Tuesday, October 21, 2014

All the Ways One Can "Buy a Record"

My favorite octogenarian attorney recently asked me:
"Please give me a list of all the ways someone can buy a record."
I came up with the following and included uses that may not strictly constitute sales or phonorecords under the U.S. Copyright Act:

1 – Consumers can purchase permanent copies of recordings in various configurations, such as:
a.      From retailers (online like Amazon.com or brick and mortar like Target and Walmart) or directly from an artists’ website or at a concert (e.g., together with merchandise):
i.      Vinyl Record
ii.     Compact Disc
iii.    DVD
iv.    Embodied on video games
b.     Permanent downloads from music services (e.g., from iTunes and Amazon.com) and video game console manufacturers (e.g., Sony’s PlayStation network and Microsoft’s Xbox store)

2 – Also, consumers pay for access to listen to recordings by subscribing to a music service such as the following:
a.   Interactive services like Spotify and Beats (where users can stream on demand)
b.  So-called "non-interactive" services like Pandora and Sirius XM (which offer users less control over programming)

3 – Alternately, companies pay to advertise to listeners or viewers of free programming on services like YouTube, Vevo, MTV and the services mentioned in #2 above.  In this case, access to the recording is “free” to the consumer because the advertiser subsidizes the cost, but the consumer must watch or listen to ads in exchange for such free access.

4 – Finally, consumers who purchase electronics devices such as a Samsung phone or iPhone may find that music has been bundled with the device by the hardware seller, which pays the music rights holders for the right to do this (and thusly must build in the music cost in the device's price).

What ways to buy a record did I forget?

Please tell me what I failed to mention below!