Copyright is the foundations upon which the music business is built. In its simplest terms, it is a form of intellectual property and, as such, gives the creator or the owner/author of that work exclusive rights over how it is published, distributed and adapted.
There is an important difference between the copyright in a song (i.e. the words and music) and copyright in the sound recording of that song. These are two different copyrights. Copyright in a song is created automatically the moment it is written – but frequently artists will assign or licence their copyright in a song(s) to a publishing company, who will be more able to administer and enforce their rights.
Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the “author” of a sound recording is the producer, but it is generally accepted that the copyright owner will be the person who made the arrangements for the recording to be made – typically a record company.
The basic rights of copyright are: the right to copy the work; the right to issue copies of it to the public; the right to rent or lend copies to the public; the right to perform, show or play the work in public; the right to communicate the work to the public; the right to make an adaptation of the work; and do any of the above in relation to that adaptation. Anyone performing these acts without the permission of the copyright owner is in breach of copyright.
In the UK, the term of copyright for a sound recording is 50 years, although there are ongoing legislative proposals to extend this period to 70 years to bring it more in line with copyright terms around the world. The copyright inherent in the recordings gives legal protection to the producers and owners of those recordings against any infringement (the most obvious being illegal file-sharing but this can also include unauthorised sampling).
Copyright is essential in the music business to ensure that creators and owners are adequately protected and compensated for the use and sale of their creative works. The BPI helps to protect and enforce these rights on behalf of its member labels.