Understanding copyright in a digital age: Professor Martin Cloonan
Issued: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 11:25:00 BST
Professor of Popular Music Martin Cloonan is an expert in the politics of popular music, with a particular interest in issues concerning censorship and freedom of expression. Since 2011, he has been engaged in a new collaboration with colleagues in the University’s School of Law, investigating how copyright applies to live performance and the digital streaming of music.
The UK recording industry’s coordinated efforts to convince the European legislature to extend the copyright term for sound recordings has been the focus of much discussion in recent years and forms the backdrop to this research.
‘The major record companies have been facing severe problems and one thing they think will help is the extension of copyright term,’ Professor Cloonan explains. ‘If you can keep recordings for longer you can make more money out of them. This means the whole debate around copyright has tended to be dominated by the concerns of record companies and their allies.
‘However, live music is now worth more than recorded music in the UK, so we need to look at that. Record companies have also bought into a streaming service called Spotify, but the question is where does the money go? The copyright regime of live performance and streaming hasn’t really been studied and it needs to be.’
Professor Cloonan and his team plan to bring together academics, industry professionals and musicians to develop new thinking on the subject and, with support from the University’s Kelvin Smith Scholarship Fund, have recently assigned a PhD student to the project: ‘We really want this student to try and shape the debate across the country,’ says Professor Cloonan. ‘I always take the view as a PhD supervisor that we are there to guide students but it’s really important that students take ownership of their own work early on.’ For Professor Cloonan, who is also producing a three-book history of live music in the UK, Glasgow is an inspiring and innovative centre for postgraduate research. ‘It’s the best music city in the UK and has a fantastic intellectual environment,’ he says. ‘Academic research in music at the University is top in Scotland and it’s going to go from strength to strength. We’re at the forefront in lots of areas, not only popular music but also composition and performance. We also have great links with the music industry and work closely with professionals across all genres, so we know people and they support us.’
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