“Theft: A History of Music” by Keith Aoki, James Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins

Main Index / Reviews Index / Nonfiction Reviews Index / 2019 Reviews Index

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Can be read on-line: https://web.law.duke.edu/musiccomic/

An interesting comic that looks at the history of music, and the rise of copyright and licensing. Starting with the beginnings of music notation, the comic proceeds to show how early on, composers and musicians freely borrowed from each other to create new compositions. But even then, some spoke out about the dangers of creating ‘new music’ and attempted to ‘freeze’ how music should be performed.

The invention of the printing press and the formalisation of music notation would change matters by creating a market for composers to release compositions. But it would also raise the question of what constitutes original work: it is around now that the law steps in, giving authors and composers a legal write over their compositions. But with the history of composers borrowing and altering previous music to create new one, questions over how much ‘copying’ of music began to arise.

The technology to record and replay music would change the landscape, for now people have the ability to record new ways of creating music from the same composition. Thus arose the idea of copyright over a particular recording. As music became more popular and commercialised, copyright would become a contentions topic, for while it allowed composers and musicians to make a living from creating and playing music, it also allowed the rights holder to restrict how the music or composition could be used.

The creation of radio would introduce new possibilities and problems. For now, a recording that previously would only be heard by a person who bought the record, could now be broadcast to a vast audience, and the idea of licensing music to be heard was introduced. This would complicate copyright matters, for now the question became whether you needed to license snippets of music. Numerous lawsuits would rise over the question of music sampling. And that is where matters now stand.

Interleaved among the numerous questions raised over the copyright of compositions and licensing of music is the history and connections between the various forms of music, from jazz, soul, rock and roll to rap as well as historically important musicians who developed the various art forms.

Book read from 2019/03/22 to 2019/03/23