Musical Work and Sound recordings

The Copyright Ordinance considers the following music-related productions as being copyright works:

· musical works
· sound recordings

The Copyright Ordinance has not given a meaning to musical work. By ordinary construction, it means the music in its written form. It is therefore separate from work having other protections namely recording of the singing performance by the pop-singer which should be classified as sound recording. In typical situation, the author of a song would retain copyright of the work as musical work. Alternatively, he would have his rights transferred to the record company in return of royalty obtained by the licensing agent. On the other hand, record producers and record companies would own the rights to sound recordings. That is achieved by the agreement with the pop-singer.