Quote Originally Posted by Anarion View Post
music (both compositions and recordings)
Which is further complicated as the rights to the lyrics to popular songs are generally held by publishing houses while the rights to specific recordings of them are generally held by record labels. Sometimes you'll see things like this new version of Stories's cover of "Brother Louie," created for the opening credits of the TV show Louie purely as a way around a lot of the licensing fees they would've had to pay had they used the original version.
Copyright law exists to encourage artists. There's a sense that art is really good for society, but it pays badly. Protecting copyrights gives artists more ways to make money and gives a few people a chance to really hit it big (which in turn encourages a lot of starving artists to at least try). We want more people to be able to support themselves making art instead of having to go flip burgers at a restaurant, and that's why there's copyright law.
Yeah, well said. You're a pretty convincing dude, I'll say. You should try to do that, you know, like for a living somehow.