This guide provides resources relevant to legal issues commonly faced by artists and the music industry, such as copyright, licensing, and antitrust law.
An excellent resource for searching for policy information, analysis, reports, and the like. This is a curated Google Custom Search that searches the websites of more than 1200 partisan and non-partisan think tanks, advocacy groups, non-governmental organizations, and research centers, among others.
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The following is a collection of Web sites maintained by music industry, artist, and advocacy organizations. Some are designed to be neutral and educational, while others may have a specific bias or agenda:
The Forum describes itself as ,the largest national organization in the entertainment and sports law area. It has ten divisions devoted to specialty areas, including a Music & Personal Appearances division, and a Motion Pictures, Television, Cable, and Radio division.
ASCAP is a "membership association of more than 300,000 U.S. composers, songwriters, lyricists, and music publishers of every kind of music. ASCAP is the only U.S. performing rights organization created and controlled by composers, songwriters and music publishers, with a Board of Directors elected by and from the membership."
Like ASCAP, BMI is a performance rights organization that collects music performance royalties on behalf of recording artists, songwriters and performers.
"Future of Music Coalition is a national nonprofit organization that works to ensure a diverse musical culture where artists flourish, are compensated fairly for their work, and where fans can find the music they want."
SoundExchange is similar to ASCAP and other performance rights organizations, and collects royalties for digital performances on satellite radio, Internet radio, and cable television.
Provides information about music copyright infringement cases from the mid-nineteenth century forward in the U.S. and, to an increasing extent, in foreign jurisdictions.
