Description:

Russell Rains, Director of the MBA Program in Digital Media Management Program at St. Edward’s College in Austin TX, discusses the concept of “precedent” and how it relates to copyright law, which in turn underpins the entire music industry as we know it. He discusses the origins of modern law in English common law, and why it is critical that modern courts stick to the 1,000 years of precedents that have come before when formulating their decisions. He also analyzes the apparent breakdown in precedent that is facing modern copyright law, as technology and new distribution methods get far out ahead of the law’s ability to encompass them.