Music and the Law

 Technology has brought new challenges to the music industry. From free downloads on the Internet to music being sold on websites, music is now available to fans in a wide variety of ways. This leaves the artist making sure they protect their rights not only with the record label but also with the fans and how they receive their music. No one wants to work hard on a project and not be paid for it, unless the intention was to give it away freely in the first place.

The first lawsuit is Eminem suing his record label Universal Music Group on the how digital music was classified for the purpose of royalties. “Eminem’s contract stipulates that he gets 50 percent of the royalties for a license but only 12 percent for a sale.” Of course the record label would want the digital music to be labeled as a sale instead of a license because they would earn more of the royalties. Universal won the decision in 2009 but the decision was overturned in 2010 that was a very big thing for artist. Since each digital version of the song would be considered a license and now that digital music is the second highest way of buying music. Artist can now earn more for their work instead of the limited royalties of the past from sales.

The music industry feels that Google is playing a part in music piracy. The industry feels that by Google allowing the links to these various sites to be found in their search results that they are helping people to steal music. They want to make sure that Google ranks legal music sites higher than sites that encourage piracy. Since at this moment Google is the most used search engine and people world wide use the term “Google it” when they want to tell someone to search for information online the industry feels Google has the power to help stop piracy. Can Google really be blamed for piracy sites? Google is just a search engine that provides information on links for the information you put into search that is already on the Internet. This will be an interesting lawsuit if it happens that will change on music and other things are presented on the Internet.

Victor Willis won a victory not just for himself but other artist and writers who want to protect themselves and the rights over their music. This means not only does he take away rights from the music publishers but he increase his royalty amounts from 12% to 50%. Now that he has gained control over his music he can now make deals to earn more royalties by allowing third parties to use his music, before he had no say because the publishers had all the control. This may not seem like a big deal, but think about them using your song in a project that you were against and you had no way to stop them. His victory now allows him this right of full control.

As I have stated above with new technology it can help or hurt an artist. So as an artist you have to make sure you know your rights or surround yourself with people that will help you protect your rights. As the music industry changes and adjusts to the Internet and all the new laws it brings, artist must be extremely carefully with their contracts and the deals that they make.