The Use of Copyright in Digital Times: A Study of How Artists Exercise Their Rights in Norway

ABSTRACT

How do artists use copyright to further their creative ends? To approach this question, this article focuses on the relationship between artists’ appropriation of digital technology and exertion of their rights. In particular, it relates the evolving range of production tools and distribution services to the ways in which artists currently create musical works and seek to exploit their economic as well as moral rights. Interviews with eighteen artists in Norway reveal a series of technology-mediated challenges to the ownership of one’s work, the recognition of one’s authorship, and one’s remuneration that demonstrate the need for open discussion of the ethical aspects of copyright in music.

KEYWORDS:

• Artists
• copyright
• literacy
• negotiation
• production tools
• streaming services

Acknowledgments

This article is produced in association with the University of Oslo research project titled “Music on Demand: Economy and Copyright in a Digitized Cultural Sector” and is funded by the Research Council of Norway [grant number 271962]. I thank the members of the research team, Professor Anne Danielsen, and the reviewers of Popular Music and Society for their valuable contributions. I also thank the interviewed artists that this study is based on.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. All translations from Norwegian to English are the author’s.

2. The artists include Amund Maarud, Bendik Brænne, Christine Sandtorv, Egil Olsen, Heidi Marie Vestrheim, Henrik Maarud, Ida Jenshus, Ingrid Olava, Jarle Bernhoft, Kaja Gunnufsen, Marte Wulff, Merete Pascual (Billie Van), Petter Carlsen, Pål Moddi Knutsen, Sandra Kolstad, Shaun Bartlett, Silja Sol, and Thomas Helland (Thom Hell).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yngvar Kjus

Yngvar Kjus (PhD) is Associate Professor of Music and Contemporary Media in the Department of Musicology at the University of Oslo, Norway. Kjus is the author of Live and Recorded: Music Experience in the Digital Millennium (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018).