Owning the Masters

Record companies have taken contractual power and therefore economic security in the realm of music recording and reproduction. Their ownership places recording artists in an inferior legislative position to the companies and their songwriting counterparts. Sound recording copyright law encourages recording artists to cast themselves as composers if they wish to use copyright as a means for artistic recompense, but copyright is complex and contestable. Owning the Masters exposes how record companies lobbied for copyright and the consequences of their ownership and addresses a changing environment of artists who are increasingly assuming ownership of their recordings.