UN3425: Music, Sound and the Law | A. Amsellem

Music
Undergraduate Seminar
Tu Th 11:40AM-12:55PM

This course is a historical overview of the relationship between music and the law in which students will employ both critical listening skills and critical thinking to understand how sound came to be understood as property, how the law impacts creativity, identity and labor, and how music has been used as a tool for enforcing and challenging legislative and political processes. We will discuss the origins of copyright law in the Enlightenment, how music has been used as a tool of colonization through formation of archives, examples of Native American conceptions of cultural property and modes of repatriation, the birth of the music industry and its segregationist history, how the law impacts creativity through the study of sampling, infringement and extension of rights, the ways in which musicians and listeners subvert legal strictures, how music can influence policy as protest or as propaganda, musical bans, noise ordinances, the relationship between music and the First Amendment, alternatives to copyright law in the digital age, music piracy, and the recent changes in the music industry to focus on data gathering as the primary model for music distribution. Music is our point of departure, and students will learn ways in which sonic practices shaped and challenged legislative paradigms. Our focus is on American musics such as Native American music, blues, country, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, experimental music, hip hop, pop, as well as some European classical music, “world” music, and EDM. Students will read and analyze legal primary sources such as the Music Modernization Act, as well as landmark court cases, critical legal literature, and musicological texts. Students will learn debate skills, acquire practical knowledge of the law through concepts such as fair use, the public domain and mechanical and performance rights, and develop listening skills to understand legal concepts such as infringement.

There are no prerequisites and no previous knowledge of music, music theory, or the law is necessary. 

Link to Vergil
Note: only courses offered during the two previous semesters have active Vergil links.