What&#39;s the meaning of &#169; and ℗ on Spotify? At the bottom of an album page, Spotify shows certain details including © and ℗. For example for Taylor Swift's album 1984 https://open.spotify.com/album/2QJmrSgbdM35R67eoGQo4j © 2014 Big Machine Records, LLC. ℗ 2014 Big Machine Records, LLC. What's the meaning of © and ℗? In the example above they are identical, but when might they differ?
From https://artists.spotify.com/blog/talk-the-talk-music-terms-a-glossary P Line: In copyright law, the P Line is specific to musical works (the P stands for “phonogram”) and is represented by ℗. The purpose of this symbol is to indicate that legal rights are held for a sound recording and to identify the owner of those rights. You may have seen this printed on an LP sleeve or CD booklet accompanied by the year that the work was first released and the name of the owner of the sound recording. For digital music the P Line is included within the metadata associated with an audio file. C Line: The © symbol, or C Line, is used to indicate copyright in a range of creative works other than sound recordings. In the context of music it is used to denote rights protection for the cover art or written material included within an album, like liner notes. It can also be used in relation to the underlying musical composition and lyrics. Because the P Line and C Line refer to different rights you will always see them written separately, even when the owner of the rights is the same.
Very similar to how MySpace done it all those years back.... MySpace did it differently back then because they got sued for copyright violations for the music their users were uploading and streaming. https://www.google.com/search?q=myspace+lawsuit+music These days, you can upload music to MySpace, but they have licenses and agreements with music publishers, and are clear to their users what can be legally uploaded: https://help.myspace.com/hc/en-us/articles/202591770-Music-Upload-Requirements And remember.... By uploading any content to Myspace, you hereby certify that you own the copyright in or have all the necessary rights related to such content to upload it. Don't step on someone else's hard work. And Myspace is are clear on how they handle copyright violations: https://help.myspace.com/hc/en-us/articles/202055394-Copyright-FAQs Myspace will respond to allegations of copyright violations in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). The DMCA provides a process for a copyright owner to give notification to an online service provider concerning alleged copyright infringement. Now, with your question: you are allowing users to both upload music and stream it. Streaming is legal in the UK; see an older question here on LSE Is Streaming Copyrighted Content Illegal in the UK But the hosting - storing the actual files - of copyrighted material is not legal. But my app knows no detail of the song uploaded. Could be anything.... This doesn't matter; the files are on your server. You run the risk of legal action being taken against you for the actual .mp3 file of copyrighted music on your server. You are the owner of the webserver, and thus control the files on it, along with your knowledge of building an App that allows users to upload the files. Even if you claim to know nothing about what users upload with the App you built, the music files are on your server. What happens also depends on where the server with the music files is located, i.e. in the UK (action against you legally possible), or elsewhere (legal action against depends on the country and their laws and agreements with other countries). If your server is in a third-party country and can't be taken down, but you are a UK resident, the music companies can still go after you in other respects, as the paying owner of the server, the owner of the domain registration, even possibly as the creator of the App itself.
The exact timing of this story makes a bit of a difference, as you're placing the story right around the time of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, which changed the rules for works first published after March 1, 1989. Before then, most copyrightable works were only treated as protected if they included a proper copyright notice, which required the copyright symbol (or &quot;copyright&quot; or &quot;copr.&quot;), the year of first publication, and the original copyright owner. So if this happened in February 1989, the lawyer was correct that you needed to include &quot;a proper copyright notice.&quot; But he was probably mistaken to think that your rendering was problematic. The copyright symbol required was the same circled C that you mentioned, but the Copyright Office will also recognize a variant on the symbol if it &quot;resembles the © closely enough to indicate clearly that the variant is intended to be the copyright symbol.&quot; The office's current guidance makes clear that your variant would be sufficient: Acceptable variants include: The letter c with a parenthesis over the top. The letter c with a parenthesis under the bottom. (c c) (c) The letter c with an unenclosed circle around it. Examples of unacceptable variants on the © symbol include the following: CO C C/O @ (i.e., the letter a in a circle). The letter c with a circle attached to the bottom of the letter. The letter c in a square. [c] The same was true under the guidance that would have been in effect at the time. See section 1005.01(c)(6). If the advice came after March 1, 1989, the notice would not have been strictly necessary, regardless of how you rendered it.
