Copyright is one of the most common objects of intellectual property: after all, every day, we listen to music, watch movies, read books, look at pictures or use the software on computers or smartphones without even leaving the house. Considering such a wide distribution of copyrights, it is precisely with copyrights that there is a risk of violating them – very often without even knowing it. To understand how such infringements can be avoided, one should first appreciate the basic principles of copyright protection.

Basic principles of copyright protection

It is generally considered (with exceptions in certain countries) that copyright protects works of literature, art, and science. In this case, the concepts of literary, artistic, and scientific works in the sense of copyright are wide enough. For example, a simple manual for a newly purchased household appliance will be considered an object protected by copyright! Among other things, it is generally considered that copyright does not require any registration, i.e. copyright objects (i.e. works of literature, art and science) are protected from the moment of their creation. This makes the work of authors much easier because after creating a song or taking a photo and placing them on the Internet, there is no need to fear that some objects will not be protected.

According to the Berne Convention (which has been ratified by many countries around the world, including the People’s Republic of China), minimum copyright requirements are set that member states must ensure, such as that all works, except photographic and cinematographic works, must be protected by copyright for at least 50 years after the author died. Still, parties are free to provide more extended work deadlines. Many countries have chosen a longer term – 70 years. Among other things, the Berne Convention ensures that similar principles apply to all states that have ratified the convention.

At first glance, copyright protection is easy to understand, but violations often occur. Significantly often, they happen due to ignorance, and such actions are highly costly to the offenders. For this reason, we would like to discuss several known cases of infringement in the music industry where the infringers did not know they were infringing or did not expect that the infringement would cost them so much.

Copyrights and music

„All by myself”

One of the classic examples of how much copyright negligence can cost is the legendary song “All by myself,” created and performed by the American singer Eric Carmen and later covered by Celine Dion. Classical music fans may see similarities in this song to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and they are certainly not wrong.

Eric Carmen, the author of the song “All by myself,” wrote and released “All by myself” in 1975. In it, he used the motifs of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s work. Although Sergei Rachmaninoff died in 1943, his music was already in the public domain in the United States. Eric Carmen hoped the rest of the world would no longer protect his works. However, in much of the world, protections were still in place. Sergei Rachmaninoff’s estate approached Eric Carmen after learning about the piece “All by myself.”

After long negotiations, it was decided that 12 percent of the royalties from “All by Myself” would be transferred to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s estate until the copyright protection expires. Copyright protection for the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s estate expired only in 2013.

Another example is the American pop star Ariana Grande’s “7 rings” hit. At the beginning of this song, we can hear a motif very similar to the motif of the piece “A few of my favorite things” performed by Julie Andrews from the legendary musical “Sounds of Music”. Although the authors of the song “7 rings” themselves applied to Concord music (it owns “The Sound of music” music catalog), they probably did not expect their expressed demand, i.e. to give even 90 percent of the royalties received for the sales of this record to Concord music. Ariana Grande’s representatives agreed to this demand.

It is difficult to determine exactly how much such a decision costs Ariana Grande in monetary terms. But it’s one of Ariana Grande’s biggest hits, with more than 1.8 billion streams on Spotify alone. Therefore, we can only imagine that we are talking about millions of US dollars.
As seen from these examples, you need to understand the importance of copyright and take appropriate steps to protect your interests – both for the copyright owner and third parties.

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