Composer’s rights regarding copyright involves the legal right to reproduce the copyrighted work in recordings, arrange, distribute, and prepare arrangements of their copyrighted works, to distribute recordings of their copyrighted work via sale or rental, to perform the work publicly and by means of digital audio recordings.  There are limitations on these rights specifically as it pertains to the purpose of the use.  Music educators are allowed to make copies of copyrighted work for the purpose of music education.  The overall umbrella term for this purpose is “educational fair use”.  This paper discusses my thoughts on the limited protection that is covered for composers, followed by a few warnings for music educators.

           

There are debates over whether these rights are comprehensive enough to cover composers in terms of loss of revenue.  Composers with copyrighted works can grant special permissions to others who request to perform the music.  This provides some protection for composers, but it is a thoughtful and tedious decision due to all the factors involved, such as the temptation of positive public exposure to his/her works verses losing revenue to have it performed for free.  Music teachers can make copies and distribute copyrighted music without a penalty in accordance with Appendix A of the Rights for Copyright Owners document written by the National Association for Music Education.  However, the distribution in and of itself, even in an educational setting, is seen as partially detrimental to the composer who makes no money off of the distribution of these copies.

 

There are a couple of warnings for music educators concerning use of music in the public domain.  Warning number one:  regarding public domain laws, if a piece of music was published prior to 1922, then no special permissions or performance license is needed.  However, the music educator should still double check to see whether the piece has been copyrighted since its original publication date.  Warning number 2: if the work is not a public domain, then a public performance license from the composer’s licensing organization.  Warning number three: publishing a performance video of your class on your class website is permissible, so long as your site is a licensed one. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

 

Reference regarding Public Domain:

 

The National Association for Music Education online (2015), Copyright Guidelines for Schootube, http://www.nafme.org/my-classroom/copyright/nafme-member-benefit-eases-performance-licensing/copyright-performance-exemptions/copyright-guidelines-for-schooltube/

 

Reference regarding Copyright and Educational Fair Use:

 

The National Association for Music Education online (2015), Rights of Copyright Owners, derived from http://www.nafme.org/rights-of-copyright-owners/