Showing posts with label composers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label composers. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Her Music Fell Into Obscurity. Now It’s Back at the Philharmonic.; The New York Times, November 20, 2023

Garrett Schumann, The New York Times; Her Music Fell Into Obscurity. Now It’s Back at the Philharmonic.

"When Perry died, she had no children and only a few published works. Although scholars have identified about 100 of her manuscripts and scores, dozens cannot be performed or recorded because there is no established copyright holder. As Christopher Wilkins, the music director of the Akron Symphony, said, “all the work is protected; it just hasn’t been licensed, and can’t be until whoever controls it negotiates that.”

Wilkins first found Perry’s compositions in 2020, and marveled at what he saw. She, he said, “may be the most accomplished and celebrated composer ever to emerge from Akron.” He then asked the soprano and scholar Louise Toppin, who leads the African Diaspora Music Project, to help him explore Perry’s output and edit some of her manuscripts...

The Akron Symphony has also engaged a local lawyer to help resolve the copyright ambiguities that ensnare many of Perry’s compositions — a barrier to overcome for those interested in her music, beyond historical practices of exclusion among American institutions."

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Blurred Lines Songwriters Have Got to Give It Up for the Gaye Family: Pharrell Williams v. Frankie Christian Gaye; The National Law Review, April 27, 2018

Jodi Benassi, The National Law Review; Blurred Lines Songwriters Have Got to Give It Up for the Gaye Family: Pharrell Williams v. Frankie Christian Gaye

"The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a district court’s judgment after a jury trial, ruling that the song “Blurred Lines” infringed Marvin Gaye’s 1970s song “Got To Give It Up.” Pharrell Williams, et al. v. Frankie Christian Gaye, et al., Case No. 15-56880 (9th Cir., Mar. 21, 2018) (Smith, J) (Nguyen, J, dissenting)...

Judge Nguyen issued a strong dissent, stating that the decision allowed the Gayes to accomplish what no one has before: copyrighting a musical style. In her view, the two works were not objectively similar as a matter of law under the extrinsic test because they differed in melody, harmony and rhythm. She believed the majority established a dangerous precedent that strikes a devastating blow to future musicians and composers everywhere."

Thursday, January 5, 2017

Bulgarians Listen to Classics Thanks to Copyright War; Balkan Insight, 1/5/17

Mariya Cheresheva, Balkan Insight; Bulgarians Listen to Classics Thanks to Copyright War

"At 00.01 am on January 1, 2017, instead of hearing the official Bulgarian anthem, as they do every year, listeners to Bulgarian National Radio, BNR, were surprised to hear an alternative version performed by BNR’s own choir and symphonic orchestra.


This was not an independent decision of the music editors of BNR. It turned out that they had been banned from playing the official national anthem owing to a decision of Musicautor, Bulgaria’s non-profit society of composers, lyricists and music publishers, which exists to collectively manage copyright issues.

Musicautor, which hold the copyright to over 14,000,000 songs of Bulgarian and worldwide artists, suspended its contract with BNR from the beginning of the new year, demanding higher fees.

It has banned BNR from playing much contemporary Bulgarian and foreign music until the fee issue is resolved."

Friday, November 12, 2010

How to save the music industry; GQ.com, 8/13/10

Paul McGuinness, GQ.com; How to save the music industry:

"Bourget's action was a milestone in the history of copyright law. The legal wrangling that followed led to the establishment of the first revenue-collection system for composers and musicians."

http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2010-08/13/gq-music-paul-mcguinness-on-music-piracy/file-sharing-on-spotify-and-piracy

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Razor-thin copyright line; Variety, 6/2/10

Melinda Newman, Variety; Razor-thin copyright line: Approximating temp music for trailers is tricky business:

"How close is too close for comfort?

That's the question many movie trailer composers are asking themselves. With increasing frequency, executives at studios and movie trailer houses are requesting they replicate the temp music in a trailer when the original tunes aren't available or are too expensive.

"As time goes along, they're more and more demanding that we get as close as possible without plagiarizing, and it's gotten dicey," says composer John Beal, who has written music for more than 2,000 trailers.

Scott Ogden, former creative director at trailer house Flyer Entertainment and the newly named producer at Herzog & Co., freely admits, "We bring in composers when we have a piece of music that everyone loves, but we can't license it. We ask them to do an interpretation of it."

