Identifying originality in the context of music copyright law

Abstract

With music becoming an extremely prominent and unavoidable part of people’s lives, the need to regulate music has greatly increased over the last few decades. Moreover, this has created tension between artistic expression and legal protection since it can be said that these are two opposing forces. Despite this, and especially in the context of today’s modern and technological world, copyright protection has grown to become a pillar of the music industry today, and without it, a music producer would not enjoy the right to benefit from his work which he has created. The need for copyright protection gave rise to the need to define certain characteristics which come into play in this context, one of which being originality. This study delves into the intricate relationship that exists between artistic expression and legal protection, and through analysing EU case-law, aims to understand the way that the Courts identify originality in the context of music copyright law.