Author: Chuck Stewart

Not knowing the law does not absolve anyone of the consequences of breaking a law. Similarly, not knowing the protection afforded by law itself, is simply ignorance and ignorance is dangerous.

People have died from being ignorant or from being rebellious and history is replete with examples of those.

There is much ignorance, misinformation, and missing information around, about copyright and licensing rights and other facts of law having to do with the music business and intellectual property rights protection.

Self-representation is offensive.

You walk into a court and represent yourself because why? You are delusional and think you know how to be a great lawyer, and that you know the law well enough to be capable in a courtroom of defending yourself. After all, you have seen some TV shows, right?

The judge is a lawyer.

He/she went to school and passed the bar.

He/she practiced law.

You insult him/her by pretending to be competent, just as a person pretending to be a doctor can and has caused loss of life.

Pretending to know law is a delusion. It is a recipe for disaster.

Copyright Registration

If your work is copyrighted when you create it, why register it? This is best answered by an actual licensed professional attorney.

Read on.

Anyone giving legal advice does so illegally. My advice is to consult with a licensed attorney and to not act on your own, when an attorney is needed. My disclaimer is that this is not or intended to be legal advice. Seek and use an attorney for legal advice.

You can be held accountable for giving advice, especially if it doesn’t work out well, but giving legal advice is practicing law without a license and is a crime in most places.

This being said, two easy points of reference are from the actual U.S. Copyright office and a written explanation by an actual attorney on a site, referenced below.

You still should consult with a licensed attorney, even after having read the two web pages below. Unless you are a lawyer, you may have misinformation which can bite you one day and the law does have “teeth”. You may not know law well enough to fully grasp the implications in law, unless you are an attorney, yourself.

U.S. Copyright Office – What is Copyright?

From Legal Zoom, written by attorney, Michelle Kaminsky, Esq. –

“8 basic facts every musician should know about copyright law.”

https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/8-basic-facts-every-musician-should-know-about-copyright-law

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You lock your door to your home. You lock your car doors. This is common sense.

If you ever have to prove/defend your intellectual property as being yours, you should want to be prepared. This should be common sense.

Open a book. Look at sheet music. Look at movie credits. Do you find a copyright notice with a ‘c’ in a circle? Do you see the date, also? People who value their works usually protect them through registration of them.

U.S. Copyright registration is done by citizens and also non-citizens of the U.S. Do you know why?

There is a plethora of case law regarding copyright and copyright infringement, which is evidence enough to justify the small fee required for having recorded evidence, in the form of copyright registration, of having created a musical work and including the date.

Your friend, whether a recording engineer, or a butcher, may or may not be a lawyer.

It should be common sense to use licensed people for: medicine, law, architecture, engineering and accounting. Why? They are held to a very high standard of accountability for their advice and their practice. They have not only been to college, but have also had to successfully complete internships and have passed stringent tests, to be licensed.

The licensing authorities do this, not so much to regulate, control and charge fees, but rather this is done for the public good and safety. It is how civilized society maintains a hopefully safe environment for the good of all.

You may need an attorney to help you to understand this and it is recommended to use one, if you are not one.

edx.org has a fabulous course done by Berklee College of Music. It is called Introduction To The Music Business and the instructor is an entertainment attorney. His course is highly recommended,

Sing From Your Diaphragm

The cruelest joke is one which got stuck in a lot of heads, both singers and non-singers.

It is said as if it is something everybody knows or should know, but it is impossible to sing from your diaphragm.

It is impossible to sing from your diaphragm.

Most people don’t know these things about the diaphragm: 

How is it shaped?

Where is it?

It gets worse. The diaphragm has no preoceptive nerves in it. Your arm has propreoceptive nerves and you can feel where your arm is. You cannot feel your diaphragm or its location.

It gets worse still! If you are told to control or manipulate something that you cannot feel, what does that do to your mind?  It sends you into a world of fantasy and pretense and you are out of control. More than that there other issues.

Your diaphragm separates the chest from the abdomen. It is a muscle.

When it contracts, it descends and causes a suction action and air is drawn into the lungs. It is a muscle. It can only contract in one direction, down. It doesn’t have another muscle on top or underneath, to then push out your air. When you are exhaling, which you do when you sing, the diaphragm is relaxed, not flexed, and has nothing to do with forcing out your air.

Abdominal muscles are used to force out the air. Doctors have known this since the 1700s. Where did everyone go off track with this? For may years, singing pedagogues had the idea that mixing science with art would destroy the art. The truth is that ignorance or science has ended or impeded careers of singers who injured their voices from vocal abuse.

Forcing air through the vocal folds, especially if they are hyper-adducted (coming together too hard) can cause irritation, blisters, blood blisters, and later, nodules as the injuries progress.

The air stream is rarely the problem in singers voices. The real problem is actually in the larynx. Working the correct muscles the correct way can free a singer from strain, pain, and will give freedom for artistic expression without it being thwarted by faulty technique.

Diaphragm Key Points

The diaphragm is the muscle for inhalation.

The diaphragm cannot push out your air.

Your lungs contain the air. Air doesn’t go into your abdomen.

Singing from your diaphragm is a myth and a fantasy. It is impossible.

You can use your diaphragm to have more air, when you need it for long and/or loud phrases.