Another year, another celebration of intellectual property (IP) on World IP Day. This time, the World Intellectual Property Organization is focusing on IP and music:
World Intellectual Property Day 2025 highlights how creativity and innovation, backed by IP rights, keep a thriving music scene that benefits everyone, everywhere. This year's World IP Day invites us to explore how IP rights and innovation policies empower creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs to bring fresh ideas to the music industry, safeguarding the work of songwriters, composers, performers, and all those who shape the music that moves us.1
Music permeates the daily lives of many people. It is used in movies and TV shows to set the mood of a scene, in ads to draw attention to the subject product or service, as background when we work long hours at work, or as an accompaniment to a post on any number of popular social media platforms.
But the industry that works to bring that music to everyday people, the mythical "music industry," has certainly faced its challenges. From pirated music to figuring out streaming royalties to dealing with monetizing music on social media platforms, the music industry has had to adapt to survive. That adaptation is implicated now that artificial intelligence (AI) can be directed to create all sorts of things, including music. The Copyright Office has issued guidance on the issue, such as by reaffirming that works created by AI without human involvement are not copyrightable.2 But even with that guidance, the industry faces uncertainty going forward,3 and working to empower music creators, innovators and entrepreneurs to bring their ideas to bear in support of music and its industry is a laudable goal.
BakerHostetler's attorneys are at the forefront of AI and copyright issues, including monitoring AI case law developments relating to IP and copyrights as well as representing artists when their copyrighted works have been misappropriated and copied. As such, we are excited to celebrate IP and its continued goal of shaping the music that moves and inspires us. Happy World IP Day!
Footnotes
1 https://www.wipo.int/en/web/ipday/2025/index (last visited April 22, 2025).
2 https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05321/copyright-registration-guidance-works-containing-material-generated-by-artificial-intelligence (last visited April 22, 2025).
3 https://hls.harvard.edu/today/ai-created-a-song-mimicking-the-work-of-drake-and-the-weeknd-what-does-that-mean-for-copyright-law/ (last visited April 22, 2025).
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
