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All the litigation around intellectual property rights as they apply to music on the Internet is important to track. But, more important than any threat of legal action against illegal downloaders or CD distributors is the fact that music is created by musicians, artists who are trying to make a living just like you and me. Paying for music produced by others should not be motivated by fear but by a sense of fair play. Just like any other profession or service rendered, a musician is providing you, the listener, with a product that you use and enjoy.

Plato said, “Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” Think about the important role that music plays in your life. Think about the many positive benefits you get from listening to and creating music for yourself and others.

Now think about the struggling musician trying to get his or her sound out there. Often working for “free” for the elusive goal of “getting exposure,” the musician needs all the income he or she can get from the sale of music that has taken hours to create, record and produce.

As a musician, you need to get up to speed about copyright law – try and protect yourself as much as possible. But, don’t be naïve, either, and think that copyright laws are necessarily clear and “theft proof.” Read Brad Templeton’s 10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained, for example, so that you have a basic understanding about what is, and isn’t, permitted in creating music and how to protect your work.

And, for musicians who want more, you can get a more detailed overview of actual federal copyright statutes by visiting the law collection at Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute. This overview is from Cornell University’s more comprehensive collection of 17 U.S.C. Sections 101 – 810 (U.S. Copyright Act).

In the meantime, all of you music lovers need to do the right thing. Pay for the music you want to listen to. Paying ten bucks for an album you will listen to for a thousand hours is a pretty good deal.

Deborah@Audimated.com