Blog

Adding Resources to EMichaelMusic.com - My Digital Hoarding On Display

I have created the first version of a bibliography/collection of my favorite and/or essential resources entitled, "Music, Entertainment, Technology & Legal Resources." My definitions/stretches of meanings and category-creating allow me to squeeze "Business" and "Communication," significant and stand-alone-worthy fields, into "Technology." I hope that this listing of thousands of resources will be helpful to others as well.

Read More

New Compulsory License & The USPTO Green Paper Roundtable at Vanderbilt Law School - May 21, 2014

A Compulsory License to Sample Master Recordings is a very good idea. A fair, respectful and business-happy aspect of this license would be that a recording MUST be at least ten (10) years old. That way, the recording has had ample time to be sold in its original form, sales of the original recording have greatly decreased (or stopped), a new version will draw attention to the original version, the public has more art and options, and money will be generated from the rebirth of a 10 year old recording.

Read More

2013 Future of Music Coalition - My Tweets, Rants & Reactions (Part 1 of 2)

I thought before too much time passes, I should collect my tweets and comments about The 2013 Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit held in Washington DC October 28-29, 2013. The 2013 World Series was happening at the same time, so FMC was not my top priority. Taking notes and tweeting about an event is also not my favorite activity but one that I occasionally delve into. (Grammar Girl believes we should be able to end sentences with prepositions, in case you were wondering abut that last sentence.)

Read More

Fair Use, the 2-line rule & my heart tells me it's real

"Fair Use." Fair use is not silly - it's essential. Fair use is the use a copyrighted work (or more than one) without the author's permission. It's what we were forced to do in the American education system. It's not enough that we spouted our views - we needed to COPY and quote others' views as well, and it was unthinkable that we'd go to the trouble of writing to a book publisher to ask for permission, for example, to COPY a few sentences/paragraph from an author and insert it into our original work. This new original work by a student was usually a paper that had to be handed in to a teacher to fulfill an assignment. Asking for permission would take too long. Proper attribution (and copyright notice) for an academic assignment is usually considered a good reason to violate/break/pillage the "Copyright Law of the United States and Related Laws..."

Read More

Preying On Songwriters, My Winter Vacation & Re-Gifting

H E R E I S T H E P R O B L E M A S I S E E I TSometimes the songwriter's team members are playing for a different team, or perhaps playing a different sport. What I mean can be illustrated in a situation like this involving Songwriter(s) A and Songwriter(s) B.Songwriter A's publisher and/or attorney receive(s) a letter from songwriter B's publisher and/or lawyer telling Songwriter A that her/his new song has ripped off or infringed or copied or stolen Songwriter B's song. Publisher A/Attorney A informs Songwriter A that we better fix this. The way to fix this? Songwriter A simply and quickly needs to fork over half of A's copyright and future royalties on his/her song, and make sure that Songwriter B's name appears everywhere that Songwriter A's name appears on this song. All future royalties will be split between A and B.

Read More

Uncopyrightable introductions - Part 2, William Shatner obliquely, Martha Stewart to me

I should add that I feel that Sandals.com consciously, carefully and deliberately copied the intro to Beatles' Getting Better. Sandals.com did not accidentally derive this introduction, or independently create their introduction. Some composer labored over this...I am trying to establish that one can copy INTENTIONALLY without infringing copyright. Sandals.com copied The Beatles and it was not copyright infringement. I think a statement like "one can copy INTENTIONALLY without infringing copyright" could be controversial.

Read More

Do The Macarena (On A Fishing Boat In The North Atlantic With An HP Printer)

While working on a project, I heard this HP Office Jet Pro commercial and looked up. What distracted me and attracted me to the commercial was the manner in which it referenced the way-too-big hit song from the mid 1990's, "Macarena." (When I just wrote, M-A-C-A-R-E-N-A, Wordpress thought perhaps I meant, "Macaroni," or "Macaroon." No, I meant M-A-C-A-R-E-N-A. It might take a few more years to convince the world of words that Macarena is Macarena, just as it took a long time to make "Beatles" not be "Beetles.""Macarena" features its hook at these eleven (11) places in Macarena:

Read More

Haiku 101, Intellectual Property Haiku (IP Haiku)

My haiku obsession - haiku career - began that way. I've gone through periods of writing hundreds in a few hours. Sometimes my haiku tell a story. Other times they are related to a theme, and still other times they are disconnected and without any purpose, like my life. (I do not have a purposeful life - I have a purpose-less life. An ambient free-form, drifting life. Enough of this theme.)I used to get reprimanded by poets and scholars who knew better than I (knew better than I about everything - just ask them). Even my Japanese girlfriend told me that haiku were supposed to be about nature, not vehicles for telling deranged and absurd stories that would be parodic and unauthorized episodes of - - - -The Dating GameLeave It To BeaverThe Brady Bunch orLove Boat

Read More

Igor Got Game: A Musical and Legal Comparison of The Beastie Boys and Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” (1918) drew heavily upon music composed by Giovanni Pergolesi and others in the early 18th century. The Beastie Boys, an extremely popular rap/hip hop music group since the mid-1980’s, in their best-selling CD, Hello Nasty (1999) drew upon the music of Stravinsky by means of the digital sampling of Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” Both of these “borrowings” share important similarities and differences. Furthermore, these borrowings shed light on several seemingly unrelated disciplines and fields of study. These include music composition and the nature of creativity and originality, the intellectual property law of different times and societies created to protect authors from appropriations of their original works, the means by which borrowed music may be used and transmitted (sampling, digital streaming, MP3, etc.), and the business (financial, licensing, retail, broadcast, etc.) considerations involved in such borrowings.

Read More

Does Five For Fighting’s “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” Infringe Angie Aparo’s “Seed?”

We teach our children to STEAL other peoples' thoughts without asking permission. (I'm referring to what some teachers and professors do - make their students write "papers" that consist of their own thoughts mixed with the (better, older and more respected) thoughts of others. We FORCE THEM TO STEAL. All we ask is that our students have to correctly indicate (cite) their exact source(s). We would not allow them to even ask for permission.

Read More