An interesting article from The Public Domain website about Congressional hearings on the 1909 Copyright Act.http://www.thepublicdomain.org/2009/07/17/were-we-smarter-100-years-ago/My comments:
An important point of clarification is in order here.  The piano rolls were not “sound recordings”. They were mechanical reproductions of compositions. The argument was that you couldn’t “read” a piano roll as you […]

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Here are some videos about copyright and the music business that you may find helpful. - - - MJD
1 Overview of Copyright Law
2 Composers’ Rights

3 How Record Labels Earn Money
4 The Dual Purpose of Copyright Law

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James Madison is considered one of the greatest political thinkers of his time and the father of US Copyright.  He articulated a simple, yet novel idea – first published in The National Gazette in 1792, which is carved on the walls of the Copyright Office.
 “As a man is said to have a right to his […]

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Our language must be very clear when talking about “playing music”. We must
distinguish between the use of a composition & the use of a sound recording.
Songwriters & publishers earn money from compositions. Their copyright claim is filed on Form PA, and a standard c in a circle © copyright symbol is used. This […]

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The urge to create art & literature as an expression of the self is one of the hallmarks of Homo Sapiens.

About 35,000 years ago, the Aurignacians of southern Germany created ivory statuettes with both naturalistic & stylized features. 27,000 years ago, in the Cosquer caves, we find the painted outline of a man’s hand […]

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