By: Fatima Dabbah

One of the most important terms in the music business world is copyright. 

There are two different copyrights associated with a song: A copyright of the composition and another for the master recording. A composition copyright is for the actual music meaning chords, lyrics, structure and more. While the recording copyright is for the literal recording of the song. A musician usually owns the copyright to their composition but oftentimes sell their rights to the master recording. There can be multiple owners to one song and issues can arise when all parties do not agree on the terms. 

When songs are played publicly or streamed royalties are earned for both copyrights. When a song is going to be in use, permission must be received from all owners of the song. If money is generated, royalties must be paid out. 

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On Feb. 17, 2022 the band Heavy Young Heathens filed a lawsuit against NBC and U.S. figure skating pair Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier for using their cover of the song “House of the Rising Sun” during their performance without permission from the group. 

Another occurrence of copyright lawsuits popped up in February. Heirs of Jimi Hendrix’s former bandmates, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, have filed a lawsuit against Sony Music U.K. saying that they are owed royalties. 

Hendrix’s music catalog is owned by Hendrix Experience LLC and Authentic Hendrix LLC while Sony U.K. is the exclusive licensee of the music. 

At the beginning of the year, musician Neil Young requested his music be removed from Spotify after the platform decided to continue to keep the Joe Rogan podcast. The podcast is known to spread misinformation about COVID-19. This led to Young discontinuing his support to the platform. But Young does not own all the rights to his music. Warner Brothers owns the licensing rights therefore Young needed to receive permission beforehand. But Warner Brothers have agreed to remove the music from Spotify. 

With music having many owners, these are only some of the problems that have risen. More problems are surfacing for musicians with music being easy to access and for free. Musicians are not being paid enough for their craft and have now looked for other ways to find revenue.