A synth inspired tribute to Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ballet
Continuing my journey with re-imagining music in the public domain, this holiday season I’ve recorded my own synth-inspired tribute to Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker”. This story and music always take me back to my childhood, dreaming of holiday magic and imaginative adventures, so it seems fitting to record my own cover versions in the chiptune style that was the soundscape of my youth (with more than a few gifts under the Xmas tree).
One of my New Years resolutions for 2019 was to make more creative risks, and this took on many forms: photography, storytelling, even cooking. But from January 1st I had a big project in mind: making new music for the first time in nearly a decade. A year later, I’m finally ready to share my “1923 EP” :
Inspired by Roaring Twenties classics which were finally released to the public domain at the start of 2019, I set out to rearrange and re-contextualize these classics from the American songbook for the 21st century. What I came up with was a stripped-down set of songs, influenced by nostalgic sounds like chiptune, FM synths, and vintage samplers that help bring these old melodies to life.
Inspired by the Roaring Twenties, I set out to rearrange and re-contextualize these classics from the American songbook for the 21st century. What I came up with was a stripped-down set of songs, influenced by nostalgic sounds like chiptune, FM synths, and vintage samplers that help bring these old melodies to life.
But why 1923? Last year marked the first time in over two decades that copyrighted works from 1923 entered the public domain, thanks in part to lobbying by big media companies in the late 1990s. To help correct the absurdity of overly-restrictive copyright laws keeping great music from the public for nearly a century, I’m proud to share my recordings through Creative Commons licensing so that others can share or remix my music to make their own creative projects.
What is copyright and what constitutes fair use? Do I need to register a copyright for my creative work to be protected? How long is a work copyrighted, and when does it enter the public domain? Are there advantages to using creative commons licensing or copyright?
In a recent course I took at the Brooklyn Brainery, our class took these questions head on to discuss the need to protect creative work and limit the exploits of copyright trolls. Sometimes referred to as intellectual property, copyright is a kind of property right (and a Constitutional Right in the US) which protects the use of creative work. Of course creative work is unique compared to other kind of property, so copyright is created whenever it’s “fixed in a tangible form of expression” by its creators, whether it’s a written novel or a music recording. Copyright gives its owners the exclusive right to reproduce the work, derivative works, and public performances of it.
There’s a careful legal balance between protecting the intellectual property rights of their owners and promoting the free expression which is guaranteed as a constitutional right. For example, in the music recording industry many musicians don’t profit from sales of their recordings after they cede to their labels/distributors ownership to copyright for their work, sometimes waiting years to regain the copyright to their own songs. Likewise the creators of mash-ups and remixes such as Girl Talk make a legal balancing act necessary to avoid infringing on copyrights while using elements of old recordings to create something new.
While media law is a continuously evolving field and largely a matter of interpretation for the judges, over time some precedence has emerged that provides some legal framework. As we learned in our class for general purposes, here’s the four requirements you need to meet for Fair Use of copyrighted works: Continue reading Introduction to Copyright and Fair Use→
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