<
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/08/ed-sheeran-once-again-demonstrates-how-modern-copyright-is-destroying-rather-than-helping-musicians/>
"To hear the recording industry tell the story, copyright is the only thing
protecting musicians from poverty and despair. Of course, that’s
always been
a myth. Copyright was designed to benefit the middlemen and gatekeepers, such
as the record labels, over the artists themselves. That’s why the labels have a
long history of never paying artists.
But over the last few years, Ed Sheeran has been highlighting the ways in which
(beyond the “who gets paid” aspect of all of this) modern copyright is stifling
rather than incentivizing music creation — directly in contrast to what we’re
told it’s supposed to be doing.
We’ve talked about Sheeran before, as he’s been sued repeatedly by people
claiming that his songs sound too much like other songs. Sheeran has always
taken a much more open approach to copyright and music, noting that kids
pirating his music is how he became famous in the first place. He’s also stood
up for kids who had accounts shut down via copyright claims for playing his
music.
But the lawsuits have been where he’s really highlighted the absurdity of
modern copyright law. After winning one of the lawsuits a year ago, he put out
a heartfelt statement on how ridiculous the whole thing was. A key part:
There’s only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music.
Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day
on Spotify—that’s 22 million songs a year—and there’s only 12 notes that are
available.
In the aftermath of this, Sheeran has said that he’s now filming all of his
recent songwriting sessions, just in case he needs to provide evidence that he
and his songwriting partners came up with a song on their own, which is
depressing in its own right.
In the latest case, which just concluded last week, Sheeran said that if he
lost he’d probably quit music altogether, as it’s just not worth it."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
