"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.

Their predecessors once flaunted such signifiers as cars and diamond chains, while the new generation of hip-hop artists is flaunting ownership of their masters. High Snobiety names several artists who kept their music sovereignty, quite successfully so, like Russ, Young Dolph, JACKBOY, Rich the Kid, King Von, 21 Savage, J Cole, and expects the list to grow bigger in time.

An amazing story in the Rolling Stone about label executives buying beats behind hits, sometimes without singers’ approval or even knowledge. Some say the murky ethics can turn a breakthrough into “a nightmare”. A prime example of this practice was Caleb Hearn's song 'Always Be' that he wrote for a dead friend, only to find out that the label, management, and publishing company ‘94 Sounds had bought his song without his knowledge.

The wife and the publishing company of Jacques Levy, who co-wrote 7 of 9 songs from Bob Dylan’s 1976 album 'Desire', are suing the songwriter for $7.25m, the New York Post reports. Levy estate's lawsuit claims that Dylan owes Levy’s family 35% of income from the songs he co-wrote for 'Desire' – 'Hurricane', 'Isis', 'Mozambique', 'Oh, Sister', 'Joey', 'Romance in Durango' and 'Black Diamond Bay'. Dylan’s has recently sold his songwriting catalogue to Universal Music for a reported $300m.

Jimi Hendrix’s brother Leon Hendrix and niece Tina Hendrix have been ordered by a court to recall and destroy all apparel and merchandise bearing any Jimi Hendrix name, and to change the name of their tuition-free Hendrix Music Academy school, Billboard reports. Tina Hendrix said - “I am astonished that the courts have ... stripped us from our rights to use our own family surname after a lifetime of doing so". Experience Hendrix and Authentic Hendrix, created by Jimi Hendrix's father Al and cousin Bob, own all the rights to the guitarist's image and music. However, it is Tina Hendrix's attitude that they "gained the Hendrix name by virtue of adoption and has used it ever since, only to exploit millions of dollars off of Jimi Hendrix’s music, while using the proceeds to eliminate Jimi’s biological family members one by one, starting with Jimi’s own son, then Jimi’s brother and now his niece. I have never made one dollar off of my uncle while running a free music school for kids". The courts have sided with Experience and Authentic so far.

Rapper Nicki Minaj will pay singer Tracy Chapman $450,000 to settle a copyright dispute over a sample from Chapman's song 'Baby, Can I Hold You Tonight' that Minaj used in her 2018 song 'Sorry', the New York Times reports. The song was based on a sample of the dancehall track 'Sorry' by Jamaican artist Shelly Thunder, and that song, unbeknownst to Minaj, was based on Chapman's 'Baby, Can I Hold You Tonight'. After discovering the connection, Minaj and her record label sought permission to use Chapman's composition, but the singer-songwriter repeatedly refused. Judge sided with the rapper's lawyers, who argued that artists need to be free to sample music while writing and recording, adding that "a ruling uprooting these common practices would limit creativity and stifle innovation within the music industry". Finally, Chapman has accepted Minaj's offer of judgment in the case, and she will receive $450,000 from Minaj. As a result, the two have avoided going to trial.

Retired American musician and satirist Tim Lehrer, 92 years old now, has posted all his lyrics on his website and declared them public domain, to be "downloaded and used in any manner whatsoever, without requiring any further permission from me or any payment to me or to anyone else". His music is coming soon to the same website.

The US supreme court has declined to hear the case brought against Led Zeppelin by the estate of Randy Wolfe, late frontman of US band Spirit, in a long-standing copyright battle over 'Stairway to Heaven'. It was alleged that Led Zeppelin took the opening notes to 'Stairway to Heaven' from Spirit’s song 'Taurus'. Following a six-day trial in 2016, Led Zeppelin were cleared of plagiarism. That verdict was overturned in 2018. The case returned, but in March this year a US appeals court reinstated the original 2016 ruling. The only remaining recourse for Wolfe’s trustee team was the US supreme court, whose rejection of the case means it has finally ended, CNN reports.

The Doobie Brothers wrote Bill Murray a funny letter requesting him to stop playing or start paying for their song 'Listen to the Music' to promote hit own golf apparel brand William Murray Golf, CNN reports. Murray started running new ads promoting William Murray Golf’s latest shirt named Zero Hucks Given, using Doobie Brothers' song without asking, so they told him - "given that you haven’t paid to use it, maybe you should change the name to ‘Zero Bucks Given'”. The thing, they don't like those shirts - "we’d almost be OK with it if the shirts weren’t so damn ugly. But it is what it is. So in the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, 'Au revoir Golfer. Et payez!'”.

