Navigating Music Copyright: What Every Musician Should Know” – Providing an overview of music copyright laws, including how to register copyrights, protect intellectual property, and understand the rights of creators and owners

Music copyright designates legal ownership of a musical composition or sound recording. This ownership includes exclusive rights to redistribute and reproduce the work, as well as licensing rights that enable the copyright holder to earn royalties. There are Two types of music copyright: master and composition

Composition; The compositional copyright covers an underlying musical composition: the arrangement of notes, melodies, and chords in a specific order. It is held by songwriters, lyricists, and composers, and managed by their music publishers (who also partially own the copyright).

Master Recording The master copyright covers the specific sound recording, or “master recording,” that contains a particular expression of the underlying musical composition created by performing or recording artists. This copyright is held by the performing artists and, typically, their label. 

What does Copyright protect?

(Ideas/expression dichotomy)

Copyright protects the expression of an idea

from being copied without authority. It does

not protect the concept or the idea. It also

does not protect logos, symbols, titles, short

phrases or factual information that may be

contained in a copyright work.

Authorship and Ownership

under Copyright Law

The first owner of a copyright work is its

creator. An author in case of:

•Literary work is the person who wrote the

work. This also is true for software, which

is treated as a literary work.

•Musical works – the composer.

4 A Guide to Copyright in Kenya

•Sound recording – the producer

•Cinematographic work – the producer

•Photograph – the photographer

• Computer generated work – the person

who caused the work to be generated.

An author may, however licence or

transfer his rights, wholly or in part, the

same way physical property is dealt with.

All assignments or licences must be in

writing as required by the Copyright Act.

This results in ownership being held by a

person who is not the author. A person who

creates a work during employment or on

commission may own the copyright if there

is agreement to that effect.

Works Covered by Copyright

The works falling under the following

categories are copyright works:

• Literary

• Musical

• Audio-visual

• Artistic works

• Sound recordings

• Broadcasts

These include novels, poems, plays,

computer programmes, databases, musical

compositions, broadcasts, photographs,

sculptures, architectural drawings and maps

amongst others.

Rights under Copyright

Copyright protection offers a rights owner

the following:

• Economic rights

• Related rights

• Moral rights

Economic rights

These are the rights to:

• Reproduce in any material form

• Adapt or translate

• Distribute to the public by way of sale,

rent, lease, hire, loan, importation

• Broadcast whole or part of the work.

• Communicate the work to the public

• Perform the work in public

Any unauthorised exercise of these rights is

infringement of copyright. The law provides

for criminal sanction and civil remedies to

the rights holder in the case of copyright

infringement.

Protecting Copyright, Encouraging Creativity 5

Moral rights

This entitles the author to claim authorship

of the work and object to distortion or

mutilation prejudicial to his honour or

reputation.

These rights are independent of the

economic rights and are nontransferable

at all.

Related Rights

• Rights of producers of sound recordings

• Broadcasters’ rights

• Performers’ rights

Term of Copyright

Copyright protection varies from work to

work depending on authorship and their

nature.

In Kenya Copyright protection lasts for

the life of the author plus 50 years. If the

author is unknown, the period of protection

is 50 years from the date it is published.

In case of a joint authorship, copyright

will last for the lifetime of the authors and

50 years after the death of the last author.

Audio-visual works, photographs, sound

recordings and broadcasts are protected for

50 years from the date of first publication.

Moral rights

This entitles the author to claim authorship

of the work and object to distortion or

mutilation prejudicial to his honour or

reputation.

These rights are independent of the

economic rights and are nontransferable

at all.

•Rights of producers of sound recordings

• Broadcasters’ rights

•Performers’ rights