POST-UNIT REFLECTIONS LESSON 10. COPYRIGHT AND POST-UNIT REFLECTIONS

FREE WRITE Remember…. Don’t worry! Keep your pen and pencil moving for the whole five minutes.

BRAINSTORM In your journal, spend one minute writing down all the ways you listen to or download music. Ready… set… GO!

How much should it cost to hear music? Songwriters make their living through earning a royalty. This is the part of the profit from music sales that is paid to writers. When listeners download their songs for free, they deprive songwriters of their income. Illegal downloading is the act of obtaining files from the Internet that one does not have permission to use.

A copyright gives songwriters legal protection when their work is illegally downloaded.

Do you think illegal downloading is a serious crime, or is it OK if you can get away with it? Why or why not?

A songwriter could earn money in the following ways: Mechanical royalty - Songwriters receive income when someone buys a recording of their song via digital download or CD. Performance royalty - Songwriters receive income when their song is played on the radio, streamed online, heard in a public place, or performed live at a concert. Synchronization (sync) license - Songwriters receive income when someone uses their song in a movie, television show, or commercial.

Illegal downloading threatens a songwriter’s revenue streams! The current mechanical royalty rate for the songwriter’s share is 9.1 cents per song. This is usually split between the songwriter and the publisher. A publisher is a business person or a company who works to get the songs recorded by singers or used in movies or on television.

Imagine you are a professional songwriter and you receive a mechanical royalty share of $0.0455 per song. If the whole school bought your song, how much money would you make? If half the school bought your song and half the school downloaded it illegally, how much money would you make? If ten people bought your song and the rest of the school downloaded it illegally, how much money would you make?

Answer the following questions in your journal. Brainstorm Answer the following questions in your journal. Think about how hard you worked on your songs. Imagine you were to get paid every time someone buys your song, but many people are downloading it illegally instead of buying it. How would that make you feel? Does this change your opinion about illegal downloading? Why or why not?

Brainstorm Reflect on the lyric-writing process by answering the following questions in your journal. What did you learn about songwriting in this unit? The next time you write a song, what steps would you follow? How would you find a topic? How would you get ideas? How would you organize your thoughts? What are the parts of a song you would need to write?

It’s almost time to meet your songwriter! Brainstorm It’s almost time to meet your songwriter! In your journal, list at least three questions you would like to ask the songwriter at the workshop.