Bennett, J (2014) The death of the songwriter: attribution of creative ownership in popular music production. In: The 9th Art of Record Production Conference: Record Production in the Internet Age, 4-6 December 2014, University of Oslo, Norway.
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Text (The death of the songwriter)
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Abstract
The creation of recorded popular music has always been a collaborative process. Listeners enjoy an audio product that consists of a composition (usually with lyrics) that is arranged, performed, recorded, mixed and mastered. All of these activities combine in an object that creativity psychology would define as creative - that is, original and valuable (Boden 2004; Mackinnon 1963; Weisberg 1993). Sometimes creative contributions are fully demarcated but in practice there is often substantial overlap between roles, and individual creators frequently take on more than one role. Drawing on the author’s research into creative behaviours in songwriting teams (Bennett 2012) and his experience as a forensic musicologist in copyright disputes, this paper discusses the challenges posed by collaborative popular music production, for copyright law and for the recorded music industry. The traditional binary allocation of creative activity across two objects (the ‘song’ and the ‘sound recording’) was developed many years ago and may no longer be truly representative of the way popular music is made. Creativity that is obviously derivative such as melodic quotation or audio sampling is a form of linear collaboration that makes authorial attribution particularly difficult, not least because of the complex interrelationship between moral and economic rights in copyright law. Audio recordings of successful hits will be analysed to frame a discussion of the specific creative contributions that led to particular sonic outcomes; these will be contrasted with the Intellectual Property that subsists in the finished work. The paper proposes mechanisms by which the disparity between the extent of creative contribution and ownership of song copyright might be addressed.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
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| Keywords: | songwriting, creativity, creative collaboration, plagiarism, music copyright |
| Subjects: | M Music and Books on Music > M Music |
| Divisions: | Bath School of Music and Performing Arts |
| Related URLs: | |
| Date Deposited: | 30 Oct 2014 13:59 |
| Last Modified: | 27 Oct 2022 17:22 |
| URI / Page ID: | https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/5039 |
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