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New resource on Music Plagiarism & Copyright

Posted on    by Bartolomeo Meletti
Blog

New resource on Music Plagiarism & Copyright

By 29 September 2017No Comments

On 3rd October 2017, academics at Westminster Law School are launching Lost in Music, a free, open access resource to help artists, students, professionals and interested parties navigate their way through the maze of music business law.

In its launch phase, Lost in Music focuses on demystifying music plagiarism and providing a vehicle for people to understand more fully the basics of music copyright infringement. However, the wider aim of Lost in Music is to increase understanding of a variety of issues within the music industry, such as contracts, band names and trademarks, sampling and digital income streams. Funded by the Quintin Hogg Trust and developed by a team of academics and musicians, Lost in Music brings to life much of the research on music plagiarism conducted by Dr Simon Anderson in his dissertation at Westminster Law School (LLM Entertainment Law, 2015).

Simon’s fascinating research was presented at the University of Glasgow on 8th March 2017 as part of the CREATe Public Lectures series. The launch of Lost in Music on 3rd October will be an opportunity to learn about his research through an interactive presentation of the new site with music examples and live performance illustrations. If you are unable to attend the official launch in London but would like to find out about Simon’s research, you can see the video of his lecture in Glasgow here.

Lost in Music is not the first copyright education resource developed by Simon Anderson. Indeed, Simon – a musician and composer who has worked in music publishing for the past 20 years, and currently sits on the Music Publishers Association’s Education and Training Group – collaborated in the development of Going for a Song: an innovative education resource for music writers and composers offered by Copyright User. Going for a Song consists of a short animated film, produced by Worth Knowing and directed by Ruth Towse and Bartolomeo Meletti; and seven Tracks, supplementary texts drafted by CREATe researcher Kenny Barr that provide guidance on how UK copyright law regulates different aspects of the journey of a song, from its creation to its distribution. The film has been recently shortlisted for the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Innovation Award (winners to be announced on 9th November).

Going for a Song also constituted one of the key resources of CREATe’s first MOOC (massive online course) – ‘Music Copyright: Understanding UK Copyright Law When Working with Music’ – which attracted nearly 1,300 learners.

If you are interested to attend the launch of Lost in Music on 3rd October at Westminster Law School in London, you can register here.