Songs Copyright and Production Companies This assignment is worth 15% of your final grade total (This written portion is worth 10%).
5 marks out of 15 are for the audio portion of the assignment THAT YOU MUST SUBMIT SEPARATELY (There is an Assignment 3 Audio,
and then this part for the \’essay\’ part). . In this you will find a song which should qualify for copyright in countries which have copyright durations of life +70 years, but that do not in ones with life + 50 years. Canada falls into the latter category. And then do a radio style introduction to the song, mix it all together and submit it with your assignment.
A few details for the Songs Copyright and Production Companies Assignment
You can reasonably assume that the copyright applies internationally everywhere and that the start date (for the year of death) is counted the same way. This means you are looking for a song where the copyright holder died between 1943 and 1963.
We are interested in the copyright on the song itself and not a specific performance or version of the song — for this reason it is quite likely that you will be using a new \”version\” (or re-master) of the song which is under a new copyright.
For the audio part what I want you to do is introduce the song in the style of a radio DJ, and give a couple of sentences about who the songwriter and artists are, and why you think copyright on the song has expired. In this way you can also look at lead performers if you cannot be sure about a song rather than all of the producers and record company people who might have some claim. So for example you could assume songs by Elvis Priestly are his and his alone, and all of the various
production companies and musicians working with him have not got claim.
For 1 point out of the 5 you should have an effect on the song (probably a fade in) where the song intro and your voice over are played together.
The written component of this first part is to transcribe what you say, and then in a couple of sentences tell me how difficult it was to get this song and make a copy of it for editing and then submission.
You don\’t have to use audacity, but it will work for you, if you prefer you can do this using a video tool.
For 10 marks out of 15 you are to write an essay of between 1500 and 3000 words (the same length as assignment 2) on what copyright law should be, as it applies to moves/tv/Video games on optical disk or internet distribution, where content creators still need to get paid, but where, duplication is easy.
I expect you to do some research for this section, you should look at copyright laws in a few countries (including Canada), and you should also do some reading on proposed copyright law (again, potentially including Canadian law, since it was rewritten in 2012). A few things you should discuss are how your proposal addresses the desires of consumers in reasonable usage scenarios, how it ensures rightsholders get paid, how difficult it is to enforce or support. E.g. One of the main criticism of the levy on CDs was that there was never a fair way to give that money to artists who work was being copied,
because you didn\’t know what was being copied.
Don\’t forget to include references.
Note: The assignment needs to find a song, so you need to tell me the song\’s name. Please remember the song should follow the instruction.
