Re: Copyright Remedy Against Distorting An Original Song Tune

Unfortunately, music cannot be protected from "moral" alteration (aside from the typical copyright infringement claims and/or a claim for exceeding a mechanical license by altering the song beyond what is allowed), at least in the US. Thus, although you may record a "pop" song, another artist may come along and record that same song as a "rap" song, provided he/she complies with the other applicable copyright laws. Copyright infringement is your only sure bet.

Why not copyright infringement? In the US, you would not have "common law" protection for copyright issues, since copyright law preempts state law in this area. There are many ways you could approach this under copyright law, however, so why not take that approach? Remember that (based on your hypothetical) only the songwriter's copyright is at issue, since the original recording was not used.

Your question asked if there is any claim besides copyright infringement that can be asserted. I am not aware of any other claim, except possibly a claim for false light or something like that. The facts in your hypothetical are insufficient to determine if you would be able to prove that type of claim, however.

Brock

On 8/18/03 7:45 AM, "Safdar Jafri" <safdar01[_at_]hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hi All:
> I hope this message goes through to everyone on the list. It's my first
> attempt on discussing an issue that I have recently contemplated extensively
> on and have also come across on news. The issue concerns remixing of old
> classic songs by new singers in a less classy way (obviously, offensive to
> the original singers/musicians), specially without permission. I would be
> interested in learning about the views of various participants of the list
> on whether this remixing is illegal in some other way than copying without
> permission and whether the common law on copyright has a cause of action for
> such distorting adoption of a classic song ? I am not aware of such
> adoptions in the US or Europe, but in the region of south asia, including
> India and Pakistan, such adoptions are very frequent and little can
> copyright owners do about such adoptions in these countries. I must admit
> that music rights on the whole are weak in these countries, specially
> Pakistan, but copyright laws do exist. This generates another question that
> if a provision is to be incorporated into the law of copyright to prevent
> such adoptions, what should be the wording/phrasing of such provision ?
>
> Safdar
Received on Mon Aug 18 2003 - 22:55:04 GMT