Considering the complexities inherent in copyright and neighbouring rights in the music industry, commentators have asked whether the legal distinctions between composers and performers are justified. Drawing on interviews with classical and pop musicians and relevant case law, I found that musicians position their work on a continuum between composition and performance according to three motifs: i) composer-performer discourses and careers, ii) genre, and iii) power relationships. Legal categories of joint or individual authorship, adaptation and performance protect most contributions to a musical work and align with social understandings of the different types of contributions. Yet viewed more normatively, a recasting of the rights could help shift those social understandings and alter the inequalities inherent in both musical practices and the law.
The resulting peer-reviewed article is available here. I gave talks at the Digital Catapult, Goldsmiths, and the University of Birmingham, amongst others.
The study forms part of a larger four-year project on performers’ rights conducted at the University of Cambridge with funding from the Leverhulme Trust, which has its own website here.