Who Owns this Song?

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the ongoing and evolving process of selling and disseminating music through the Internet. The author discusses how such activity has provoked a number of economic as well as artistic debates for the music business and for the computer and technology businesses that allow such technology to be accessed. This paper particularly focuses on the anti-trust issues that have arisen over the course of this debate.

From the Paper:

"First of all, the issue of disseminating music over the Internet provokes the perplexing question of who really "owns" the commercial product of a pieces of music, anyway? Is the owner the person or persons who simply hear the tune and keep humming it? Is the owner the musician who produces the product? Or are the owners the music companies musicians have signed artistic rights to? Clearly, to survive musicians must be able to charge for the product they produce, and the companies have control over the specifics of how to market that product. But once a song is in the public sphere, do not consumers have a right to "pass on" that music product in ways that they see fit, even if those ways may inhibit the sales of recordings of that music?"

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