I know this is a bit off topic but I have a question. Say you use someones sound, or a melody you wrote is vaguely similar to another. Why can people sue you for it? Music is a way of expressing emotion and limiting that would be purely degradable to the creativeness of the composers/producers.
I get your perspective as an artist/musician about expressing emotion. However, the way that the law sees it is that musicians and artists deserve to be able to attempt to make money from their creative expressions. So, if one person takes the time to compose a song, record it, mix it, master it, etc., they should have some sort of protection on being able to make some money off that.
If ANOTHER person comes up and says, "I like this song, so I'm going to use it in my song," then they are using the first person's creative output without compensating them for it.
The law doesn't say, "You can never ever use another person's creative output." What it says is, "If you are going to use someone else's creative work, compensate them for it."
Also if someone were to sue you for imitating a similar melody to their song; then why can't you sue them for using a motif heard in, say, a Beethoven symphony.
Copyright isn't forever, and when copyright expires, those works go in the
public domain. Although the length of copyright has changed over the years, I think the current length of copyright for musical compositions and sound recordings in the US (note the difference, the first is the melody/harmony/etc., stuff, the latter is the actual recordings) is the life of the creator + 70 years.
So, if Beethoven's works were created under today's US copyright law (which they weren't, so this isn't really comparing apples to apples to begin with), then the answer is that Beethoven's copyright is expired. His compositions have gone into the public domain.
Here, however, is where the difference between musical composition and sound recordings matters...So, Beethoven's
compositions are in the public domain. That is, anyone can perform Beethoven's 5th symphony without paying anyone else a dime, and they will not have any issue. HOWEVER, particular
recordings of Beethoven are not in the public domain. So if you performed Beethoven's symphony and wanted to sell it on iTunes, there's no issue with that. But someone else could download your recording, and then try to sell it on their iTunes for themselves and say, "Well, Beethoven is public domain," because your
specific recording has a copyright of your entire life + 70 years afterwards.
I mean essentially all music nowadays has branched from Classical music and the music before that etc; so why are people now allowed to limit what can be made?
I think it's important to note that there is a distinction in copyright between ideas and expressions. So, ideas are not copyrighted; only specific expressions of ideas.
So, the genre conventions of classical music are "ideas", but Beethoven's 5th symphony is an expression. So, it's OK to do music in a "classical style" or in a "jazz style" or even to say, "kinda like Beethoven" because those conventions are all ideas and theoretical. And the law recognizes that some things are "
Scènes à faire" or "scenes that must be done." So, if you're making a magical fantasy, then JK Rowling can't sue you for having wizards and wands and cauldrons because those are just "scenes a faire" to that genre. HOWEVER, even if "wizards" are very common place, if your wizards are casting "alohomora" and non-wizards are called "muggles", then you're not just taking "ideas" anymore. Preventing people from using "muggles" doesn't limit creativity because there are still an infinite variety of things you can do in the magic/wizard genre without using that specific expression.
In music, it's kinda similar: the issue is if you say, "I'm going to use
this specific recording from Taylor Swift as a backing track for my remix" or you say "I'm going to use
this specific melody from the Hamilton musical for my own musical."
