Copyright Corner: Streaming Student Recitals and Copyright

Post by Peter Shirts Music and Dance Librarian, Emory University Co-chair, MLA Legislation Committee  Like many universities, Emory invested in streaming infrastructure for student recitals during the COVID pandemic, and while these recitals are back to in-person audiences, live-streaming recitals continue to be requested by some students, as it allows participation of family and friends who are […]

Copyright Corner: Conductors’ Music Annotations & Copyright

Post by Greg MacAyeal Curator of the Music Library, Northwestern University Member, MLA Legislation Committee One of the clearer areas of copyright law is the definition of “original work of authorship” (US Copyright Law, section 102). Still, researchers and librarians may find themselves in muddy waters. While some works may be easy to define this […]

Creative License: Peabody Magazine

Over the summer, composer and tuba player Chanell Crichlow contacted music libraries asking if they would like to acquire any of her scores. She trained at the Manhattan School of Music and earned her master’s degree at Pennsylvania State University studying with Velvet Brown, who is also a Peabody faculty artist. After starting the PitchBlak Brass […]

A Model for Purchase and Licensing of Digital Scores

We are happy to share a new Model Purchase and License Agreement for Digital Scores. We hope this model will serve as a tool to ease friction in library acquisition of digital scores and provide composers with a tool to make their work accessible to libraries for purchase. Authored by Dave Hansen, Kathleen DeLaurenti, and […]

The Copyright Claims Board Proceedings Begin

On June 16th, the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) began their first proceedings. Created by the passage of the CASE Act in 2020, the CCB aims to resolve copyright disputes “of a relatively low economic value,” and will arbitrate copyright infringement claims of up to $30,000.  Libraries and archives have been granted an opportunity to pre-emptively […]

SMART Copyright Act

In recent years, we have seen a number of legislative efforts brought forward that were introduced as anti-piracy measures, but whose design would go far beyond addressing copyright infringement, leading to significant censorship online. The SMART Copyright Act of 2022 introduced in the Senate seeks to require new technology measures to act as a filter […]