Generally, no - lyrics of a song are intellectual property, and the mere act of publishing them, especially if commercialised through advertisements, can be grounds for a claim of copyright infringement to be brought against the website operators. For example, in 2012, a company that displayed websites without a license from the rightsholders was awarded $6.6 million in statutory damages and legal costs. As for whether it is fair use, it will depend on the precise circumstances. The mere publishing of the lyrics without license is unlikely to be considered fair use - in general, it must educate, or stimulate creativity.
The relevant law is trademark law. The basic question is whether the mark is identical or creates an unreasonable risk of confusion with the protected mark. There is no per se 30%-40% rule. I can imagine cases where changing a single letter in a long phrase turns a trademark violation into a parody or clearly different mark (see the Electric Company TV show). I can also imagine cases where changing a large part of the mark could still be infringing and confusingly similar. A parody is protected on fair use grounds in copyright law (which could conceivably come into play since this is a derivative work but would be protected since it is a parody), but in trademark law the issue is that a parody is unlikely to be confused for the original. Of course, at a fine grained level when one is looking at particular cases rather than general ideas, you would have to know which country's laws were involved, for example, where the goods would be sold.
general things on copyright Copyright law is very similar globally, due to the Berne convention on copyright. Ány country's copyright law grants the copyright to an author. Copyright is the exclusive right of an author to authorize (&quot;license&quot;) copies, performance, and derivative works. In case multiple authors jointly create a work, they own the right in their respective parts, or jointly. The copyright holder can deny making derivatives. If a derivative is made without authorization, it is copyright infringement. If the author was asked, denied the authorization and it is made anyway, it is wilful copyright infringement. Relinquishing your rights in the altered work does not make it not copyright infringement. The only way to not commit copyright infringement is to get a license. Naming the original author of a work you adapted is not just politeness, it is mandatory in all copyrights that follow the Berne convention on copyright. Licensing Fees The Verve's agreement to get the license was specifically to pay all the proceeds to the Rolling Stones, but that was an extraordinary case. License fees for recording a cover version (with the unaltered lyrics!) are usually mandatory to be available. for example in the united-states, it is mandatory to grant a mechanical license to create cover recordings for a licensing fee, for which for example the Harry Fox Agency is collecting and distributing the required payments and royalties. Those Royalties are about 9.1 cents per copy for a sub-5-minute song's recording. This license does not allow to alter lyrics. However, synchronization (tone and video) is not mandatory to be granted, and those start at a flat 4-digit and are rather open-ended. Without a sync license, you may not make video recordings of a work being performed. A public performance of a work requires a different license. A performance license is required for any public performance, and those are not regulated either, but typically not too expensive - yet alteration again is not within the scope of such a license. Granting a performance license is typically handled by Performing Rights Organisations such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, taking the required fees and distributing the royalties. Making an adaptation or alteration is a derivative work. Making a derivative work requires a license that is different again. Those can only be granted by the copyright holders, and if they say no... Close the folder. The price of copyright infringement Wilful copyright infringement, especially after you were told no, can be super expensive: In the US, the rightsholder can get 150 000 USD and the lawyer fees for willful infringement. The rightsholder can sue in the US if they are there. Recoverable costs plus damages are also available in the UK, capped at 60 000 GBP for costs and 500 000 GBP in damages.
