As I continue my Masters Journey
this month I will look at three recent legal controversies affecting the Music
Production industry, I will look at each one and give my opinion on how this
might impact my future music production company. In the music business there
are many lawsuits brought because of infringement of copyrights to illegal
music piracy, so there are many to choose from.
I’ll start by examining the
formally Homeless music intern who brought a lawsuit against Warner Music
reported in Newsweek Magazine. While living in a homeless shelter in the Bronx
Kyle Grant took an internship with Warner Music Group (WMG) in 2012, with
dreams of starting his own label he figured that working at Warner Music Group (WMG) would be the right
place to learn the industry. As is the custom when working as an intern you
have to keep the studio clean, run errands, and whatever is needed to keep the
studio running smoothly before you will be given the opportunity to learn.
According to Fact Sheet #71of The Department of Labor The Fair Labor
Standards Act that an unpaid internship should be for the benefit of the intern
to be trained. So after having to come in earl and leave late he was about to
lose his bed at the shelter and the thought of getting fired form the
internship was very awkward for him. After working there for eight months he
was indeed fired because he took to much time for lunch, and never received any
compensation for his time at the job.
I know what that feels like when
you want to learn the business and take a position as an intern and all you do
is manual labor and you don’t learn anything. On top of that no one who becomes
an intern should not be given the opportunity to be trained in their field of
choice when they are not getting paid, this is wrong and most people who become
interns learn that it is a cut throat business and the one who devotes all
their time to the company is the one who after years of interning that will get
the opportunities.
Next I will take a look at MusicPiracy and how it has made an impact on the music industry, according to an
article in Forbs magazine last year there are different opinions on music
piracy, some believe that it has help drive sales and others who believe that
people who illegally download music are cheap and don’t want to spend the money
to buy it legally. There were two reports that the article looked at on by the European
Commission that stated “all signs point to piracy leading to a slight increase
in sales” and the other by OfCom‘s report that based on attitudes people
have about paying for music.
I believe that all the streaming services (iTunes, Spotify,
Pandora, and Amazon) and their cost to the consumer they are actually ripping
off the music creators, and it is obvious because of the lawsuits being filed
by ASCAP and BMI to get Congress to provide fair pay to music creators who want
to profit from their creations. It is unfair to music creators when people
illegally download music from the Internet without paying for it. People have
been sharing music for a very long time even before the Internet by making tape
copies for their friends, so I know this will continue to happen, but if music
creators would price their music where it affordable we can see our sales grow.
Lastly I will look at trademark cases involving two record labels with the same
name, but each “served different
niches in the music industry”. One label
used “sTRANGEmUSIC” as its mark
and recorded music combining classical and electronic and secured the domain
name “strangemusic.com”
in1998, while the other used “Strange Music” while producing Hip Hop and Rap
and registered “strangemusicinc.com.” in 2003, because “strangemusicinc.com.”
was more commercially successful “sTRANGEmUSIC” asked for an injunction, but
the courts refused finding that “strangemusicinc.com.”
“Appearance in the
marketplace is unlikely to confuse consumers.” Even though both sound the same
their mark differed in “font, color and design.” “sTRANGEmUSIC” lost the case
because the court did not find the defendants to be in violation of “sTRANGEmUSIC”
mark.
This case makes it clear that in the music business you
need to know what constitutes infringement and trademarks are hard to infringe
on because of the different categories. I will make sure to do my research when
I look to protect my brand so that I don’t get sued.
