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Entertainment and Sports LawEntertainment Law & FinanceFeatures

Seventh Circuit Addresses Proof Burden For §114(b) Sound Recording Infringement

By Stan Soocher
November 01, 2025

It’s a fundamental copyright principle that a song and a sound recording of that song each have their own copyright protection. But that protection isn’t equal.

As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently explained: “Holders of musical composition copyrights enjoy rather expansive powers. [See, 17 U.S.C. §106.] … On the other hand, sound recording copyrights only protect those sounds ‘that directly or indirectly recapture the actual sounds fixed in the recording’ from infringement.” (See, 17 U.S.C. §114(b), which further states that a sound recording copyright doesn’t “extend to the making or duplication of another sound recording that consists entirely of an independent fixation of other sounds, even though such sounds imitate or simulate those in the copyrighted sound recording.”)

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