Perhaps surprisingly in a Conservative government, the IR35 rules have been tightened, in order to ensure that the taxman gets its fair share of revenues, when creators and their clients enter into entertainment, film, media and professional sports contractual arrangements. What is at stake for the creative industries in the UK? How to make the…
Category: Music law
Songwriting credits: is the current music copyright framework forcing artists to hand them out, to avoid full-blown litigation?
In the old days, musicians only had to clear the use of samples that they had taken out of other songs, created and released by other songwriters, composers and performers. However, since the ‟Blurred lines” case, musicians, their labels and publishers should also obtain licences from the rightowners of any other song already in the…
Why the UK TuneIn judgments are a return to the dark ages
What happens when you let some old farts from the UK judiciary, fueled by a doomed Brexit, single-handedly decide the technological future, advances and boon to which UK users should have access to? Well, stupid business decisions justified by perfectly elegant and intellectually stimulating legal decisions handed down by old timers on a rampage to…
Why getting an agent is critical, to make it in the creative industries
In the creative industries, the talent is often represented by middle men, who reach out to end customers, and find avenues whereby, and marketplaces on which, the products and/or services and skillset of the talent they represent are marketed, sold, distributed, licensed, etc. So, in the art world, these middle men are art galleries and…
Royalties collected on sound recording performance rights: how to distribute them in the right way
On 8 September 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (‟CJEU”) handed down a judgment which may have a groundbreaking effect on how European Union (‟EU”) collecting societies for music copyright, as well as EU music neighbouring rights collecting societies, distribute income generated through collected royalties. This has stirred up controversy, with EU…
