Atualizado no dia 20 de Março de 2023.
Many artists such as Justin Timberlake, Bob Dylan, Justin Bieber and Imagine Dragons, at the end of 2021 rushed to sell their rights to their royalties [1]. While many feared the Biden administration’s heavy tax hike proposals at the time, others sold their assets for estate planning purposes. Whichever the reason, the topic at hand proves to be an effective case study for us to dive deeper into the type of intellectual property that protects the work from those artists, the Copyright.
This article serves as a basic guide on the subject. For starters, the U.S. and Brazilian law are very much like one another, adopting an international groundwork over its concept as well as type of protection.
According to the U.S. Copyright Office, “copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship as soon as an author fixes the work in a tangible form of expression” [3].
This means that any kind of independently created expression from a human author with a minimal degree of creativity can be protected by the law, it only needs to be fixed, in other words, it only must be captured “in a sufficiently permanent medium such the work can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated for more than a short time” [3].
This means that any kind of independently created expression from a human author with a minimal degree of creativity can be protected by the law, it only needs to be fixed, in other words, it only must be captured “in a sufficiently permanent medium such the work can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated for more than a short time” [3].
Concerning the copyright on music, Brazilian law distinguishes four main types of work that can be protected [4]: (i) the music arrangements; (ii) compositions; (iii) lyrics; and (iv) music partitures. In both countries, however, the length of copyright protection is equal to the term of life of the author plus seventy years after the author’s death.
In addition, anyone can be a copyright owner. Copyright law allows ownership by companies, organizations, and other people besides the work’s creator. And with ownership of said properties, owners are entitled to compensation from the profits made from such assets in the form of licensing revenue.
So, when a musician makes a song, and that song is partially or completely owned by the artist, that same song can generate royalties from streaming, cd sales, movie contracts and more. These same copyright ownerships are not only capable of generating revenue, but can be bought, sold, and dealt with just as any other physical asset.
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Author: Juliana Kaomy Mikado, Junior Associate at Peduti Advogados.
Source:
[1] Justin Bieber sells his music catalog. Disponível em: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/24/media/justin-bieber-music-catalog-sale/index.html. Acesso em: 25 jan. 2023.
[2] Biden’s top tax rate on capital gains, dividends would be among highest in developed world. Disponível em: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/21/biden-tax-plan-raises-top-capital-gains-dividend-tax-rate-to-among-highest-in-world.html. Acesso em: 25 jan. 2023.
[3] What is copyright. Disponível em: https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/#:~:text=U.S.%20copyright%20law%20provides%20copyright,rental%2C%20lease%2C%20or%20lending. Acesso em: 25 jan. 2023.
[4] REGISTRO E CADASTRO DE MÚSICAS. TUDO O QUE VOCÊ PRECISA SABER! Disponível em: https://www.abramus.org.br/noticias/14245/tudo-registro-cadastro-musical/#:~:text=Podem%20ser%20registrados%20arranjos%20musicais,para%20os%20seus%20sucessores%2Fherdeiros. Acesso em: 25 jan. 2023
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“If you want to learn more about this topic, contact the author or the managing partner, Dr. Cesar Peduti Filho.”
“Se quiser saber mais sobre este tema, contate o autor ou o Dr. Cesar Peduti Filho.”