Musical Appropriation, Musical Meaning, and the Law

The following paper is an excerpt from a book I am currently writing entitled Musical Appropriation, Musical Meaning, and the Law. This monograph explores two fundamental questions from the point of view of a musicologist: - How has intellectual property (IP) law impacted musical creativity within the past fifty years? - How have restrictions on appropriation changed the way music communicates? Important authors in the field of cultural studies have claimed that IP has exerted a categorically negative effect on musical creativity. My book challenges this conventional wisdom by arguing that copyright law has led to a cultivation of techniques that refine, rather than stunt, music's capacity to communicate. This project provides a nuanced analysis of the effects of IP law on musical meaning, and will be an important contribution to the fields of musicology, cultural studies, and the law