Wednesday, July 03, 2019
Why some music might not be protected by copyright
Marketplace: Sitting in a courtroom in June 2016, Bloomberg journalist Vernon Silver saw something that shocked him. A lawyer pointed out that Jimmy Page’s introductory guitar solo in Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” was not included in physical sheet music submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office.
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I find it very interesting that many well known songs are not fully copy written and that this is one of the first instances that the general public was aware of it. It provides an interesting perspective on the times when music was more about the creation of music and less focused on the background legal processes. The idea of creative copywriting is also interesting as the Led Zepplin plagiarism trial demonstrates it is very difficult to determine who owns or created what. In our modern world sampling from other songs is readily common crafting a discussion on what is "new" music, what is "stolen", and what is "borrowed". If in fact Stairway to Heaven has not fully been copywritten the implications are massive for the music industry and it will be quite interesting to observe how the case progresses.
Kaisa Lee
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