ABSTRACT
A songwriter can regain the publishing rights to her compositions from a music publisher at the end of thirty-five years from the date of the song's publication. The radio and the phonograph became popular as the century wore on, and the birth of rock and roll in the mid-1950s produced a generation of musicians who learned music by ear rather than by reading music notation. One interesting aspect of print music is that some of the music that sells very well on records does not do well in sheet music. Dance songs and hip-hop music, for example, often never go into print. An organization called Christian Copyright Licensing International licenses and collects royalties from churches that use Christian music. In the days when the piano dominated the American musical landscape, and the world of printed music, the guitar was definitely an afterthought for music print publishers. Synchronization rights entail the right to use music on film or television.
