Law Commons^™

Electronic Rights Management And Digital Identifier Systems, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The new world of digital information requires a new way of providing access to that information — while keeping the copyright backbone. It might be technically easier to create a digital infrastructure without copyright: Just throw works up on the Internet, and let anyone get to them for any purposes. But such systems have been suggested and roundly rejected by those who create and own works of value. So we need to build an electronic infrastructure that works with copyright and takes advantage of the digital environment. This paper looks at the attempts to build part of that infrastructure — …

The Times They Are A Changin': How Technology Has Forced The Law To Deal With A New Era In Music Distribution, Mark Plotkin

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The United States has attempted to keep pace with emerging digital music distribution technology through its copyright law. However, the perfect quality, limitless geographical scope, and exponential growth of digital music delivery implicate the varied and conflicting interests of songwriters, performers, record companies, broadcasters, and the public. Reconciling the interests of these groups in digital music delivery has not been, and will not be, easy...

To understand how the 1995 Act and the DMCA change music licensing, one should be aware that, in general, two distinct copyrights exist for each song that is recorded: the song copyright and the sound …

Music, Money, And The Middleman: The Relationship Between The Songwriter And The Publisher, Cornelius Cowles

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Money, along with creative drive and the chance to work in an exciting industry, push the publisher and songwriter both. This article seeks to help the songwriter under-stand the role of the music publisher, an indispensable and unavoidable part of the country music industry. It examines the songwriter-publisher relationship from the perspective of those people active in the industry and examines criticism of the publisher's role. It further analyzes the typically thorny legal and contractual issues faced by the songwriter in negotiating an exclusive songwriting agreement with the publisher. Finally, recognizing the special role of songwriters in Nashville, it addresses …