Friday, 27 January 2012

Legal Aid In Licensing Concerns

By Kris Tanner


Copyright and intellectual property breach has been ongoing even before the Web made it effortless to spread unpermitted copies of others' works. People share ideas, merchandise, and even secrets to others and pass them off as their own or basically just profit from it without permission from the owner. And with the advent of the World Wide Web, stealing files is made even a lot easier. Distributing others' creation is not bad at all times. Sometimes, if done with right licensing arrangement, it can even help the author. But with all the legalities involved, hiring solicitors for advice is a sensible move.

A good example would be a self-written song that you recorded independently or through a studio label. Copyright violations are so common that even the most famous musicians of today have charged others or have been accused of pilfering music.

Since you naturally want to spread your song as far as possible so many consumers would learn about it, you should enter into a licensing contract with people who want to play your music. You may want the music to become famous but you want people to acknowledge you as the composer rather than claim your track as theirs. You and the other parties would specify the terms and conditions of the agreement beforehand.

A great deal of money is on the line when there's a copyright violation complaint, no matter if the musician is the accused or the complainant. That's why studio labels don't leave it to chance. They employ the best attorneys specializing in licensing matters to help them from the bind.

To those unfamiliar with music licensing industry, the entire process is somewhat very technical. A lot of indie artists and consumers don't know much about copyrights and licenses. Solicitors help simplify the legal process to their clients when the whole process becomes too complex. They advise them on what is considered allowed and what is not.

With a counsel acting as a guide, a musician would know what specific licenses to acquire if he or she wants to cover a popular tune originally recorded decades ago. If the musician would like to play the tune on a TV show or just use a verse of the lyrics to incorporate in a new tune, another permit would be used. There are many legal issues involved in the whole process indeed. So it would be smart to employ solicitors to know your boundaries and rights in this matter.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment