Legal Certainty Against Self Claiming Actions on Covered and Rearranged Songs

Abstract

The practice of re-singing or covering songs with different arrangements and then uploading them on digital platforms without the permission of the copyright owner is increasingly prevalent. Cover and rearrangement of songs often trigger controversy when a perpetrator claims ownership (Self-Claiming) because he feels entitled to be one of the Copyright Holders of his new work, and other parties feel harmed because of the action. The purpose of this study is to examine the suitability of Self-Claiming actions as copyright holders of songs covered and rearranged based on the elements of the creator in Article 1 Point (2) of the UUHC, as well as examine related to the legal implications of the application of the UUHC to address disputes when they occur between the original Copyright Holder and the Creator of the cover or rearrangement. The research method used is a juridical-normative type of research with a statutory approach and a conceptual approach. The results of the study show that a person who performs a self-claiming action on a derivative work, if it is based on the elements of the Creator in the form of acting out his ideas or creativity in the form of a new work that is distinctive and different from other works, the cover and re-arrangement performer can have claim rights to his new work if he has a licence from the original Creator. Whereas if there is no licence then it becomes an act of copyright infringement that has no certainty and legal basis. Self-claiming without a licence can lead to legal consequences in the form of lawsuits and financial losses, so the UUHC has implications as a basis for dispute resolution to maintain a balance between copyright protection and the development of creativity.