Congressional panelist breaks down music copyright with puppets

If you don't understand the breakdown of payment in the music industry, scratch your head no longer. Kevin Erickson, director of the music advocacy nonprofit Future of Music Coalition, brought an array of puppets to a congressional luncheon to break down the infamously convoluted music copyright laws.

Music copyright is back in the public consciousness after Taylor Swift's native record label, Nashville's Big Machine, was sold earlier this month to apparent nemesis Scooter Braun. Like most artists, Swift doesn't own her masters, the original recordings of her songs, and therefore revenue from the sound recording copyright flows to her old label and not directly to her.

She does, however, earn her dollars via musical composition copyright, which she owns as a songwriter of her material.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Erickson lent a visual aid to this bifurcation with his four puppets — representing the songwriter, the music publisher, the recording artist, and the record label — and their color-coded hats (red for composition, teal for the recording).

Erickson spoke as part of a panel hosted by the Congressional Internet Caucus Academy about the Music Modernization Act, which Congress passed last fall. The act updates music licensing laws to better compensate songwriters and recording artists, especially as shifts in the industry and the introduction of streaming have outpaced regulation in the last decade.