Ogden calls it an "interpretation"; others call it "parallel music" -- the one thing no one wants to call it is copyright infringement, and composers worry that the line between imitation and duplication is getting razor thin.


"I have had instances where I've said (to the studio or trailer house), 'It's my advice to you that I think we've gone too close.' If it's gets into a situation that's very tricky, we hire a musicologist," says composer Veigar Margeirsson, who's written trailer music for such movies as "Iron Man," "Transformers" and "Hancock." "I never say we'll just knock it off and hope for the best."

Sometimes, a studio or trailer company pushes too hard. "Several years back, I was doing something orchestral for a trailer, and they decided, 'We love this song by a certain band.' It wasn't a very famous band, but it was a recognizable song," Margeirsson recalls. "They wanted to go so close, at a certain point, I said, 'I can't do this anymore.' They were literally asking me to duplicate note for note what I was supposed to do. I said I have to stop."

Adding to the composer's challenge is that he or she is usually tasked with creating music that has the same tempo as the temp score, although some musicians have found a way around that. "We had a trailer several years ago and everything was hard cut, I think to a Beastie Boys tune," says Jeff Eden Fair, who, with his wife, Starr Parodi, has scored such trailers as "United 93," "V for Vendetta" and "War of the Worlds." "We realized we could get that effect by using a different time signature and make it totally unique and still hit all the marks."

Composers say they frequently get trailers with as many as 20 different music snippets in the two-and-a-half-minute reel. It's their job to compose something new that manages to hit all the high points as the temp music or write the bridge between licensed tracks.

"The most I've ever seen is 30," Beal says. "They say, 'Here's what we feel works best for each of the cuts; we'd like for you to write original pieces of music.'?"

Beal, who has been scoring trailers since the '70s, says it wasn't always this way. He recalls a time when he was handed a trailer with no temp music and told to compose his own new score. That changed 10 or 15 years ago. "There was a shift in testing trailers, and there was more temp music being used during the focus group process," Beal says. "At that point, people became so concerned about the numbers they were getting from the focus group, they didn't want to take a risk on anything original. And when they couldn't license that music, we'd get calls to emulate that music."

Now, Beal says "100% of the time there is a temp score, and 90% of the time I'm asked to get close to it."

When trailer editors aren't hiring composers, they are more frequently turning to libraries, which offer pre-cleared music that is often cheaper than creating scores from scratch or licensing tracks. Most composers either own their own libraries or supply music to one.

Beal says that for smaller films, the scoring trailer budget may be 10% of what it was 20 years ago. On major studio films, fees are as little as half of what they once were, although for blockbusters, the budget still remains high, if not growing.

But there's another reason composers say studios and trailer editors are going more readily to libraries from the start: It's a sure-fire way to avoid what composers call "temp love." "Certain executive have told me they fully believe it's the route they should take," Fair says. "Not because it's creative, but so they don't have to sell music to the movie director twice.""

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118020113.html?categoryid=4051&cs=1

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Op-Ed: Nancy Sinatra; New York Times, 8/4/09

Op-Ed: Nancy Sinatra; New York Times:

"Terrestrial radio is the only radio platform that still doesn’t have to pay these royalties. Internet radio and satellite radio pay artists when they play their records, so do cable television music channels. In fact, AM and FM radio stations that stream their signal online pay performance royalties.

The United States is one of a small number of countries where artists and musicians are not compensated when their music is played on over-the-air radio. Because the United States doesn’t have performance royalties, radio stations in countries that do collect them do not have to pay American artists. In many of these countries, American artists make up as much as 50 percent of radio airplay, and this prevents millions of dollars — industry estimates are $100 million a year — from flowing into our economy.

I believe in a performance royalty because recording artists and musicians from every generation deserve to be compensated for their art."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/opinion/04sinatra.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=sinatra&st=Search

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Were we smarter 100 years ago..?; James Boyle's Public Domain Blog, 7/17/09

James Boyle's Public Domain Blog; Were we smarter 100 years ago..?:

"I have been rereading the legislative history of the 1909 Copyright Act. I have come to the conclusion that 100 years ago we were smarter about copyright, about disruptive technologies, about intellectual property, monopolies and network effects than we are today. At least, the legislative hearings were much smarter. The hearings I am looking at took place in 1906 — thanks to the wonder of Google books you can read them yourself, if you are really nerdy."

http://www.thepublicdomain.org/2009/07/17/were-we-smarter-100-years-ago/