Answer: Choice D)
Copywriting music protects the original (or unique) work of musicians and artists and gives them the sole permission to sell that work.
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Step-by-step explanation:
- Choice A is false because awards are given based on people's tastes in music in whether they think a certain work is good or not. This could be based on a certain trend or style at a given time. Having a copyright does not change the quality of the music, and it does not change people's likes/dislikes of the product.
- Choice B is false because musicians are paid by people who want to listen to said music. The copyright office does not pay people. Instead it's the other way around and the musician must pay money to apply for a copyright.
- Choice C is false even though it's fairly easy to think it could be true. Copyrighting a certain work only protects that certain work, and not the overall ideas presented in it. Yes you can protect a very specific sequence of events or ideas that are chained together, as that sequence inherently defines what constitutes that artistic work. However, you cannot copyright broad things like genres, theme, tone, etc. Those concepts are too vague and allowing to copyright such things would lead to a very large reduction of participation.
- Choice D is the only thing left. It is the answer because copyrighting is exactly the act of protecting an artistic work that has a unique composition to it. In terms of music, that would be the structure of the musical notes, the rhythm, and so on. Think of these as the basic building blocks that uniquely define the musical piece. Of course, music sampling is a thing. Music sampling is where one artists copies a small piece of other music to use in their work. This is legal as long as the copied piece is relatively small from the work being sampled. Often the sampled piece is altered in some way (eg: the beat is sped up or another musical instrument is used) to give the copied piece a unique flavor of sorts.