This essential legal guide for musicians may prove too dense for readers looking for a basic introduction.
Nebgen, Akbar, and their co-authors analyze the business side of rock and roll in this thorough legal primer.
Employing a broad scope and detailed exposition, the authors lay out the many legal issues relevant to the music and recording industries. From the basics of copyright law to the intricacies of unforeseen circumstances (what happens when a band breaks up, or one of the copyright holders dies?), they parse each situation with thorough delineations and analysis. The authors’ legal expertise is rooted in a deep understanding of the history of the music industry and how its evolution has complicated questions of authorship and the sources of possible revenue streams: “with the diversification of the recording industry, the opportunities for ‘big’ money are getting harder to find. The take-away message is that with today’s easy electronic access to free music, musicians must make every penny count!” They illustrate their discussions of each point of law with colorful and amusing examples from the history of the medium—for example, they note that David Bowie was able to collect royalties when an astronaut performed his “Space Oddity” on the International Space Station. Other sections, written by contributing authors, tackle contemporary issues like blockchain and, of course, AI (their advice: Don’t use it). Lawyers just starting out in the field will find this a comprehensive guide to many of the scenarios they might encounter, but musicians will find much of interest here as well; the authors write with a friendly camaraderie that will make artists feel like Nebgen and Akbar want them to succeed. (“Anytime you hear a song played, you should hear a cha-ching.”) The text may present some challenges for lay readers, however, since the insights, edifying historical background, and lively narrative voice can feel overshadowed by the thorough analyses and explanations of each legal issue and technicality.
This essential legal guide for musicians may prove too dense for readers looking for a basic introduction.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9798242611443
Page Count: 490
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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