"If the courts decide that not enough human input goes into an AI-generated work, then that work cannot be protected by copyright, and then the work will fall into the public domain, meaning that creators would lose their IP protections" - the law expert Barry Scannell points out for the MBW. Last week exactly that happened - "the US Copyright Office (USCO) refused to grant a copyright registration to AI images in Kristina Kashtanova’s Zarya of the Dawn comic (the Work), which used Midjourney generative AI art... This decision potentially has major implications for US creative industries, from music to art to gaming, as it calls into question whether works which utilise (even in part) AI technology can be protected by copyright."

"Las Vegas wedding chapels recently received an unusual letter. It contained a cease-and-desist order—demanding that they stop using Elvis Presley impersonators to conduct marriages... I won’t get involved in the legal niceties here, but I seriously doubt any law firm is powerful enough to stop Elvis impersonation. Fake artists are as old as music itself" - Ted Gioia writes in his latest memo. Greece and Egypt are the earliest examples, with the blues being the fresher one. "You might even say that this practice is what made the blues a genuine tradition—artists preferred to take something pre-existing, and maybe change a few tiny details, rather than invent a new song from scratch. And we can’t really complain, because this is what allows oral traditions to last over the generations. Many of these blues songs would have disappeared if somebody hadn’t stolen them".

In 2021, music copyright was worth $39.6bn, up 18 percent from 2020, and considerably more than 2011, when global value of recorded music was $28.3bn. Labels are seeing 65% of all the value, whereas publishers are at 35%. Another number - streaming is making up 55% of the total. Tarzan Economics has all the numbers.

Music theorist Adam Neely deals with music copyright and artists selling their music to investment firms in his latest video. He starts with a 1548 decision of French king Henry II which turned music from a communal cultural knowledge into private property that can be owned. The essential question Neely asks is: How do you own a musical idea and by whose authority?

Mariah Carey is being sued by New Orleans songwriter Andy Stone for $20 million in damages over her holiday hit 'All I Want for Christmas Is You'. Stone alleges that he co-wrote a song with the same title five years prior to Carey’s release. Stone’s song was recorded by his country-pop band Vince Vance & the Valiants and released in 1989. Carey’s single was issued on her 1994 Merry Christmas LP. Pamela Koslyn, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in music and intellectual property rights, noted there are 177 works, many of them musical compositions, with 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' as the title. “Song titles aren’t entitled to copyright protection” Koslyn added, Deadline reports. Apart from the title, it is truly hard to find similarities between the two songs.

"Recent rulings may herald a turning of the tide. It is hoped that the US appeal in Dark Horse and the UK court’s findings in Smith v Dryden and Sheeran v Chokri signal the end of a damaging, regressive culture of speculative claims over commonplace and, critically, much-loved musical elements" - lawyers Simon Goodbody and Mark Krais that represented Ed Sheeran in his recent copyright infringement bat

Sony Music Entertainment has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against fitness apparel brand Gymshark, valued at approximately $1.3bn, Music Business Worldwide reports. Sony claims that Gymshark “has achieved its success by infringing sound recordings and musical compositions belonging to a number of different content owners on a massive scale”. According to the filing, Gymshark has “largely eschewed traditional advertising” and has instead promoted its products in videos posted to the likes of Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. This may be an important case, because it highlights the place where platform-wide licensing deals for use of music in user-generated content meet the world of sync licensing. Regular users can use music in their videos, but rules change when it comes to brands and influencers paid by those brands, which is a commercial activity.

A group of indie and major music publishers - including ABKCO Music & Records, Big Machine Records, Concord Music Group, deadmau5, Downtown Music Publishing, Hipgnosis, Kobalt Music Group, Universal Music Publishing Group - are suing video gaming platform Roblox for over $200 million in damages in the US, alleging widespread copyright infringement by the company. Plaintiffs' representative cites Roblox’s massive user base of more than 42 million active daily players and alleges that Roblox has gone to great lengths to avoid paying music creators, MBW reports. Warner and Sony are missing from the lawsuit - they're partners with the gaming platform.

In 2019, music copyright was worth $31.6bn, up by 7%, or $2.1bn from the previous year, and the third consecutive year that the growth was more than $2bn. These record-breaking copyright valuations are due to streaming - its contribution to labels, publishers and CMOs has gone from 14% in 2015 to almost 47% in 2019. Tarzan Economics predicts that 2020 will be another record-breaking year.

Taylor Swift has announced that she has re-recorded her second and most successful album 'Fearless', as part of a long-term plan to control her old songs outright, the New York Times reports. Her plan is to re-record, note-by-note, her entire Big Machine discography of six albums and to release it by herself. Swift is setting up and promoting 'Fearless (Taylor Version)' which comes out in April, as a new album, with six previously unreleased songs. She released the "Taylor" version of 'Love Story' as Valentine's gift for her fans.