Analysis of Ethical Issues Concerning the Australian Music Industry

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the ethical challenges confronting the Australian music industry. It highlights the historical significance of Australian music, its evolution into a modern entertainment sector, and the resulting ethical concerns. The primary focus is on copyright infringement, exacerbated by digital technology and streaming services like Spotify. The essay discusses several high-profile copyright cases, including Blurred Lines, Stairway to Heaven, and Down Under, examining the complexities of determining infringement. It also addresses issues like revenue decline for artists, the role of organizations like Music Rights Australia in protecting intellectual property, and funding challenges for emerging artists. The essay concludes by emphasizing the urgency of addressing these ethical issues to safeguard the industry's future. The essay uses various references to support the arguments.

Running Head: ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
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ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
The music industry of Australia has an extensively rich historical significance dating
back to almost 40, 000 to 60,000 years of its existence (Tschmuck, et al. 2014). Contemporary
fusions of indigenous and Western music styles have made Australia one of the leading
contributors of this art in the world music platform. However with the changing trends of the
society the music industry also morphed into a new age entertainment industry which in turn
gave rise to various ethical concerns and the questioned the functioning of the artists, the
composers, the lyrists and the industry as a whole. The most persistent ethical concern has been
in the field of infringement of copy right law in the music and entertainment business industry.
Technology has been identified as driving force behind these moral issues. For instance when the
music streaming company Soptify was sued for $2 billion for copy right infringement as
California-based Wixen Music Publishing reported that all the songs were streamed without the
required license via Sopity’s app (Voigt, Buliga and Michl, 2017.). Thus the digital technology
in a way has aided in easy stealing of intellectual property rights. There have been several other
instances pertaining to this field of legal violation by artists themselves which has raised several
question on the sanctity of this industry. The copyright law suit which was filed against bin
Thicke and Pharrell Williams for the song Blurred Lines by Marvin Gaye’s children. This
copyright infringement case was more challenging as the song did not directly copy the lyrics but
importantly copied the “feel” of the original song pertaining to late 70’s (Lester, 2014). Though
Marvin Gaye’s children won the case and Blurred Lines became of on the most talked about
incidents in 2015, the judge order for a close comparison of the two music compositions and
regarded it to be a case of a creative homage than that of copy right infringement. Though
Thicker did admit that his composition was greatly influenced by Gaye’s work and he wanted to
bring in the same feel, it did not protect him from the infringement. There are numerous other

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ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
cases like in the year 2014 musician Led Zeppelin faced severe allegations regarding his
composition that the iconic guitar riff in Stairway to Heaven was copied from a musical
composition by the rock band Spirit (Cohen, 2016). Similarly in the year 2010 the famous
Australian Band Men at Work were accused of infringing the copyright law as the flue riff in
their musical hit Down Under was copied from a folk song dating back to the year 1934 named
Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree (Fiske, Hodge and Turner, 2016). Ed Sheeran, Tim
McGraw and Faith Hill are among those contemporary musician who have been accused of
copyright infringement by two Australian Songwriters in relation to their association with the
song The Rest of our Life. The songwriters allege that the song is a copy of their composition
when I Found You (Marr, 2014).
Thus from the above cited instances it is quite clear that there are varied spectrums of
potential copyright infringement. While cases like Bitter Sweet Symphony are most prominent
examples of copyright infringement, the case of Blurred Lines is still seen in light of confusion.
To exactly analyze where copyright has gone wrong, it is necessary to glance a closer look on
these copyright infringement cases. When iconic songs are re composed, it tends to mingle with
the existing emotions of the listeners regarding that composition and often angers the mob
(Drummond, 2015). In the case of Down Under it was completely a different composition
compared to the allegation made. It has been observed by the critics that copyright law often fails
to distinguish what has been copied that is, is it the content or the idea or the feel of the
composition. Moreover songs like Got to Give It Up, was which a chartbuster was in 1977 owns
its copyright for another 40 significant years (Lund, 2013). Thus such an extraordinary length of
copyright protection directly means that such iconic hits which can be potential influence for
today’s music composers to create something new and iconic as that is locked away.

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ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
While huge number of people are continuously assessing and streaming music online, the
industry revenue as well as the royalty earned by the artist seems to be falling continuously. To
keep a check on the growing ethical concerns on the music and entertainment industry of
Australia, the Music Rights Australia which a joint venture between the Australian songwriters,
composers, music publishers and the representatives of Australian Recording Industry
Association – ARIA (Mac Síthigh, 2013). The organization is responsible to ensure that all the
different forms of art work created by the music industry stakeholders receive proper protection,
receive the deserving recognition and most importantly to works towards increasing the
awareness on the legal attributes pertaining to intellectual property rights among the music fans
as well as the Australian Community and large. It also significantly true that the musicians and
the composers must understand the similarities in chords or tune of two musical compositions is
not protectable under the law of copyright. Lastly severe lack of fund is another major disturbing
concern for the budding artist to get a hold of big record labels as these artists feel that bigger
names do not show interest in picking up new talents. Thus all these concerns seem to be a
potential threat to the music industry and needs to be addressed in the immediate manner.

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ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
References:
Cohen, J.D., 2016. Rock as Religion. Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies, 7(1), p.3.
Drummond, T., 2015. Understanding copyright and fair use in the music classroom. Music
Educators Journal, 102(2), pp.48-53.
Fiske, J., Hodge, B. and Turner, G., 2016. Myths of Oz: reading Australian popular culture.
Routledge.
Lester, T., 2014. Blurred Lines—Where Copyright Ends and Cultural Appropriation Begins—
The Case of Robin Thicke versus Bridgeport Music, and the Estate of Marvin Gaye. Hastings
Communications and Entertainment Law Journal, 36(2), pp.217-242.
Lund, J., 2013. Fixing music copyright. Brook. L. Rev., 79, p.61.
Mac Síthigh, D., 2013. App law within: rights and regulation in the smartphone age.
International Journal of Law and Information Technology, 21(2), pp.154-186.
Marr, J.T., 2016. A tale of electronic bass music & the elusive composition copyright: A
discussion of the gap in copyright protection for bass music producers. Va. Sports & Ent. LJ, 16,
p.244.

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ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
Tschmuck, P., Pearce, P.L., Campbell, S., Tschmuck, P., Pearce, P. and Campbell, S., 2013.
Music business and the experience economy. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag.
Southbank, Victoria: Arts Victoria. Retrieved January, 20, p.2014.
Voigt, K.I., Buliga, O. and Michl, K., 2017. Passion for Music: The Case of Spotify. In Business
Model Pioneers (pp. 143-155). Springer, Cham.