The other answers get at this somewhat obliquely, but to be clear your assumption 7, that there is no substantial similarity, implies no infringement. Substantial similarity is an element of infringement. But it is also often a disputed element. On your fact pattern, it might even be the only disputed element in the case, and in a close case in a technical area such as this (where it would likely seem to a judge that it could go either way), a jury would simply vote on it. That is, no oracle of copyright doctrine would be consulted for &quot;the answer&quot; to the question of substantial similarity; a jury would just hear testimony from both sides and get some instructions from the judge on the applicable standard (which are rarely much, if any, help) and vote. Substantial similarity - that is, similarity that appropriates &quot;enough&quot; of the original work to be actionable - is very difficult to assess in any objective manner. This aspect drives many creative people in copyright-intensive specialized disciplines (such as software and music) crazy. Often when people have expertise in an area, it may seem &quot;obvious&quot; to various individuals what ought to be actionable and what shouldn't. But it is rare to find complete conensus. (Most copyright infringement cases involving music - e.g. the one involving Katy Perry's &quot;Dark Horse&quot; or Robin Thicke's &quot;Blurred Lines&quot; - attract a lot of attention because juries end up voting on an issue that almost anybody who has heard two songs could form an opinion about, and maybe a strong opinion about.) A loose analogy to your question would be in the criminal context, where the fact pattern is, so let's say A kills B, but didn't intend to, did A commit murder? In most jurisdictions the formal legal answer to that question would be &quot;no, of course not, because intent is an element of the crime of murder.&quot; But in many murder cases intent is a highly disputed element (sometimes the only disputed element) and in close cases a jury just gets to vote on what they think from their understanding of the facts, or at least what is presented to them as the facts in court. (The standard of proof in criminal cases is formally different but in practice I am not sure it is at all different.) As another answer suggests, the fact pattern you describe sounds kind of &quot;fishy,&quot; and while that does not doctrinally matter, let alone settle the issue, it might matter to a jury. Two cases somewhat along these lines are Google LLC v. Oracle, Inc. (which involved basically this fact pattern, with Google in the role of &quot;app b&quot;) and Lotus Dev. Corp. v. Borland Int'l., Inc. (with Borland in the role of &quot;app b&quot;, although the copying that occurred was not at the level of source code). They were both ultimately decided on other grounds (and the relevant issues only got to a jury in one of them), but in a world where other statutory defenses had not been asserted they both could have been decided simply by jury vote.
Musical compositions can be, and if recent almost always are, protected by copyright. This is separate from the copyright on a recording of a performance of the work. If you reuse a musical passage, the new work may be a derivative work, that is a work based on an earlier work. Or an extended musical quotation could be considered to be copyright infringement. If this is in the united-states the use of a section from a previous work might be considered to be a fair use (fair-use). This is a specifically US concept in copyright law, although several other countries have a concept of fair dealing which is somewhat similar, although narrower. Whether a use is a fair use is an inherently fact-based determination. There is no clear and simple bright line for what is and is not a fair use. US law (17 USC 197) specifies four factors which are to be weighed by a court in considering the matter: The purpose and character of the use. If your use is commercial that weighs against fair use, but does not at all preclude it. This factor also includes whether the use is transformative or not. A transformative use is one that takes the part used for a very different sort of purpose than the original. Parodies are normally transformative, for example. A quote for purposes of commentary and analysis, or criticism is normally transformative. Transformative uses are more likely to be considered fair uses. The nature of the copyrighted work. Creative works such as fiction and music are more strongly protected than works such as textbooks and news stories. This probably weighs against fair use in the case described. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole. If only a short section of a longer work is used, that weighs in favor of fair use. However very short quotes can still fail, to be held to be fair uses. In Harper vs Nation a quote of about 300 words from a 500 page book was held not to be fair use because it was &quot;the heart of the book&quot;. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. A use that significantly harms the market value of the original, or serves as a replacement for it, weigh strongly against fair use. This was a major factor in Harper vs Nation. Each case of claimed fair use is evaluated by looking at all four factors, and the specific facts of the case. From the description in the question, such a use might well be held to be fair use. Musical quotations often are. But there is no way to be sure unless a court evaluates the specific case. A lawyer specifically experienced in not only copyright law, but copyrights on music, might be able to give more specific advice. Or you could, of course, seek permission from the copyright holder, quite likely the original composer or artist. If you get permission, there is no further issue. There might be a charge, but when the use is minor, and has no commercial effect, the charge might be small or even zero provided that the source is acknowledged.