The 2020 Republican National Convention has closed out with opera singer Christopher Macchio belting out a version of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah'. Brooklyn Vegan is convinced that Trump hasn't even read the lyrics, because Cohen there sings "I've seen your flag on the marble arch / But love is not a victory march / It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah". In other disrespect-related news, Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination, and when his daughter Ivanka Trump arrived on the stage to introduce her father, she did so to the soundtrack of Elton John’s 'I’m Still Standing', causing the British singer’s name to light up social media. Billboard reports many fans weren't happy.

Neil Young filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Donald Trump's campaign for playing his songs at campaign rallies. The complaint filed in New York federal court states that "Plaintiff in good conscience cannot allow his music to be used as a 'theme song' for a divisive, un-American campaign of ignorance and hate". Young alleges that Trump's campaign lacks a license to publicly perform 'Rockin' in the Free World' and 'Devil's Sidewalk'.

Katy Perry has won an appeal in a copyright case involving damages of $2.8m (£2.3m) over song 'Dark Horse', which had previously been found in favour of rapper Flame, the New York Times reports. In July 2014, Perry was accused of plagiarising the song 'Joyful Noise' by a Christian rapper named Marcus Gray (AKA Flame), for her US No 1 hit 'Dark Horse', which was the second biggest-selling song worldwide that year. The songwriters sued, and in July 2019, a jury sided with Gray, and so Perry, along with five co-defendants including producer Max Martin and rapper Juicy J, were ordered to pay damages, with Perry herself owing $550,000. An appeal has reversed that decision, with the judge, Christina Snyder, setting aside the jury’s verdict saying it was “undisputed” that the eight-note section of 'Dark Horse' in question was “not a particularly unique or rare combination” of notes.

Led Zeppelin have triumphed in a long-running copyright dispute after a US appeals court ruled they did not steal the opening riff in 'Stairway To Heaven'. The Zeps were accused in 2014 of ripping off a song called 'Taurus' by the US band Spirit, written in 1968, three years before 'Stairway To Heaven' was written. Now, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has upheld a 2016 trial verdict that found Led Zeppelin did not copy it.

Technology lawyer and musician Damien Riehl and his associate, programmer Noah Rubin have copyrighted all of the possible unique melodies, billions of them, in an attempt to prevent musicians from being sued on grounds of copyright infringement. They saved all the melodies on a hard-drive and placed them in public domain. Riehl made an amazing TED talk about it.

15 expert musicologists have come to the aid of Katy Perry in her ‘Dark Horse’ copyright case (the court ruled she plagiarised song ‘Joyful Noise’ by Christain rapper Flame, was ordered to pay $2,8 million in damages), by sending an amici curiae letter to the court, asking the case to be reexamined.

"You now could be held liable for being influenced. That is bad news for pop stars, and the producers and songwriters who help them craft hits. They are now marks for frivolous litigation premised upon nebulous assertions as well as a complete and willful ignorance of how pop music is actually made" - New York […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that iconic film composer Ennio Morricone may reclaim the copyrights to six of his film scores from the late ’70s and early ’80s. In another copyright case, Eminem' publishing company Eight Mile Style filed a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against Spotify. The lawsuit claims that Spotify has no […]

The U.S. Department of Justice has taken Led Zeppelin’s side in the long-running copyright dispute that pits the writers of the group’s anthem 'Stairway to Heaven' against the publishers of the earlier song 'Taurus' by Spirit. The DOJ filed an amicus brief late Thursday supporting Zeppelin, stating, amongst other things, that the relevant portion of […]

123 artists have submitted a brief fo San Francisco court in the closely watched copyright case over the opening guitar riff of Led Zeppelin's ‘Stairway To Heaven’. The case was brought to court by a descendant of Randy Craig Wolfe, former band member and songwriter of Spirit, whose song 'Taurus' Led Zeppelin have allegedly ripped […]

"You sample a song, you get it cleared. The music industry has always been a wild west of rip-off artists, snake oil salesmen and manipulative profiteers but the plagiarism lawyers have beaten some sort of gentlemanly practices into it over the decades. Talent borrows, genius steals, previous genius sends legal letter outlining their cut. There’s […]

European parliament has passed copyright laws which critics say could change the internet with many musicians and creators saying the legislation will compensate artists fairly, but others argue that they will destroy user-generated content. The new rules, including the controversial Article 13, will hold tech firms responsible for material posted without copyright permission. Tech companies […]