Please note: This event was originally scheduled for Nov 4, 2026, but has been moved due to a scheduling conflict.
This talk will interrogate the function and form of music copyright law vis-à-vis ethical and economic questions about the mechanical and digital reproduction of music today. Specifically, the history of the power dynamics embedded into the distribution, commercialization, and property claims of music will be discussed, while also considering how notions of property and authorship shift with the development of new technologies—particularly AI—while remaining embedded in our presumption of music property in forms deemed “legible” under law since slavery.
This talk is part of the Shepherd School of Music's new Music and Ideas Series, which explores the depths of musicology through a lineup of talks by distinguished experts and leading scholars. Explore more here.
Free, no tickets needed
Artists
Matthew D. Morrison, a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, is an Associate Professor in the Department of African and African American Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. He is a musicologist whose research focuses on the relationship between music, identity, performance, as well as property and politics in and beyond American popular culture, with a particular focus on the analysis of race. He is the author of Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States (UC Press, 2024), which has been recognized through accolades such as the Woody Guthrie Book Award from the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, The Irving Lowens Book Award from the Society of American Music, an honorable mention from the Royal Music Association’s Cambridge University Book Prize, and named a “Best Music Book of 2024) by Rolling Stone Magazine. His current research explores the ethics of AI and Intellectual Property in music.
