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.