MUSIC AND PROPERTY

Music and Property is an advanced lecture/discussion course wherein we will consider the philosophical questions of whether and how an individual, a culture, an institution, or a community can "own" music, for the most part by examining several raging current disputes and debates over the appropriation and enforcement of musical "property" rights. While the course will begin with a theoretical overview of these issues, most of the course will consist of examining key case studies where rights to the ownership of music have been disputed, litigated, or subject to legislative or disciplinary revision. This course raises the questions: 1) What does it mean to "own" music? 2) In what senses can music be conceptualized as "property?" 3) How do divergent understandings of music's status as "property" shape contemporary debates and discourses in the particular areas of disputes over "illegal downloading" of copyrighted music and the "repatriation" of Native American musical recordings as "cultural property?"