Life can be terribly complex. Take music copyright for example.
A composer writes a song and the song enjoys protection under the
Copyright Act as a 'musical work', with the
songwriter owning that copyright. A performer (who could also be
the song writer) then goes to a recording studio and makes a
recording of that song. The recording enjoys separate protection as
a 'sound recording', with that copyright belonging
to the record company. So two different copyrights
– copyright in the musical work which belongs to the
composer, and copyright in the sound recording which belongs to the
record company. And, on top of that, the performer who
performed the song when it was recorded enjoys a so-called
'performer's right', something that was
created by a piece of legislation called the Performers'
Protection Act.
