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Music vocabulary · The Music Industry

Copyright

Meaning in music, with examples

/ˈkɑːpiraɪt/nounCore term

In music, copyright means: The legal right that protects original creative work and lets its owners decide how it is copied, performed, recorded, adapted or shared.

In Turkish: telif hakkı, fikri mülkiyet hakkı

How it is used

A recorded song usually has two copyrights: one in the musical work (music and lyrics) and one in the sound recording (the master). People 'own', 'hold' or 'infringe' copyright; videos get 'copyright claims'. In Türkiye, the main law is FSEK (Law No. 5846).

Example sentences

  1. The video was muted because of a copyright claim on the background music.

  2. Who owns the copyright in the recording if we paid for the studio ourselves?

Common collocations

  • own the copyright
  • copyright infringement
  • copyright claim
  • copyright holder
  • protected by copyright
  • royaltiesPayments made to songwriters, composers, performers and rights owners each time their music is sold, streamed, broadcast, performed in public or used in media.
  • music publishingThe business of managing songs as compositions: registering them, licensing them, collecting the royalties they earn and finding new uses for them, such as in films and adverts.
  • sampleA short piece of recorded sound, such as a drum hit, a vocal phrase or a part of an existing record, that is reused in a new piece of music.
  • coverA new performance or recording of a song that was first released by another artist, often in a different style or arrangement.
  • record labelA company that finances, releases, distributes and promotes recordings, usually in exchange for ownership of the recordings or a share of their income.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: The Music Industry

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