ABSTRACT
Laws regarding music copyright are constantly evolving at an accelerating pace, and their application is hard to predict with certainty. A copyright is a property right designed to encourage the creation of artistic works, including songs and recordings of songs, while affording creators the legal tools to protect such artistic works against unauthorized use such as copyright infringement actions. Copyright, patents, trademarks, and unfair competition laws compose what is generally called intellectual property law. Copyright registrations are issued separately for musical works and for sound recordings. The compulsory license for making and distributing phonorecords set forth in the Copyright Act does not include soundtracks for motion pictures or other audiovisual works, for which a synchronization license must be obtained from the music publisher. White-Smith copyright law has evolved to deal with issues caused by rapid technological changes; the US is endeavoring to make our copyright law conform to the copyright laws of other nations and to international copyright treaties.
