vergleichen sind (Fishman, 2018).…”

Forensic Technologies in Music Copyright

“…For instance, the Academy capitalized on the need for learning and training following the enactment of the Civil Procedure Rules (1999, which followed the Woolf Report, 1996). Although musicologists had begun to appear as expert witness decades earlier (Bellido, 2013), it was through this professional body that Protheroe gained confidence and decided to persist as an expert musicologist. The Academy did not merely regulate the accreditation of experts but it also helped people like him, who had a connection to the world of expertise (and perhaps had had an unnerving experience within that realm), and were curious about the opportunities therein.…”

“…Yet it is ironic that recorded examples were used as a proxy for an unrecorded work (a song conceived in the composer’s mind). Moreover, following rather unsuccessful attempts to refer to the unconscious in copyright infringement cases (Bellido, 2013), a puzzling feature of the judge’s decision lay in the appeal to musical consciousness as an element for consideration in the proving of music authorship ( Hadley v. Kemp , 1999, paras 646–649; Barron, 2006: 29). The judge also seemed to accept that it was possible to hear music which had not yet been played.…”

“…Although scholars have recently emphasized the important role played by experts in music copyright disputes (Bently, 2009; Bellido, 2013; Cason and Müllensiefen, 2012), key questions remain: What specific techniques have the experts used, and what has their impact been in the development of the law? One way to answer these questions is to follow the controversies in order to consider the ways in which the musical work is constructed in the courtroom.…”

“…However, in retrospect, there was one crucial difference that made this case historically significant and that would have a then-unknown impact on the future of music copyright. In previous cases of this kind, the collaborative relationship between experts, clerks and solicitors endured after the dispute (Bellido, 2013). However, this time, the defence team included a young apprentice who had stumbled upon the case ‘by mistake’, but who felt so drawn to the copyright world that he would continue to work in, and subtly influence this realm for the next three decades.…”