Beckingham v. Hodgens: The Session Musician’s Claim to Music Copyright

Abstract

The High Court judgment in Beckingham v. Hodgens, delivered in July but as yet unreported, revisits the issue of the backing musician’s entitlement to a share of the copyright in a song on which he has played. The decision seems to put the law in this area back on the right path, from which it had strayed in Hadley & Others v. Kemp (the Spandau Ballet case) [1999] EMLR 589. It also demonstrates the continuing divergence between conventions in the music industry and the law in relation to music copyright.