Owning the Masters provides the first in-depth history of sound recording copyright. It is this form of intellectual property that underpins the workings of the recording industry. Rather than being focused on the manufacture of goods, this industry is centred on the creation, exploitation and protection of rights. The development and control of these rights has not been straightforward. This book explores the lobbying activities of record companies: the principal creators, owners and defenders of sound recording copyright. It addresses the counter-activity of recording artists, in particular those who have fought against the legislative and contractual practices of record companies to claim these master rights for themselves. In addition, this book looks at the activities of the listening public, large numbers of whom have been labelled 'pirates' for trespassing on these rights. The public has played its own part in shaping copyright legislation. This is an essential subject for an understanding of the economic, artistic and political value of recorded sound.
Record companies have taken contractual power and therefore economic security in the realm of music recording and reproduction. Their ownership places recording artists in an inferior legislative position to the companies and their songwriting counterparts. Sound recording copyright law encourages recording artists to cast themselves as composers if they wish to use copyright as a means for artistic recompense, but copyright is complex and contestable. Owning the Masters exposes how record companies lobbied for copyright and the consequences of their ownership and addresses a changing environment of artists who are increasingly assuming ownership of their recordings.
Copyright is a tool used by record labels to extract value from recording artists, but it is also the mechanism that allows artists to profit from their music. In
Owning the Masters, Richard Osborne deftly threads a historical narrative between these two positions. This book is indispensable reading for anyone trying to understand the role of copyright in the world today.
