Who we are and why we do what we do.
fuse.space is a team of creators based in Hamburg building a music collaboration tool that ensures your intellectual property is secured before you send it out into the world. Our mission was born out of our own painful experiences of finding out our songs had been stolen and not being able to prove our creation (read the story of our founder Alex’s).
However, our approach is different to most security startups: We’re not creating a company to build up walls around your IP. On the contrary, we are tearing down walls and allowing you to share your music more freely, by using technology that ensures your ownership is clearly and immutably documented. That way you will always be able to prove what you sent and who you sent it to.
Before we dive into who we do this, it might be a good idea to shed some light on the sometimes misunderstood concept of (musical) IP. We’ll make it fast – we promise.
Intellectual Property Rights in Music
Quick disclaimer: IP rights can differ depending on which jurisdictional area you are based in. In general the fundamental parts, however, are the same. Having said that, please not that we are not giving legal advice here and you should always speak to a legally trained professional if you need advice on a specific matter.
Alright, so let’s talk about Intellectual Property!
First of all, you do not need anything to get IP rights – you just need to create something original and have some kind of physical form of displaying it. What you create needs to have a certain maturity, eg. only a chord-progression is most likely not enough to secure it as IP – and for good reason. Imagine somebody being able to copyright a classic C-G-Am-F chord progression. Pop-Music would be dead. To have something unique, most of the time we will need melody & rhythm.
Now, as a creator, you are granted the basic copyright for such a creation in the second you create and capture it. The capturing part is important, otherwise it isn’t really possible to reference what it is that you’ve created. You can write it down, record it,…. and: Well done, you’ve created IP. But how do you defend it?
Many copyright lawsuits revolve around likeness, like Robin Thickle v Marvin Gaye, or Ed Sheeran v Marvin Gaye… (probably wise not to go near Marvin’s songs anytime soon..).
However, sometimes it’s also just plain theft (= unlicensed usage).
Take the song “every breath you take” for example. Sting holds all copyrights related to the iconic guitar-riff (even though, apparently, Sting himself didn’t come up with it (link)). So when P.Diddy (Puff Daddy) used it in his song “I’ll be missing you” without permission, Sting decided to sue, and got justice.
In this case it was simple, as Sting had already released the song “Every Breath you take” and it was common knowledge that he was the rightsholder. But imagine Sting would have been a still unknown bedroom producer somewhere and had sent out the demo of the guitar-riff and Song to a Diddy’s label, where P.Diddy then got hold of it.
How would Sting have been able to prove the idea came from him?
How IP rights are contested and defended
Legally speaking (but don’t quote me on this, as said: I’m not a lawyer. Always use a legal expert to take care of you IP related matters!), such an IP law-suit would be looked at from 2 perspectives:
- Who owned this first? As legally the person who can prove the earlier ownership is considered to be the creator / origin.
- Did the other person have access to this creation?
Hence, in order to get right, Sting would have to prove 2 things:
- A reliable source that places the song in his possession at an earlier time that Diddy.
- Proof of Diddy having access to the creation.
How to secure your IP in 2024
Sting wrote the song in 1982 and his means of documenting and proving ownership were probably more limited than the possibilities today. In this article we’ll cut right to the chase and show you how fuse.space is the (probably) best, fastest and cheapest way of securing IP in 2024.
fuse.space is built to enable trustless collaboration, meaning your IP is always protected, even if you send it to a complete stranger. You don’t need to know and trust the other person – we’ve got you covered.
We do this by employing blockchain technology in the background of our collaboration spaces (fuse.spaces), so that each file you upload or send gets a unique certificate, documenting what and when you sent it. The best thing is: You will always have this, even if fuse.space at some point in time no longer exists.
With this certificate you are able to prove what you sent,when and to how you sent it (or uploaded it), giving you definitive proof of ownership and making sure you never miss out on your songs’ value, should they ever be stolen or copied.
The best thing: It’s still free.
At the moment, fuse.space is still available as a free version for both mac and windows or through your browser. All you need to do is sign-up here and you get immediate access to a blockchain backed file-sharing service that acts as a safe-guard for your music IP.
So why not sign-up today and start collaborating, without the threat of losing something you worked hard for!