How Led Zeppelin Gave Us All a Lesson in Copyright Law; Ultimate Guitar, December 9, 2021

Justin Beckner, Ultimate Guitar; How Led Zeppelin Gave Us All a Lesson in Copyright Law

"We often think of music as being a therapeutic, enjoyable, carefree world of creative expression, some of us decide to make our living in an industry built on those principles. That’s when things get very dark very quickly. Visions of rainbows and artistic freedom are crushed between binding contracts regarding the financial and legal terms of your intellectual property and the foaming mouth of the public ready to tear you apart because your music is too commercial. It can be a dark industry for anyone to navigate, especially those without law degrees.

Many litigations in the industry hinge on copyright law. So we sought out the aid of an expert in the field to help us understand the basics of copyright law using some high-profile case studies you have undoubtedly heard of. This article was written in collaboration with a copyright attorney, Rikki Mays-Reak, who helps us navigate the treacherous legal waters of the music industry...

With only 12 notes at our disposal in western music (I'm speaking in generality, of course), it's hard to imagine any combination of notes being so unique that it doesn’t sound like anything that has ever been recorded or composed in history of music. So these copyright lawsuits regarding intellectual property can be very complex and tricky, especially when you consider that it covers any improvised version of the song committed to some form of recording."

The Key to the Sharp Objects Mystery Is in the Music; Esquire, August 12, 2018

Matt Miller, Esquire; The Key to the Sharp Objects Mystery Is in the Music

[Kip Currier: HBO's 8-episode "Sharp Objects" is a thought-stirring, unflinching exhumation on the roles of "memory" and "place" in people's lives, as witnessed via the POV of childhood trauma survivor-cum-journalist Amy Adams' tragi-heroine. Music plays an inseparable role in the show's haunting story-telling and this Esquire article sheds fascinating light on the creative, collaborative spirit between director Jean-Marc Vallée and rock music icon band Led Zeppelin, whose songs stand out memorably in some key episodes.]

"Miraculously, [Led Zeppelin] liked the idea so much they approved not one but four songs; they also gave Vallée free reign to play as much of the tracks as he wanted and even layer them over each other to make his own atmosphere. “I think I fell on the floor,” Jacobs says of when she got the call, hearing that the songs had been approved. “Like, wow, this was so unprecedented, because they rarely ever let you use more than one song, and [we could] use the songs multiple times.”

The difference with Sharp Objects was Vallée’s approach to his soundtracks, which isn’t music as background music, but rather an integral part of the story and characterization."