Symbolic Systems Forum - "Fluid Content, Fixed Form: Symbolic Representations of Music as Intellectual Property"

Music is among the most chameleon of subjects for consideration as intellectual property. In the analog world, music is usually considered to consist of a continuous stream of sound. Abstract views of music are based on other sensory processes?vision in the case of notation, structured listening and reasoning in the case of cognitive activities, such as theorizing and analyzing. In the digital world, musical information is conveyed (even when perceived as a sound stream) in some kind of symbolic form. Some symbolic systems of representation are designed to be humanly comprehensible, others are designed to be inscrutable.

There is no universal system either for representing music or for interchanging data employing different symbol sets. Mere difference of scheme matters very little in the realm of intellectual property, but the fact that no two systems of representation privilege the same elements of music or weight them in the same way allows for subtle differences in multiple representations of the same work. In artistic terms, one can draw a different picture of any given work at every sitting.

This fluidity of both representation and abstraction bodes ill for the primary distinction made under US copyright law between ?the work itself? and the fixed form in which it is copyrighted. Music is an art of fluidity and the digital revolution is making it more apparent every day that that the notion of fixing ?the work itself? is more amenable to theory than to practice. These challenges will be discussed in this talk.