Music and Copyright.(Book Review)

Music and Copyright, 2d ed. Edited by Simon Frith and Lee Marshall. New York: Routledge, 2004. [vi, 218 p. ISBN 0-415-97253-1. $24.95.] Index.

Music copyright is a broad and complex issue. Philosophers and kings, governments and courts, publishers and musicians have all shaped its history and guide its current development. Protecting the bundle of rights associated with copyright are world trade organizations, national legislators and judicial systems, and collection agencies, while those protected are publishers, composers, lyricists, and performers. The recent spate of lawsuits against individuals accused of sharing music files attest to the seriousness that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) brings to these rights. Yet, as with the United States' Prohibition Act of the 1920s, public behavior is often in conflict with the law. Music has become ubiquitous within Western society, and with it copyright has moved from an arcane legal framework designed to stimulate creative output to a daily concern for millions of consumers. What are the issues that will guide present and future public and legal debate and shape subsequent legislation?

Simon Frith and Lee Marshall have crafted a compelling monograph that is both intellectually broad and specifically relevant to the lives of musicians, educators, and consumers. In contrast to the first edition, with its emphasis on geographic differences, this second edition focuses on the globalization of the music and media industry, the concurrent legislative responses, and the economics of musical properties. This edition also examines the uneasy relationships between various stake-holders of intellectual property and consumers as revealed in attitudes toward fair use and public domain.

The editors' underlying purpose in compiling this book is to make the reader "care" about copyright (p. 1). To do so, they have enlisted ten authors (in addition to the editors), primarily from within academia. Three (Simon Frith, Dave Laing, and Paul Theberge) return from the first edition (Simon Frith, ed., Music and Copyright, [Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993]) with either new, or substantially new chapters. Nine additional authors approach copyright from nine diverse disciplines. All authors are recognized, published authorities, and Music and Copyright includes a brief biography of each contributor. The editors are particularly qualified and clearly speak with a unified voice in the first and last chapters, while contributing their own individual chapters within the main body of the work. The book includes a less than detailed contents page that is unfortunate as the chapters' internal headings are often quite descriptive and including them would provide an interesting approach to the book. Each chapter includes notes, references, and related Web site URLs, as its author deems necessary. The index provides alphabetical access to personal and corporate names, legislative acts and directives, and important terms and concepts. There is a slight British emphasis in specific examples that, nonetheless, should not interfere with the non-British reader's comprehension.

Frith and Marshall have organized the mostly self-contained chapters into two sections. Together, the editors provide both an opening chapter which functions as an extended forward, and an afterward. The first chapter, "Making Sense of Copyright," is worth the price of the book. In it, the editors argue that everyone with an interest in music should be deeply concerned with copyright. The editors provide a brief guide to copyright and its problems, then outline the book's structure and offer a brief introduction to each chapter. The editors suggest, in an understated but interesting comment, that because the music industry was the first to adopt digital technology, it is there that we might find the future shape of copyright and intellectual property.

The chapters in part 1, "Conceptual Approaches," trace the philosophical, economic, and political developments leading to modern copyright laws. Part 2, "Copyright and Everyday Life," includes seven chapters detailing the effects of copyright on the activities of music business practitioners and consumers. All three chapters in part 1 are, of necessity, somewhat complex and require some knowledge of the discipline and its jargon. Nevertheless, as tempting ...