Georgetown Law
Georgetown Law Library

Music Law Research Guide

This guide provides resources relevant to legal issues commonly faced by artists and the music industry, such as copyright, licensing, and antitrust law.

Contents

Further Research Guidance

The Georgetown Law Library has a number of other research guides that may be relevant to music law research, such as:

We also have a number of guides to treatises and study aids, called Treatise Finders, based on legal subject area:

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General Treatises on Major Music Law Topics

These titles deal broadly with copyright, licensing agreements, and other areas of law which affect the entertainment industry generally.  All are available electronically for members of the Georgetown Law Center community.

News & Current Awareness

These current awareness publications are heavily used by attorneys to keep up with recent cases, proposed legislation, and developments within their practice areas.  Many include expert news & commentary and useful legal analysis, often in addition to treatises and other tools.  

Academic Journals

Lexis and Westlaw's law journal databases are popular places to search for relevant law journal articles; however, this is not necessarily the most efficient way of finding relevant journal articles, nor is it comprehensive. The Articles for Legal and Non-Legal Research research guide explains the differences between searching journal indexes and searching full-text databases. It also links to specific legal and non-legal indexes and full-text databases.

There are several law reviews and journals dedicated to entertainment law issues; however, note that scholarly articles on music and entertainment law may also appear in journals that are general in nature, so you should not limit your research only to entertainment- or music law-specific journals.

Some specific journals that publish articles on entertainment law and the arts include:

Finding Books: Catalog Searching Tips

To search materials in the catalog by subject, use our Advanced Search. Select "subject" in the first drop-down box, then enter a subject heading (such as one of the ones suggested on this page) in the corresponding search box.  You can run the search alone or include additional terms in additional search boxes below.  To find books, it may help to first narrow your search to "Law Library Catalog" or "Georgetown Univ. + Local Academic Libraries" using one of the radio buttons at the top of the page.  After running a search, you can sort by "Date-newest first" on the left to put the most recent materials at the top.  You can also narrow your results to books only on the left under "Resource Type."

Study Aids

The following sources are designed to assist students taking substantive law classes in areas relevant to the music industry: