Creating Music Without Creating Lawsuits

This seminar discusses copyright infringement, fair use, and the creation of parodies. When you are asked to create music to sound like existing music, just how close can you get without creating a legal headache? Borrowing, sampling, or stealing: Where do we draw the lines? These issues are discussed with copyright expert Lon Sobel, forensic musicologist Danny Gould, and writers Julie & Steve Bernstein, creators of many great parody songs used on Steven Spielberg’s ANIMANIACS.

LON SOBEL is a Professor at Southwestern Law School, where he teaches International Copyright, International Entertainment Law, Trademark Law, and Federal Income Tax. He is also the Director of Southwestern’s International Entertainment & Media Law Summer Program in London, and the Chair of the American Bar Association Forum Committee on the Entertainment & Sports Industries.

DANNY GOULD, since graduating from New York University with a music degree and moving to California, has been a participant in multifarious activities in the music industry: as a Music Advisor for Paramount Pictures, and presently (for almost 37 years) as a Musicologist and Special Advisor for the Warner Bros. Music Dept. Other activities: Composer (Songwriter), Arranger, Researcher, Conductor, Keyboardist, Accompanist, Musical Actor (Sideline Musician/on camera), and Grand Prize winner of the Waterford (Ireland) Song Festival.

JULIE & STEVE BERNSTEIN are Emmy-winning, classically trained composers who have written music for hundreds of episodes of TV animation. Their work can be heard on such classics as ANIMANIACS, PINKY AND THE BRAIN, FREAKAZOID and BABY LOONEY TUNES.

(Moderator) DENNIS C. BROWN, composer and current member of the SCL Board of Directors, has scored TV episodes along with scoring for film and the title music for a video game. His music can be found in such TV series as STILL STANDING, TWO AND A HALF MEN, DHARMA & GREG, ZORRO, SPEED RACER, GRACE UNDER FIRE, THE TOXIC CRUSADERS, JAMES BOND JR. and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: THE SERIES.