Archive for February, 2009

Cases concerning disputes over Intellectual Property Rights (IPR’s) have been on the rise since the beginning of the Internet. This is because infringing material can be found fairly easily when someone creates material that infringes the rights of another. It is important to know that copyright law does not protect an idea, a name, an advertising slogan or a title. In these instances, companies need to protect their work through a registered trademark which is filed through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The trademark must be “famous” and “distinctive.” In order to win a case over trademark infringement, a company must show that the infringer’s trademark causes “a likelihood of confusion” in the public eye and/or a likelihood of damage to the value or goodwill of the original trademark. continue

The ‘music industry’ has at last awoken to acknowledge the existence of ‘new’ music distribution networks such as the World Wide Web and P2P. It has also begun to realise that quashing these technologies by imposing crippling Digital Rights Management on digital recordings may not be terribly effective, and so a new business model has been proposed - the 360-Degree record deal… continue

All recording contracts will define the “term” of the agreement. This explicitly sets out the length of time that the recording agreement between a company and an artist is valid. This will usually consist of the initial term as well as further option periods, commenced by both parties in varying, negotiable ways. For example, the term of an agreement may be an initial two-year period, with three additional one-year agreements (totaling a five year period). continue

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What is music licensing and how can it make an artist/songwriter successful? In the music industry, a license is really a “music clearance” sought by a person or company that wishes to use or reproduce another’s work. Currently, there a variety of ways in which licensing can create revenue streams for artists and songwriters. There are hundreds of cable TV shows that use music, films of all stature that need soundtracks, and cell-phones that can play ringtones and ringbacks, among others All of these involve money being paid in return for the right to use someone else’s music. continue

Podcasting is all the rage on the Internet right now and one of the many challenges facing podcasters today (and there are millions of them) is finding royalty-free music to use in their programs. Enter the Podsafe Music Network (PMN). Podcasters can go to this web site to find music to use in their programs that is guaranteed to be free of licensing restrictions. Here’s where you enter the picture – if you sign up for the PMN, you can make your music available to thousands of podcasters all in one place. While this means you are giving your music away for free use, the exposure potential is very good. If you have already been offering fans and visitors to your web site a few free music downloads to hook them on your music, you might as well make those available for use here as well.