Scenes from the Copyright Office

Abstract

In his iconic song “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” Billy Joel uses a series of vignettes to describe an encounter between two former classmates, meeting again after many years. The song begins as a ballad as they exchange pleasantries, segues into jazz as they reminisce about high school, shifts to rock as they gossip about the decline and fall of the former king and queen of the prom, then returns to a ballad as they part. The genius of the song is that the banality of the vignettes perfectly captures the subjectivity of their lived experience.This essay uses a series of vignettes drawn from Joel’s career to describe his encounters with copyright law. It begins by examining the ownership of the copyright in Joel’s songs. It continues by considering the authorship of Joel’s songs. And it concludes by evaluating certain infringement actions filed against Joel. While Joel’s encounters with copyright law were confusing and frustrating, they are also typical. The banality of his experiences captures the uncertainty and incoherence of copyright doctrine.