WHAT DOES A COPYRIGHT DO?

 A copyright owner is provided with five exclusive rights in their created work. The owner, as well as authorized third-parties, have the right to: (1) reproduce the work, (i.e., mechanical reproduction of the music for CDs, downloads, and vinyl); (2) distribute the work (i.e., stream or otherwise make the music publicly available); (3) prepare derivative works; (4) publicly perform the work (i.e., in a concert or on the radio); and, (5) publicly display the work. This means that the owner has the sole and exclusive right to publicly distribute copies of the work by sale, rental, or lease and to publicly perform or display the work, such as selling copies of a novel or publicly playing a musical recording at a restaurant.

For instance, the exclusive right to reproduce a work prevents a fan that purchased an artist’s CD from creating and distribution copies of it to others. In addition, the right to authorize or prepare derivative works provides a copyright owner with the right to produce or permit another party to create a remix (a derivative work) of an original protected song because the remix would be considered a new arrangement of the original work.

Additionally, in order to make records, downloads, tapes, and CDs, a party requires a mechanical license from the party who owns the copyright in the underlying musical composition. Until the first initial public release of a musical composition, the songwriter and publisher have complete control over issuing licenses. However, after this first release, anyone else can create their version of the song (a “cover” track) by paying statutory fees and obtaining a compulsory mechanical license.

A “compulsory license” is one that cannot be refused by the songwriter (or publisher), i.e., it does not require the songwriter’s permission for you to record his song. In the United States, The Harry Fox Agency is the foremost mechanical rights agency. It administers and issues compulsory licenses and collects and distributes the mechanical royalty license fees to the appropriate parties.