music

Below some of the song titles and complete albums evershift has bought into since the start in 2011. The list will be updated on a regular basis and you can read more about the thoughts behind investing in music rights.

If you are interested in using any of these songs in a movie, commercial, tv-show, etc. please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Interested in acquiring music rights?

Albums

 
 

Individual songs

 
 

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme

Jimmy Lee

Kisses in the moonlight

Lean on me

Love is a contact sport

Miss you like crazy

Perfect combination

Shiver

Spend my life with you

Sweetness

We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off

Who’s Zoomin’ Who?

Acquiring Music Rights

When acquiring music rights, it is very important that you understand the rules and regulations related to the music rights you are obtaining.

In general authors and songwriters own the exclusive rights to their own compositions. This is called copyright and compositions are protected for years even if the copyright is never registered with the appropriate authorities. A composition is considered an item of “intellectual property,” which may be sold, transferred, or inherited – however, copyright protection still remains.

Legally, copyright means that a musician, author, songwriter, or artist has a “limited duration monopoly” on anything he or she creates. The U.S. Constitution grants the government power “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries” (Article 1, Section 8, US Constitution).

To legally enforce an author’s claim to copyright, the work must be registered with the local copyright office. Registering a composition provides public notification of copyright and nobody can use the composition publicly unless they pay royalties. If a song under copyright is used without the owner’s permission, the offender is subject to legal repercussions.

If music or lyrics is under copyright protection, you legally cannot:

  • reproduce the music or lyrics in any form
  • distribute the music or lyrics commercially or for free
  • perform the music or lyrics in public
  • play a recording of the music or lyrics in public
  • make a derivative work or arrangement for public use in any form

United States Copyright Law

US copyright law is found in Title 17 of the United States Code and is administered by the US Copyright Office. The “Terms for Copyright Protection,” published by the US Government, summarizes the duration of copyright protection for published works as follows:

  • Works created after 1/1/1978
    life of the longest surviving author plus 70 years
  • Works registered before 1/1/1978
    95 years from the date copyright was secured
  • Works registered before 1/1/1923
    Copyright protection for 75 years has expired and these works are in the public domain

The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was signed into law on October 27, 1998. Prior to the Sonny Bono 20-year copyright term extension, copyright protection for works registered before 1/1/1978 was 75 years; therefore, compositions registered in 1922 or earlier entered the public domain on 1/1/1998.

The 1998 copyright extension did not extend copyright protection from 75 to 95 years for songs already in the public domain so works published in the United States in 1922 or earlier are in the public domain even if they are not yet 95 years old.

The above information about public domain and copyright protection is described in detail in “Extension of Copyright Terms“, Circular 15t, of the U.S. Copyright Office.

International Copyright Law

The Berne Convention is an international treaty standardizing copyright protection since 1886. In 1994, a “General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade” (GATT) was signed by 117 countries, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) was created in Geneva, Switzerland, to enforce compliance with the agreement.

GATT includes a section covering copyright called the “Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property” (TRIPS). US law was amended to be essentially consistent with GATT by the “Uruguay Round Agreements Act” (URAA) in 1994 and the “Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act” in 1998.

Despite GATT, copyright protection varies greatly from country to country, and extreme caution must be exercised on all international usage of any intellectual property.

Public Domain

Copyright eventually expires based on the above rules and the owners lose their exclusive rights after that point in time. Some composers renounce their copyright and give their music or lyrics to the public during their lifetime or at their death. Compositions not protected under copyright law are by definition in the public domain.

Music Copyright Law in Summary

Works published in the United States with a copyright date of 1922 or earlier are in the public domain in the United States.

Copyright protection outside the United Stated is determined by the laws of the individual country. Copyright protection may be 95 years from publication date, 50 to 70 years after the death of the last surviving author or other criteria depending on where the work was first published and where it is to be used.