Copyright has come into play so that a creator is motivated to research and put time, effort and money into bringing new innovation whether through music, an invention or something else. I think if you write and record a song, you should get the profits for your lifetime. After that it should go to the public. Nobody can buy the rights to your music because that is entirely unethical. A record label should be compensated for funding, marketing and distributing. I think a label should make some money, but the artist shouldn’t sell thousands of records and see zero return.

Once a song is released to the public sphere, if it is sampled into a new song or copied in some way, no profits can be made off it. That way a producer can’t just take an old song and rework it for profit. They can make a hit song and profit through marketing a name or brand and creating recognition. Although ideally I’d like this work, it’s not feasible.

If likened to a pharmaceutical drug, no one would be motivated to produce a generic version let alone sell it for a lower price. I want to promote the reworking of older music because a lot of it is good. I don’t want musicians to profit 100% off of something stripped from early work, but at the same time I don’t want to encourage copyright protection well beyond the original creators. It’s a very slippery slope with no clear answers.