Regulation of Intellectual Property and Contract Structure

This paper seeks to address the newest issue arising between songwriters and their record companies in the music industry which is the underpayment of royalties. This paper will seek to answer if with more and more artists and songwriters suing for compensation due to underpayment of royalties, will artists lose the incentive to create new music and eventually decrease overall production? Clearly defining and regulating intellectual property and the use and efficiency of contracts will be topics for discussion. After testing my hypothesis, some results show no decrease, whereas, other results report some decrease in record company and songwriter incentives and in production. Therefore, in conclusion, the finding is that there is no clear association between underpayment and lack of production