Music copywriting and the problems of music education: overcoming prohibitions and the use of music in teaching

ABSTRACT

This study aims to discuss the fundamentals of music copywriting in music education and identify pathways for integrating musical compositions into the learning process without infringing copyright and prohibiting the use of specific music pieces. To achieve this goal, the authors used methods of analysis to identify the available resources in the field of music copywriting and education. The study reports that 35% of students give their preference to classical music, 32% want to use traditional Chinese music, and only 22% consider it possible to play modern melodies. To avoid copyright infringement in the presentation of theory that is available on the Internet, authors should document their original approach to learning and publish the data in books and monographs. The authors found that the use of classical music in the classroom was not an infringement of copyright because the statute of limitations had expired. The findings suggested that the students whose similarity scores ranged from 0 to 24% in the music compositions got better knowledge, with the coefficient of effectiveness of 2.5.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative skills
• copyright
• plagiarism
• borrowing compositions
• note matching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This paper has been supported by the ‘Fourteenth Five-Year Plan’ Fund Project of Jiangxi Kehui Science ‘Research on the Music and Thought of Jiangxi Literati in the Song Dynasty’ (No. 21YS16); ‘Fourteenth Five-Year Plan’ Fund Project of Jiangxi Provincial Education Science (2022 Key Project) ‘Research on the Living Inheritance of Jiangxi Hong in Jiangxi Colleges and Universities in the Centennial Party History’ (No. 22ZD020).

Notes on contributors

Fang Peng

Fang Peng has a Master’s degree. Fang Peng is an Associate Professor of the Academy of Arts at East China Jiaotong University, Nanchang, China. Among research interests are music teaching in colleges and universities, music copyright issues etc.