Presented by Dr Ananay Aguilar (Cambridge University)

In this talk I address one of four strands of a recent Leverhulme-funded project (and forthcoming book) that focuses on music performers’ legal rights. Drawing on interviews with performing musicians and record industry and government representatives, I have examined these rights taking into account:

1) their history

2) how performers make use of the law in everyday practice and through case law

3) how the rights are managed

4) the processes involved in copyright reform.

Here, I engage with the third strand to investigate the operations of the UK recording rights society PPL in charge of managing income from performers’ rights. Set up by record labels to collect and distribute sound recording copyright licenses, performers have historically not been PPL’s central focus: I thus discuss the involved relationship between performers and their CMO.

Ananay Aguilar is Regional Coordinator for Latin America at the International Federation of Musicians (FIM) and an Affiliated Researcher at the University of Cambridge. Her interests lie in the production and circulation of recordings considering aesthetics, economics, politics and law. Ananay studied at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia (BA), UNICAMP in Brazil (MA), and Royal Holloway, University of London (PhD).