We are the music makers

Topic

Copyright

  • The silent album: how 1,000 UK artists turned an empty studio into a campaign

    Is This What We Want?, out on 25 February 2025, is 12 recordings of empty studios and performance spaces, credited to more than 1,000 musicians, whose track titles spell out a message to the UK government. It landed on the day the government's AI copyright consultation closed. As a piece of artist activism it is unusually well designed, and the design is worth copying.

    Industryvia Is This What We Want? (artists' campaign)

  • 'Dark Horse': how a $2.8M verdict against Katy Perry was wiped out over an unoriginal ostinato

    The Ninth Circuit has upheld the decision to throw out a jury's $2.8 million copyright verdict against Katy Perry, holding that the eight-note figure 'Dark Horse' shares with Flame's 'Joyful Noise' is built entirely from commonplace musical elements. The opinion is the clearest plain-English account yet of how courts separate a song's building blocks from what a songwriter can own.

    Artist rightsvia U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

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