Performers routinely transfer most of these rights to a record company when they sign a recording contract. These can be split into: producers’ rights (usually those of the record company) and performers’ rights (those of the performers that feature on the recording).īesides being the writers of the song, Tina and Ben also have performers’ rights in their recording. The duration of each copyright may vary depending on the country.Īlongside the sound recording copyright there are also related public performance rights. Somewhat confusingly, this means the copyright in the sound recording may expire long before the copyright in the song featured on the recording. This is potentially a considerably shorter term than the copyright in the song of 70 years after the death of the last surviving author. In the UK this copyright has a term of 70-years from release of the work. The sound recording right also differs in duration from the copyright in the song. However, if they sign a deal with a record company, it is likely that the record company will be identified as the author and owner of the copyright in the sound recording (see Track 4). So, if Tina and Ben make a recording of their song themselves, they will own the copyright in the recording. In UK law the author of a sound recording is the ‘producer’, a legal term usually taken to be the record company that paid for the recording to be made. But this is not necessarily a human author in the usual sense of the word. The ownership of the sound recording copyright rests with the ‘author’ of the recording.
The copyright in a sound recording is different from the copyright in a song in a number of significant ways.
But when they record their song they also create a new copyright work known as a ‘sound recording’, also sometimes known as a ‘master’. By recording their song Tina and Ben satisfy the ‘fixation’ requirement and their original song will be protected by copyright.